The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1890-08-14
TANNING TIE INDIANS.
General Heth Talks on the
Governments Great Task.
AMALGAMATloN WILL RESULT.
Collecting Statistics Of Washington Indi-
ans-The Man Who Began the
Gettysburg Carnage.

General II. Heth, special agent of the
census bureau. arrived in the city last
evening and is at the Snoqualmie. He is
engaged in collecting census statistics of
the Indians of Washington, the popula-
ton having Been enumerated by the
agents on each reservation. He has taken
the statistics IN regard to the Nez Perez
Indians and leaves this morning for the
Puvallup reservation. He will then pro-
coed to the other reservations in Western
Washington and afterwards go to the
agencies in Eastern Washington. He was
asked by OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES reporter
last evening whether he expected to find
decrease in the Indian population and re-
piled:
~ suppose there will be decrease and
that the Indians will decrease in number
until they have become adapted to civil
lied life. have been in the army for forty
years and have been in many Indian wars
and now am engaged in the work of civil
izing them. A great change has occurred
in our relations to them in my time; for
merly We had to protect the whites against
the Indians; now we protect the Indians
against the encroachments of the whites"
do you expect that the Indians will
finally die out, or will a remnant of them
settle down to civilized life? 2"
Until they have become civilized they
will decrease in numbers, but | think the
remnant of them will become civilized,
amalgamate with the whites by miscegena-
ton and finally be lost in the mass of the
population. It will take a long time to
civiiize them and accustom them to regular
pursuits. We are in too great hurry; we
cannot in few years bring them up to q
standard of civilization which it has taken
the Anglo-Saxon race 1000 years to reach.
Man is only the highest animal, and finer
breeds of men are only produced by the
same means as we produce finer breeds of
animals. Take the dog, for instance: all dogs
come from the wolf tribe, and it has only
been by breeding them in and In for
twenty or thirty generations that we have
produced the various breeds of domesti-
Gated dogs. The Indian on his reservation
is like wild animal put in cage. Accus-
toned to live by hunting and fishing,
roaming over wide expanse of country,
and compelling his squaw to do what little
cultivation of the soil was done, he regards
work as degrading and cannot easily recon-
cile himself to the change in the mode of
life confined to the narrow limits of a res
ervation. If we were required to change
to his mode of life we should find
it just as difficult. Imagine the
average white man being told to
go out into the woods, live by
hunting and fishing, live in a tent and
make clothes from the skins of animals he
caught, while his wife. accustomed to lux
dry. living in comfortable house and do
ing no hard work, was compelled to work
in the fields, travelling from place to place.
We should die by thousands. 1t will take
a long time to bring about the change in
the Indians"
''Were you in the war, general?"
Yes, sir. commanded a Confederate
division at Gettysburg, and there is the
watch by which l gave the order which
opened that battle" showing an old watch
with solid gold case. THAT battle
proved that we Americans are the equals of
any nation in the world in fighting. One
brigade in my division lost 9, 700 men in
that battle, and one company in a North
Carolina regiment which went in with sew
enty-three men, lost all but three in killed
and wounded on the first day, and those
remaining three were killed on the third
day. was with Lee at Charlottesville
and at the surrender at Appomattox.
II was at West Point with Burnside for
four years and was his room mate there. A
dear fellow he was and would have voted
for him if he had ever run for president.
But, strange as it may seem, have never
voted and never seen any voting cone. I
was always in the army at some out
of-the-way station or in the Indian office.
whore did not come in the way of active
politics. suppose. if did vote, l should
vote the Democratic ticket, for all my peo-
pie in Virginia are Democrats, and I would
not vote anywhere but in my native state
of Virginia"
General Heth is man with rich store
of Renaissance, and is a fine specimen of
the Southern gentleman of the old DAYS.
The Omaha council and city officials did
not return from Victoria yesterday, as ex.
pected. but will be in the city again today,
and will make tour of the city under the
guidance of Mayor White.
The Alaska excursion party which came
in on the steamer City of Topeka leaves
for the East on Thursday Inorrsxg andssill
be replaced by new party which .sill
leave on the Queen. 49,