Devils Lake inter-ocean. (Devils Lake, Ramsey Co., Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1905, 1903-01-02
FORT TOTEM.
Some More Talk of The Reservation Being
Thrown Open to Settlement.

jamestown Alert: There is a re-
newed prospect that the Ft. Totten
Indian reservation at least will be
opened to settlement next year and
hundreds Of people r remaining near
the reservation, expecting to get a
slice of the land. One of the we'll
posted mex about the conditions on
the reservation, J. M. Reynolds, who
runs a livery barn at Oberon, the
nearest town on the J. & N. line to
the reservation, says that the Indians
have done little good farming on the
lands they have had allotted to them,
and that the best cultivation is poor
enough. MI. Reynolds says: 81
have driven all over the reservation
this summer and there is a lot Of good
land on it. 1t is rolling but has good
water and fine soil. Many Of the
lakes have gravelly bottoms.
"An Indian is an Indian, and you
can't make anything else out of him;
he is not a farmer and never will be,
and it is a waste of government
charity to try to make him one. He
can tend to cattle and stock, stock
seems to be his natural occupation.
Since we have taken the buffalo away
from him we ought to give him a
chance to occupy himself in the near
est way he can to his old life. I
believe if the Indians were taken from
the good land which they never will
cultivate like the whites, and the
land turned e. to the white settlers
both the Indians and the whites would
be better off.
"Some locality where it is not neces-
sary to raise winter feed for stock, a
country where the cattle can rustic is
better adapted for the occupation Of
the Indian. The old men will not
learn, and the Indian transmits his
strong instincts SO closely to his off
spring that it takes a long time tc
breed a different kind of man. You
can't make a farmer out of a hunter
in one generation, and land in this
state is getting too valuable to waste
time in the experiment. The white
settler who would stop in numbers il
the states of Minnesota and the Da
kotas if they could get good land cheal
from the government are going ove'
the line into Canada to get no bette:
land than Indians hold and do moth
ing with but ride over it, and smok'
and sell a little hay. The half breed
are little better than the full bloods il
the desire to work and accumulate
and do not care to own land like tn
white settler. The half breed is
little more crafty and that is all. H
does not care to work in much NOR
3 than the full blood. In spite of al
the education, of the money that ha
been expended on them, the savag
8 customs Of the old red men still pre-
: walls, and Indians on the r%eservatlo,
will still kill fat puppies and dig u
: dead c%arcasses of horses and eat them
! "The reservation is a strip of Ian
thirty miles long and twelve mile
' wide and should be thrown open t
the white farmers of this countr
f without further delay, I understan
a that Senator H%ansbrough was oppose
to it but have since heard that h
Q was in favor of the opening. I hea
1 that there is a move on foot to com
Q bine all the members of congress fror
! Minnesota and the two Dakotas t
open all the reservations in thes
7, states. It is high time it was don
s and will give the chance for many
9 poor white man, willing to work, t
help develop the country, and to ge
9 a farm for himself"