SHELDON JACKSON,
General Agent of
Education for Alaska.

Q

Department of the Interior,
Bureau of Education,
ALASKA DIVISION,

Washington, D. C., February 12th, 1896.

Captain R. H. Pratt,

U. S. Indian School,

Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Dear Captain:

Much obliged for sending me a copy of Dr. Dixon's letter. I will write to Flora myself, and will also have Miss Pettee, of East Northfield, Mass., to write her. I must confess that my faith is very weak at being able to do anything with Flora. If some suitable lady can get hold of her, I think that she could keep her under her influence. I am very much disposed to write Dr. Dixon to give me the name of the pastor of the church where the woman sings, and perhaps write the woman herself. If there is any humanity in her I think that she would hesitate about ruining the girl. I do not see that we can do much for her but pray.

Dr. Harris says that one ticket will be sufficient for him. You may send me three tickets, one for myself, one for my daughter, and one for Mr. Hamilton. Mr. Hamilton is now at Bethlehem, but will probably be back the last of the week; I am not sure that he will feel that he can get away again so soon; if not, I will either

SHELTON JACKSON.
General Agent of
Education for Alaska.

Washington, D. C., November 18, 1949.

Captain R. H. Pratt,
Indian School,

Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Dear Captain:

Yours of the 16th is received. I do not remember the Reece family with sufficient distinctness to tell you how much Indian blood there is in the children. We had one of the boys at the Sitka school and my indistinct remembrance is that he is practically all Indian; i.e. there was not sufficient white blood in him to make an impression on my mind. Edward Marsden can of course tell you more fully about them; but I hope you will find things favorable so that you can take that whole group. Every suitable young person that you take from Metśakla is a great gain to humanity; those people should have a chance,--they are worthy of it. And now that it is evident that Mr. Duncan does not intend giving them a chance, those of us who know the situation are in duty bound to try and help them. If they had represented the case to me when I was there I would have myself paid their way down to Puget Sound and brought them with me. Mr. Gamble is one of our teachers at the Sitka training school; he sent me a copy of the Mining Record last spring.

Washington, D. C., November 27, 1949.

My dear Captain:

I do not think the article in the "Mining Record" is worth answering. The girl that was referred to at Juneau as having been one that attended Mr. Moody's school and had gone astray upon her return, I suppose is Minnie Shotter. Upon her return to Alaska she went to the home of her father, a white man, and remained in his home until she married a white man with whom, so far as I know, she has been living ever since. I have no knowledge personally that she has gone astray, and unless the man whom you met upon the ship designated her by name, I think that he is simply confounding her with somebody else. That class of men constantly make assertions which are untrue.

Congratulations on your foot-ball team, that none of them have been killed!

Washington, D. C.

February 19, 1903.

Col. Richard H. Pratt, U.S.A.,
Indian School,
Carlisle, Pa.

My dear Col. Pratt:

I am very sorry to notice in the public print that you have resigned the superintendency of the Indian School. I fear this is a great mistake. I recognize that the War Department treated you shabbily and unjustly in not promoting you and allowing you to retire as you proposed. But because you have been treated unjustly by the War Department is no reason why you should resign the superintendency of the School. You have the entire confidence, whether you recognize it or not, of the government and the friends of Indian education everywhere. If the government accepts your resignation, which I hope it will not, after a few weeks rest you would be of all men the most miserable, not knowing what to do with yourself. But as the head of the Indian School you can stay there as many years as you have strength for your responsibilities and every year will increase in geometrical proportion the value of the work you are doing in blazing a way for higher education and in the honor and respect which you will receive from the American public. A man who is as active as you have been when he is in old age gets out of a job is exceedingly miserable. I have no doubt you have heard the testimony of men that have been so situated and I trust that you will reconsider your decision concerning leaving the School. There is no place on earth where you can do so much for humanity

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and so much for your Master in the years that are left you as in your present position. If your resignation would punish those who are responsible for preventing your deserved promotion there might be some excuse for it, but it will not punish them a particle; it will only injure yourself and family. I beseech you therefore to reconsider your resignation if the government gives you a chance. Your friends here in Washington feel very strongly in the same line I have herein indicated, that it is for your interest as well as for the welfare of the public that you remain Superintendent at Carlisle as long as God gives you health and strength.

With kind regards to Mrs. Pratt, I remain

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

BUREAU OF EDUCATION,
ALASKA DIVISION,

Confidential

Washington, D. C., April 28, 1903.

Col. R. H. Pratt,
Indian School,
Carlisle, Pa.

Dear Colonel:

I enclose you an extract from the report of Rev. I. S. Rock, a Moravian Missionary in Alaska, which was written officially by him to his Society at Bethlehem, Pa. I have left out a passage which I did not think it wise to publish, but which I will be glad to show you some time when you are in Washington. Please do not let my name in any form or shape appear in connection with this paper. It was sent me by the treasurer of the Missionary Society at Bethlehem to give to the public, so that the Society have no hesitation in sending it out, but I do not want it known as passing through my hands, for reasons that you would appreciate.

