The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-02-16
Uintah Reservntion.

The Uintah reservation is the richest
piec of country in natural resources of
any part of Utah, but those resources
must lie dormant because intelligent white
people are not allowed to go there and
develop them. The government reserves
that rich country for handful of SaVageS
to roam over-a kind of sporting ground
or park-such as lords have in Europe
The present policy of the government
in dealing with these Indians is not only
ruinouS TO the Indians. The Indians are
fed and clothed in the most expensive
manner possible, and garrison Of troops
is stationed there to prevent hostilities
among them and to keep them upon the
reserve.
An attempt has been made to civilize
these SavageS but it has been Wretched
failure so far. This civilizing began when
the Indians were first put upon the reser-
walton a quarter of a century ago. Dur
ing all that time they have been supplied
with farming implements and seeds, and
today one good farmer would raise more
grain than the whole tribe are doing. In
fact, they are retrograding instead of
advancing. From appearances they do
not raise half the grain today that they
did ten or twelve years ago. Their stock
are decreasing yearly. Indians who
owned large herds of cattle ten years ago
are today bankrupt, so far as stock is
concerned. Wan Rodes owned between
200 and 400 head of stock ten years ago,
hut he does not own hoof today What
other Indians.
The government has established schools
among them but they are a failure so far
as education is concerned. There is a
fine brick school house at the Uintah
agency and it is supplied with a commod-
ious boarding house. Everything in and
about the place is kept clean and neat.
The scholars are kept clean and tidy and
if they do not wash and comb themselves
the natrons do it for them. Their beds
are made, their clothes washed and their
food cooked and set before them In
short, they are treated like lords or kings.
but educating them is like pouring water
on a goose's back, 1t soon runs Off In
dams are natural artists and soon &C
ouire the art of writing but let them have
short vacation and they must learn it
all over again. In reading 1t is different.
They cannot learn to read. The main
reason for this, we think. is because read
ing is unpopular with their people. The
teachers are frst-class and are working
hard but it is labor in vain. AS soon
as they are out of the school influences
they return to their wild habits
Experience right here in Utah has
taught us that the present policy of the
government is wrong. Down in Willard
county, there is a small band of these
same Indians engaged in farming. They
concluded that rather than be herded
upon reservation and fed, although they
could live in idleness there, they would
have their freedom and liberty to
go where they choose. They left The res
ervation and with it government support,
and started out to rustic for themselves
They took up farms and learned to till
the soil and today they make their own
living, and are becoming honorable and
respectable citizens. The Skull Valley
Indians are doing the same thing Where
ever there is an Indian who has broken
away from the reservation and is shift
ing for himself, there is a great change in
him for the better, while the petted reser-
walton Indians are retrograding in civili-
Zation.
At present portions of the reserya-
/ ton are leased for pasturage and in that
way a paultry sum of a few hundred
dollars Yearly is realized, but if the In
dians were given land in severalty, enough
to make a good farm for each and his
children after him, and the rest of the
reservation restored to the public domain
it would sell for enough that the interest
upon it would be more than the rental.
Again the revenue to the government
from the improvements put upon the
land by the settlers would soon be an
enormous sum-enough to keep every In
dian of the reservation at the finest hotel
in the land, and dress them in silks and
velVets. Hundreds of farmers would build
homes in the valleys, hundreds OF miners
would find employment in developing the
mineral wealth OF the mountains and
merchants and artisans of all kinds
would come in for a share of the newly
released wealth. Factories would be
built. railroads esta blished. schools and
churches would spring into existence and
civilization would take the place of the
wild and desolate condition of today. In
this way the savage would become civili-
zed, he would learn how to read and farm
and labor. He would partake of our
civilization and rise in intellectually by
mingling with the superior race. People
learn more from observation and asSocia-
ton than in any other way.-Wasatch
Wave.