Akron daily Democrat. [volume] (Akron, Ohio) 1892-1902, 1899-12-26
AN INDIANS LETTER.
Indian Commissioner Jones' Predic-
tion Tint the Race Will
Soon Ne Extinct.

The Great White Fathers palefaco
buck, William A. Jones, who lives in
Washington, and is called by tho
whites, Indian commissioner, sends
word to the White Father that in the
next 25 years there won't be red
man in existence. 1t will be the fault
of the white man IL Paleface Jones'
guess comes true. But the palefaces,
long before Mr.. Jones, said the samo
thing. My grandfather, who was a
Wyandotte, returned to wigwams OF
his tribe many moons ago and told
the bucks and braves to prepare for
the Happy Hunting Grounds. He had
been for q visit to the palefaces in
Now England, and he'd heard one OF
them named Sprague, OF Rhode Is
land, say that the red man was at
that time standing in the face of the
setting sun, and that his last war
whoop had been heard. My grand
father had been to Boston and they
fed him on beans, and when he went
back to the wigwams ho had lost his
nerve. He never went on the warpath
after that. He got up ghost dances
land had lodge OF sorrow, composed
of old broken-down squaws, and soon
after he rested from his pow-wows.
The young bucks kept on doing
business. Our tribe increased until
the Great Spirit counted us by the
number Of leaves that fell from the
branches in the Moon of Snowshocs.
Word came to us by the deer from
every tepee that other tribes were in
creasing. Then the pnlefaces came
among us and taught us their way
of many things, and made us to drink.
In spite of it oil we managed to make
trouble when they wanted our trails
and the places where we had Joined
iour voices with the thunder Of the
west wind in the worship Of the Great
Spirit.
When the ancestors of my paleface
brother, William A. Jones, had laid
out reservations for our people, and
herdcd us as we herded the game OF
the forests, we still loved one another,
and we gathered about our shacks in
the long winter days afraid to go out
after dark on account Of the warriors
which our White Father had sent to
watch us. Then our ancestors, Oh,
Jones, gave us the white mans Bible
and told us that we must be born
again. They put new song in our
mouths, and told us about a Great
Spirit of whom neither the West
Wind, nor the Moon of Bright Nights,
nor Leaves, nor Strawberries, nor OF
IN IL L
They buried our departed out of our
sight, and when our squaws and pap
pooscs moaned for red squirrel, and
wild rice, and grouse, and bison and
venison, they were fed upon the oxen
slain at the beef issue, oxen that the
white man had worked and turned out
to die.
And you built schoolhouses and
taught our children a new language.
They come back to us with new words
in their mouths, and new names,
sometimes, so that when we talked to
them as we did when they were being
lulled to sleep in the wigwams, they
looked at us and shook their heads.
And then you taught our squaws to
stay in the tepec all day, and our
braves and bucks had to quit the hunt
and plant maize.
One day palefnce came to our
tepee with thing called bicycle,
and you tried to teach, us to sell you
our ponies for that. You taught our
boys the game OF football. And
now you come and tell us we arg
dying, and that in e5 years we
only be known by the names which
You have taken from US, and for
which you call lakes, and rivers, and
the trails Of your towns and cities.
hope my paleface brother Jones
Ia wrong in his guess. Let us alone.
Let us 60 back to the track Of the
bison, and in the depths Of forests
which have not yet been broken, and
let us find the great Great Spirit OF
our Fathers. And so shall we again
outnumber the leaves of the branches,
and somebody will come to our call,
when we get strong, and we will fight
your battles for you, and DO worthy
of you, and OF the White Father, and
Of our people, and their traditions
Wichita Jim in NJ " Sun