Very truly yours,

Enclosure.

ADDITIONAL OUTRAGES IN ALASKA.

In the "Red Man and Helper" for March 6th, we published a
plea for the Indians of Alaska written by Mr. F. A. Golder, who was for
three years a teacher in the public school at Unga, and for the year
1902 an United States Commissioner at the same place. We have now re-
ceived a communication on the same subject from the region of Bristol
Bay in Bering Sea, in a report sent by the Rev. S. A. Rock, Missionary
of the Moravian Church at Nushagak, Alaska, addressed to his Society at
Bethlehem, Pa.

We have understood from others who have been in Alaska that
similar outrages against the native population are perpetrated in vari-
ous other sections of that country. Surely it is time that the author-
ities in Washington should insist on the appointment of competent, up-
right officials in that distant land.

Extract from a letter of the Rev. S. H. Rock, Moravian Missionary
to Carmel on the Nushagak River in Alaska, dated January 11th, 1903.

There was no court held at Nushagak at all last summer, and the
United States Commissioner, who is stationed here, is as good as a
thousand miles away, for he has done and does absolutely nothing.
The natives and whites have been worse since he is here than ever
before, Stealing, fighting, drinking, murdering and raping of native
women and children (girls of nine and ten years), all were done under
his very eyes, one might say, at least within a stone's throw of him,

and when a committee of citizens headed by myself waited on him, he simply said, he was helpless, and to a great degree he was, for even the man, who was his sworn deputy, drank Chinese "sam-shaw" (whiskey), until he fell over dead in the next room.

It makes one blush to be an American citizen here sometimes. I think, if I had been there just then, I would have taken the law into my hands and in the name of the United States Government would not have tried them before a committee of citizens. There were about a dozen respectable men at the cannery. I was told of these things only an hour or so after they had left for the ship.

There was a young man, a native, who had earlier in the Spring gotten drunk, and while in that condition had beaten another drunken man, a native, to death. This murderer was for a week or two chained to the floor of the Russian priest's schoolroom, but was released because no one would assume responsibility of his keep. When a U.S. Government Ship came, he was again arrested and put into irons, but when the officers came on board the steam launch, where he was in charge of several men, the handcuffs were removed, and the murderer was then and there set free, to show the natives and whites, what kind of justice can be expected at the hands of our Government representatives.

What effect such behaviours has on these people is sadly evident since then. The same native has been in our village and gotten drunk and into fights with men, and I have personally torn him by main force from his fellow.

Children have been struck with boards having projecting nails, so that they have died, Babies have been kicked to death, and still no nothing is done".

[1904 Jun 25]

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list similar to that of last year, where you tabulated the time of entrance, age, sex, scholarship, deportment, industry, grade, etc., also the summer Post Office address, of those who are out for the summer.

Thanking you in advance, I remain,

Very sincerely and truly yours,

U. S. General Agent of Education in Alaska.

Southampton, Long Island.

New York, August 7th., 1890.

Sir:

The Honourable A. S. Draper, Superintendent of Public Instruction for this State, to whom I wrote in reference to the subject matter of this letter, has referred me to you as "being better informed in this connection than probably any other man in America."

I hope therefore, that you will kindly allow me to ask you for information in regard to the practical American education of our Indians, and I venture to ask it for this reason: I find by the Senate debate on the Indian Appropriation bill (Congressional Record, 25 July, 1890, page 8340) that the Hon. Senator Vest, of Missouri, said, after referring to his experience as a member of the Committee on Indian Affairs "seven or eight years ago," that the Jesuits have succeeded better than any other

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persons in the education of these people, and he added, "I know
what I say to be true." The Hon. Senator Dawes, of Massachusetts,
on the other hand, said in the same debate (page 8353):

"For a hundred and twenty-five years the Mission Indians
have been under the education and influence of the Jesuits of the
Catholic Church. They are to-day as incapable, although indus-
trious and of good habits, of self-support as citizens of the
United States as babes. They are reliant more than ever upon
those from whom they received their instruction. They go in
their temporal matters as they do in their spiritual, where they
are advised to go by their superiors. They plant where they tell
them to plant, and they sow when they tell them to sow; and when
the Mexican Government secularized all of that Southern M¹ssion
band and took away the priests those poor Indians, with as good
personal habits as any white men in the country, were like a flock
of sheep without a shepherd." . .

Senator Vest had previously said as reported that the Indian
schools were each taught by "five fathers and five nuns"--a fact
which would seem perfectly to explain, were any explanation re-
quired, why the Indian pupils come from the Jesuit schools "as
incapable of support as citizens of the United States as babes."

I am desirious of procuring some authoritative testimony
to the actual effect of proper American education in American

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schools and by the "outing system" in developing manly character
and the practical usefulness of the Indians, fitting them for self-
support and the rights and duties of American citizens. Will
you allow me to ask your kind assistance in supplying me with re-
liable evidence on these points or referring me to sources where
I can find it, and much oblige,

Captain R. H. Pratt,

Superintendent of the Indian School

at Carlisle, Pennsylvania.