Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1910-01-19
SIOUX GIVE LAST
Of THEIR LANDS
INSPECTOR MEETS VETERANS OF
TRIBE IN FINAL
COUNCIL.
POOR REDS HAVE NO MORE
RIGHTS THAN A MINOR
CHILD.

/
| Mclaughlin is holding what will prob
| ably be the last council the govern
ment will ever have with the Sioux
Indians. His mission is to inform
THE Indians that bill has been in
troduced in congress to take away
from them the last of their domain,
except the portion which they hold as
individual allotments.
Prior to the Lone Wolf decision of
the supreme court of the United
States, in 1903, it was supposed that
THE Idians nau an lnalienable right
ito their lands, which had been
granted to them by treaty. The
court found, however, that Indians
held the position of minor child
among the whites, and that congress
could dispose of their surplus lands
as it saw fit, without consulting the
Indians in any way.
Congress has not been slow to take
advantage of the ruling, and in the
short space of six years has practi.
cally opened the entire Sioux Indian
country west OF the Missouri river.
1t is pathetic sight, this last
meeting of the veteran inspector and
his Indian wards. The Indian knows
nothing about the white mans courts.
He knows that the white man for
many years has been crowding him
closer and closer to the wall, and now
the end has come.
The Indian will not get out and hus-
tie. He will starye in a dignifed
way, being now utterly subdued, but
he will not pillow and SOW and reap.
1t is doubtless part of the Indians
constitutional obstinacy that he pre-
fers to ride horseback, herd cattle
and endure the hardship if cowboy
| life.
The lands where the cattle are
roaming in their tens of thousands,
where the last of the antelope are,
where the streams are teeming with
| beaver, and where no white man
can go without the governments per-
mission, are to be given to the home
steader.
| 1t is doubtless for the good of the
greatest number that the last of the
great Sioux reservations should be
/ thrown open to settlement, but there
are many who will regret the passing
of the range. One probable result will
be still further rise in the price Of
beef, or it is on the Cheyenne and
Standing Rock reservations that the
largest cattle ranches in the United
States are The settler and home
steader are not stock raisers, as
rule; they confine their attentions
to grain raising.
The eastern boundary of the lands
to be opened is the Missouri river,
from the mouth of the Cannon Ball
river in North Dakota to the mouth
of the Cheyenne river in South Da-
kota, distance of about $50 miles.
The western boundary is Irregular,
varying from forty to eighty miles
west of the Missouri river.
The country is a magnificent one,
selected by the Sioux for their per
manent home fifty years ago Out
side of the Black Hills, htere is no
better timbered country in South Da-
kota, and nowhere in the two states
is there so well watered a region.
The Stnading Rock portion is fairly
gridironed with railroads, there being
seven branches of railroad already
built and building, with other pro-
jected. Wakpala, Mclaughlin, Fort
Yates and Cheyenne River are the
only towns in the entire tract
There are 5000 Indians on the
Standing Rock and Cheyenne reserva-
tons. The fullbloods are decreasing
at the rate of about eighty per year;
the mixed bloods are increasing.
To the old people the opening of
their lands is a tragedy they can
hardly bring themselves to realize,
Many of the young people are rather
rplaa cod than afharwico