The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1890-09-05
ABOUT THE INDIANS.
General Heth Talks of West
Washington Tribes.
ADVANCED IN CIVILIZATION
The Race IL Steadily Dying Out From
Consumption and Scrofula and
Will Pass Away.

General Henry Heth. special agent of
the census bureau to supervise the census
on the Indian reservations in this state. is
stopping at the Snoqualmie hotel. He has
been in the state nearly month, having
left Washington City on the I'd of August,
and he will not return till the work is
finally completed, in about two months.
1--WE suppose. said General Heth yester-
day, that there are between 10000 and
$4,000 Indians in the United States,
though the last census was failure so
far as they are concerned. According to
that count we had only 10000 Indians,
number which is ridiculously low. This
year we are anxious to get exact figures,
and so / am here to see that the census on
the reservations is thoroughly taken.
THE Indians who are not on the reserva-
tons are taken by the regular enum-
orators, and it is fact, of course, that
great many Indians are working in saw
mills, lumber camps and elsewhere
throughout the state. My business is to
look after the reservation census. which is
taken by the reservation agents."
General Heth then showed the reporter
set of the blanks which are to be filled
out. 1t contains good deal of matter not
in the regular census schedules. Questions
are asked about the education and moral
conditions of the Indians, their relations
with the whites and feelings toward them,
their property, their means of support,
personal habits, disposition, physical con-
dition, success in various pursuits, style of
dress, etc. From the information in these
schedules it is hoped to obtain data for
more thorough and exhaustive study of
the Indian question than has yet been
made.
In answer to various questions General
Heth said he had already visited
Nesqually, Skokomish. Puyaliup, Che
halls and Squakson reservations and
this morning he goes TO the Tulalip
reservation. AS result of his
observations on these reservations General
Heth said he believed the Indians of West
ern Washington to be superior in civiliza-
ton TO those of Oregon, of Montana. or of
the plains. They we're further advanced.
1t is true that they are naturally smaller
For generations the Coast tribes have been
q fish eating race, and men who live on
fish do not develop so well as those who
eat meat.
General Heth's opinion is that within a
cease to exist in this state. In the first
place they are weak physically and on that
account are unable to hold their own.
Nine out of every ten of them, or perhaps
nineteen out of every twenty have a syph-
little faint in their blood, received from the
first whites who came here. The infection
spread among them very rapidly for they
had no medicines for checking its progress,
- al
against it. Although the disease is not
now so common in its primary form, still
its secondary and tertiary effects in
scrofula and consumption are visible in
nearly every Indian both in and off of the
reservations. In consequence the race is
steadily dying out from these diseases, and
in time which can be measured, not so
much by decades as by years, the Indian
will cease to exist in this part of the stata.
Still another cause is at work. At
present the Indians are held together by
the fact that they cannot sell their lands
which are contiguous on the reservations.
According to law the reservations can be
broken up and the Indians given the
power to sell their lands, when congress
shall pass an act and the legislature of the
state approve. Sooner or later such a step
will be taken, the reservations VIII 60 to
pieces, the Indians will become citizens,
and their property pass into the hands of
the whites. On the Puyallup reservation.
for example, are q lot of Indians.worIh
from $751; 900 to $1,000 each. Their
property is unusually valuable because it
is adjacent to the city. At present about
one-feurth of the Indians are of mixed
blood, but marriages with them are
checked because of the inability of the In
dams to dispose of their land. As soon as
the law is passed that is referred to above,
the covetous whites will begin to marry the
squaws with rich fathers. and the whole
race will be absorbed into the general
population.
The Squakson Indians for example are
isolated down on their island, and so
may hold out for a generation or two
longer. Bat they too will in time go the
way of all the rest