The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-01-31
MISS NELLIE TWO BEARS
An Attempt to Civilize an Indian
Princess.
SHE SUFFERED A RELAPSE
Eleven Years in a Convent Were Not
Sufficient to Keep Her From Becom-
ing as Savage as the Tribe to
Which She Returned.

| A special correspondent of the New
| York Sun at st. Paul, Mimi, says: A
man who has had wide experience in
| trying to make the Indian civilized by
| education, and who is not hostile en-
! tirely to the ideas inculcated at Car
| Isle and Hampton, has this to say
about the fate of the youth who forget
their teachings and become savages
again:
1T is our belief that the educated
| youths should not be sent back to their
| white mems ways, because they fail
| utterly and always in so doing. We are
of the opinion that the boys and girls
of Indian blood should have homes
found for them in the Eastern and
| Middle states, where in course of a
few generations, they would be absorb
ed If separate allotments of lands to
the Indians generally is good thing,
segregation of the individual and re-
moval from nomadic life altogether
would be better.
When asked to give reasons for
these beliefs, we point to the Apache
Kid, to the history of scores of pupils
from famous schools, to the conduct of
graduates during the ghost dances and
at Wounded Knee, to the revertal to
barbariSm of hundreds of women Who
had special educational and domestic
advantages by the schools. to the mis-
cry of intermarriages between educat-
ed Indians and whites, and to the lack
of evidence to the working of the al
legged leaven of education in leaVening
the lump of aboriginal ignorance, inhu
manity and unthrift
"One instance of a complete return
to aboriginal manners, mode of thought
and disgrace of living which came with
in my knowledge may serve to point a
moral. When seven years old, Nellie
Mat-nopah (Two Bears) daughter of
the principal and hereditary chief of
the great Sioux tribe, known as the
Lower Yanktonais, was sent, her faith
er concurring, to Catholic school in
ST. Joseph, Mo. She was a bright girl,
with other claims than birth to the title
of princess, and rapidly acquired a
good knowledge, not only of English,
but of French, while in needlework and
housewifely gifts she displayed an apti-
tude that cheered the hearts of the gen.
tie sisters, her teachers. and led them
to hope that, arrived at woman's es-
tate, Nellie would well repay their care
and toll by the influence she would eX-
ert among her people.
when she reached the age of is, and
after more than II years in the convent
and among the whites (for she was not
allowed, for reasons that seemed good,
to visit her people during her educa-
tion) Nellie was told that the time had
come for her to repay the sisters and
priests she loved for all they had done
for her behalf and that thereafter she
must live with her own kindred and
seek by example and precept to Wean
them from their savagery to proper
wept bitterly, pleaded hard to be allow
ed to stay in the convent as a teacher,
pointed out how distasteful the coarse
life of the tepee would be to one who
knew so well the amenities of life, and
urged, further. that from what she
knew of her tribe she would not be well
come should she try to induce them to
adopt the customs of the whites. But
her teachers were firm, and properly so,
since it had been a condition precedent
with her father-an enlightened chief,
so far as his environment would per-
mit-when he permitted her to go to
St. Joseph that when she had complet-
ed her course of instruction she would
return to him and to his life.
so. with many tears, she left, her
school and after a long boat journey
up the Missouri, during which she was
made much of by several wives Of
officers who were on the way to Fort
Yates, she arrived at the agency, within
three miles of which her father and her
tribe were encamped. She went at
once to the house of Mrs Galpin, an
Indian woman of much influence
among the Sioux and with several we'll
educated. half-breed daughters. The
day after her arrival she wrote the In
dian agent a dainty note. in admirable
French, asking permission to remain at
Mrs. Galpin's. The request was re-
ferred to Bishop Marty, who would not
acquiesce, but said Nellie must go to
her father with all speed, as the old
man was sick and needed her attend
| ance.
1.-The homecoming was a terrible
trial to the girl, and all the whites
about the agency and the fort who
knew of the case pttied her deeply.
When she entered her fathers tepee
she found the old chief moribund
Around him were medicine men. one Of
whom was stuffing into the diving mans
| mouth a nauseous compound of herbs.
which the suffer had previously chew
ed into ball. The girl was coldly well
coined and almost insulted when she
| insisted that the medicine men should
leave and the agency doctor be sum-
moned. She carried her point after an
appeal to the agent. and tendery
nursed her father through his few re-
naming hours of life.
| For a fortnight Nellie came to the
agency daily, riding on an Indian pony
in civilized feminine fashion. Then her
visits became fewer. and then some in
| sisted-but were not believed-that she
| had DOTTED some Of her civilized attire
and rode astrde. Then we missed her
| altogether, and visitors to her tepee
| We're met with the Indian equivalent Ct
| Not at home.
Six weeks after Nellie's arrival at
| Standing Rock there was one of the
| fortnightly beef killings in the big cor
| raj across the river. These killings in
| those days were scenes of brutality and
| blood such as no white man would wit
ness unless duty called him thither.
Extended description would serve no
good end The imagination can picture
what corral would be wherein six
score or more big beasts had been shot
to death and were being dismembered
by red men and women reused to a
nigh pitch of excitement. Those of us
who We're in charge of the killing were
| amazed to see Nellie TwO-Rears in the