The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-02-06
RED MANS FUTURE
An Interview with Indian Com
missioner Morgan.
THE REDS HAVE NOT HAD A SHOW
They are Developing the Arts of Peace with
Some Degree Of Success-Progress
Made Recently.

Mdet hcCcHlly.
WASHINGTON, Jan. Ills there hope
for the American indiana" This was the
question which put to Indian Commits
sioner Morgan. "Yes, there isl was his
reply. II am glad you have asked me this
question. Readers of the reports of Indian
troubles in the daily papers have no doubt
concluded that the Indian is without ex-
ception wretched, lazy, malicious Great
ure, supported entirely by the government
and making no progress whatever IN civil
cation. But the facts are that we are gaining
ground every year. Elevating the Indian is
OF necessity slow process, and we must
have patience. You cannot change the char
acter and customs of a people in a single
generation. The Indian is without much
Sdaptability. Evolution works at snail's
oace with him. The work of civilizing
him, Of teaching him to be self sustaining
and moral, is attended with a thousand
difficulties. Our Indian population. which
is estimated at about go, 600, and almost
stationary in point of numbers, is widely
scattered. The Indian reservations com
prise 1S1 900 square miles, an expanse of
territory almost as great as that in the
German empire. A great obstacle is found
in the strange languages still used by most
of the tribes
"Our system of dealing with them,
while perhaps the best that could be de-
vised for present purposes, is vicious. We
set up over them agents to whom are
given semi-despotic power, and pay the
agents such small salaries that it is almost
impossible to get good men. Thousands
of Indians are kept on their reservations
practically prisoners. The issue Of rations
and annuities tends to produce pauperism.
We disburse each year millions of dollars
worth of supplies by contract, and many
frauds exist, notwithstanding all vigil
snce, the Indian invariably getting the
worst Of it. The most serious difficulty of
all is found, not in the Indians and their
conditions, but in the white people with
whom they are thrown in contact. On
the frontiers the Indian is generally hated
and despised He is looked upon as a fair
prey by every trader, adventurer scala
wag The white people who hang on the
borders of the reservations, those who
have allied themselves by marriage with
the tribes. and even those who have been
from time to time in government employ.
have in many cases presented to the In
oians type Of character and practical
philosophy of life on par with, if not in
ferior to, their own. Added to all this is
the natural conservatism of the Indian.
Like all semi-barbaric peoples, he clines
teneciously to old customs and notions.
and it is very hard indeed to make him see
new lights.
Notwithstanding all these difficulties
we are making Roadway. The outlook is
encouraging. There is some hope for the
American Indian. The best thing in the
present situation is the settled policy of
the government to break up tribal rela-
tions, and to induce the Indians to settle
upon their own bomesteads, to incorpo-
rate them into the national life, and to
deal with them as individuals and not as
tribes or bands. At almost all the agen-
cies where the lands have been divided for
this purpose, the Indians are taking their
allotments and making for themselves
crude homes and farms. Some people ap-
pear to imagine that the Indian does no
farming at all, and such win be surprised
TO learn the truth. No one should ex-
pect rapid progress in this direction. In
dams who have lived to be 40 years old,
say, without performing any manual labor,
DO not offer promising material for the
making of energetic, thrifty farmers On
the other hand, many are too young to
realize the necessity of working for them
selves, and their inherited tendency is
toward the hunt.
Last summer we had about 10000 In
dams under instruction in farming at the
various agencies. Forty-six thousand
acres were plowed. and at nearly all the
agencies the need of a greater supply of
l., 4
indicates that farming is on the increase.
Here and there the Indians try to make
the soil productive under circumstances
which would discourage even white
man. For instance, on the Colorado river,
where the country is arid and agriculture
without irrigation almost impossible, the
Indians select patches for themselves on
the low lands, and dig holes in the ground
from ten to twenty inches apart and from
eight to fifteen inches deep, and therein
plant the wheat or corn. Then they irri-
gate the growing crop by carrying water
in vessels from the river and pouring it into
the holes. In this way they actually Guilt
waite three or four hundred acres, and raise
quite crop every year.
''At Cheyenne river the Indians have
tried very hard to raise good crops, but the
OTOuRnU udS DeSD dStifIlSt Jlem. lleY Cul-
tivated about 2, 500 acres, but did not get
much to show for their labor These In
dams have almost without exception built
themselves log houses, and the majority of
them have stables. As rule the Indians
are easily discouraged 1t is new business
for them, and they quickly lose heart if
bad luck attends their efforts. To show
that even an Indian will sometimes persist
In we'll doing 1 cite the case of the Mandans
and Gros Ventres of Dakota, right up there
In the region where the troubles now exist.
These Indians tried farming for three
years with poor success on account of
drought, but each year they broke new land
with the plow, and the following spring
tried it again. Finally they made a very
fair crop, raising Loco bushels of corn, 5000
bushels of potatoes, 500 bushels of beans.
etc. Their wheat crop did not turn out
well About !, 700 acres are under cultiva-
ton at this agency. At Pine Ridgeaeency,
the seat-of the war, the Indians raised in
1859 nearly g, 200 bushels of wheat, corn.
potatoes and other crops. At Rosebud
fairly good progress has been made, not
withstanding the scarcity of proper tools
and implements for farming operations
For 800 farmers, scattered over an area of
so by LBS miles, the government supplied
TWENTY-FIVE cultiyators and forty blows
and expected the farmers to support them
selves.