Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-09-20

I
amount yearly, The Cherokees have re
ceived S145, 900 year. This is divided III
per capita, and the man who has dozei
children gets ten portions more than tn,
man who has two. + travelled to Tahleuual
with a little boy and his Cherokee mother
and the woman told me she was going t,
the capital of the nation to get her Govern
ment money. The Creeks get about $3.50,
900 per annum, and they pay S5O, 900 of thi
for keeping up their schools. They are
now putting up three colleges and they
have good educational system.
RICHEST IN THE WORLD.
The Osages are the richest of all the In
dians They are just west of the Cherokees
and they receive $3.50, 900 a year from
! Washington. Each man, woman and child
| tn,the tribe gets somewhere between $3.50 and
$500 year, and these people are compare
lively the richest people in the world. The
Government owes them more than S7,000,-
900, and there are only about /, 500 of them
living. Besides this they have reserya-
tion which gives them about 1000 acres of
land apiece, and if they worked they
might become Cresuses. They do not
labor, however, and they are said to be fast
dying out.
By all odds the worst men in tn Indian
Territory are the white men. There are
ten drunken cowboys, horse thieves and
| jailbirds to every one decent man among e
| them, and this little town of Tahlequah,
with Its Indian population, has infinitely
better order than the towns along the rail-
road, where the whites have been permitted
| to do business. The hotel here Is good and
l have not seen a bit of disorder or any
drunkenness during my stay here. 1t is
against the law to sell liquor in the Terri
tory, and that which is brought here is
smuggled in by the whites
HOW THE WHITES ACT.
There was big celebration at Fort Smith
the other day, and the railroads going
through the Territory gave excursion rates.
The cowboys along the line attended, and
happened to be travelling in one Of the trains
by which they returned. I have never seen
a more drunken, disreputable and disorderly
crowd The men were wild with liquor,
and red-fsced cowboys with big hats on
their heads jumped up and down yelling
and growing like roosters and swearing
they could whip any blanked man in the
car.
One of the worst of these men was
deputy marshal, whose hair was like tow
and whose face was as red as beet He
came from Muscogee, and he is evidently q
good fellow when ne Is sober, but he is q
mean one when he is drunk. This man
staggered to and fro making letter of his
tracks which ran from one end of the car to
the other. Every now and then he would
clap his elbows to his side, hop up and
down, and crow like rooster. There were
others with him quite as bad, and there
were a couple of halt-breed Indian girls who
were drunk, and now and then you would
see man jerk revolver from his hip and
brandish it around, and at times there were
half dozen revolvers out, 1t was by no
means safe, and was glad when we finally
stopped at Wagner, where was to stay
over night. Here I stopped at a hotel
called the Valley House, Kept by drunken
landlord named Harris, and was given a
room just over the Office, where 1 could
hear Harris and the cowboys carousing far
into the morning.
NEGROES OF THE TERRITORY
There are many negroes still in the Indian
Territory and you find many of the Creeks
who have inter-married with the negroes,
The Choctsws have also many people Of
mixed Indian and negro blood and the
fore the war and had many slaves. These
Cherokees here are the proudest of all
these Indian tribes. They are the aristo-
Gratis of the Five Nations. They seldom
intermarry with the negro, and they have
separate schools for them. There are stores
here run by the Indians quite as good as
those of the white men in the towns along
the railroad, and I am surprised to see
what big stocks Of goods they carry and
what variety Of articles they use. The dry
goods stores contain all kinds of ladies'
dress goods, and these women here do not
oonfine themselves by any means to calico.
such as l have seen wear as good clothes
as you will find worn by the women of any
town of this size in the United States and
they dress in exactly the same way. Most of
the families of Tahlequah have sewing
machines, and nearly every house has
piano or organ. They use cooking stoves
and have exactly the same kind Of house.
hold furniture that you will find in an
American village. The men dress in the
same way and of the Cherokees only the
fewest cling to their old habits and there
are none L think but who wear citizens
clothes Some of the poorest Indians, and
these are generally full-blooded ones, live
in log cabins and these do nothing but fish
and cultivate little ground for their own
corn. These, understand, are chiefly in
the eastern part of the nation, where there
is some mountainous country.
THE WHITES ARE A NUISANCE.
As far as can learn the Indians would
get along better if the whites were kept en-
tirely out of the Territory. The most of |
these who come rob the Indians, and they |
are as rule shiftless, unscrupulous and bad |
citizens The Indians themselves know that |
they must be eventually swallowed up by |
the whites, and, though they viii not confess |
this, they say that if it does come the Gov
must pay the Indians for their
ands and allow each one a fee simple title
TO farm.
The Indian Territory has now only about
30, 900 Indians. Still, the country is much
bigger than New York and Massachusetts,,
md it is nearly the same size as Kansas. It
would support population of 5000, 900 OF
J, 100000, and it contains the best lands in
he United States. Thousands of settlers
ire watching it, and white men have settled
lere and there in it evading the law in some
way or other, that keeps them out, to be
eady to take advantage of the situation
Vhen the Territory is opened to settlement.
There are thousands of men who are watch
ng the Cherokee Strip, and when it is pull
hased it will be settled as quickly as was
oklahoma q few years ago.
FRANK G. CARPENTER.
oh, That Day Would Comel