THE PROBLEM OF CIVILIZING THE APACHES—THE WORK PERFORMED BY MASON,
SCHUYLER, RANDALL, RICE, AND BABCOCK—TUCSON RING INFLUENCE AT
WASHINGTON—THE WOUNDING OF LIEUTENANT CHARLES KING—THE KILLING OF
LIEUTENANT JACOB ALMY—THE SEVEN APACHE HEADS LAID ON THE SAN CARLOS
PARADE GROUND—CROOK’S CASH MARKET FOR THE FRUITS OF APACHE
INDUSTRY—HIS METHOD OF DEALING WITH INDIANS.
There was no time lost in putting the Apaches to work. As soon as the
rest of the band had come in, which was in less than a week, the Apaches
were compelled to begin getting out an irrigating ditch, under the
superintendence of Colonel Julius W. Mason, Fifth Cavalry, an officer of
much previous experience in engineering. Their reservation was
established some miles above the post, and the immediate charge of the
savages was intrusted to Lieutenant Walter S. Schuyler, Fifth Cavalry,
who manifested a wonderful aptitude for the delicate duties of his
extra-military position. There were absolutely no tools on hand
belonging to the Indian Bureau, and for that matter no medicines, and
only the scantiest supplies, but Crook was determined that work should
be begun without the delay of a day. He wanted to get the savages
interested in something else besides tales of the war-path, and to make
them feel as soon as possible the pride of ownership, in which he was a
firm believer.
According to his idea, the moment an Indian began to see the fruits of
his industry rising above the ground, and knew that there was a ready
cash market awaiting him for all he had to sell, he would see that
“peace hath her victories no less renowned than war.” He had been going
on the war-path, killing and robbing the whites, not so much because his
forefathers had been doing it before him, but because it was the road to
wealth, to fame, to prominence and distinction in the tribe. Make the
Apache or any other Indian see that the moment he went on the war-path
two white men would go out also; and make him see that patient industry
produces wealth, fame, and distinction of a much more permanent and a
securer kind than those derived from a state of war, and the Indian
would acquiesce gladly in the change. But neither red man nor white
would submit peaceably to any change in his mode of life which was not
apparently to his advantage.
The way the great irrigating ditch at Camp Verde was dug was this. All
the Apaches were made to camp along the line of the proposed canal, each
band under its own chiefs. Everything in the shape of a tool which could
be found at the military post of Camp Verde or in those of Whipple and
Hualpai was sent down to Mason. There were quantities of old and
worn-out spades, shovels, picks, hatchets, axes, hammers, files, rasps,
and camp kettles awaiting the action of an inspector prior to being
thrown away and dropped from the returns as “worn out in service.” With
these and with sticks hardened in the fire, the Apaches dug a ditch five
miles long, and of an average cross-section of four feet wide by three
deep, although there were places where the width of the upper line was
more than five feet, and that of the bottom four, with a depth of more
than five. The men did the excavating; the women carried off the earth
in the conical baskets which they make of wicker-work. As soon as the
ditch was ready, General Crook took some of the chiefs up to his
headquarters at Fort Whipple, and there had them meet deputations from
all the other tribes living within the territory of Arizona, with whom
they had been at war—the Pimas, Papagoes, Maricopas, Yumas, Cocopahs,
Hualpais, Mojaves, Chimahuevis—and with them peace was also formally
made.
Mason and Schuyler labored assiduously with the Apaches, and soon had
not less than fifty-seven acres of land planted with melons and other
garden truck, of which the Indians are fond, and every preparation made
for planting corn and barley on a large scale. A large water-wheel was
constructed out of packing-boxes, and at a cost to the Government,
including all labor and material, of not quite thirty-six dollars. The
prospects of the Apaches looked especially bright, and there was hope
that they might soon be self-sustaining; but it was not to be. A “ring”
of Federal officials, contractors, and others was formed in Tucson,
which exerted great influence in the national capital, and succeeded in
securing the issue of peremptory orders that the Apaches should leave at
once for the mouth of the sickly San Carlos, there to be herded with the
other tribes. It was an outrageous proceeding, one for which I should
still blush had I not long since gotten over blushing for anything that
the United States Government did in Indian matters. The Apaches had been
very happy at the Verde, and seemed perfectly satisfied with their new
surroundings. There had been some sickness, occasioned by their using
too freely the highly concentrated foods of civilization, to which they
had never been accustomed; but, aside from that, they themselves said
that their general condition had never been so good.
The move did not take place until the winter following, when the Indians
flatly refused to follow the special agent sent out by the Indian
Bureau, not being acquainted with him, but did consent to go with
Lieutenant George O. Eaton, Fifth Cavalry, who has long since resigned
from the army, and is now, I think, Surveyor-General of Montana. At Fort
Apache the Indians were placed under the charge of Major George M.
Randall, Twenty-third Infantry, assisted by Lieutenant Rice, of the same
regiment. This portion of the Apache tribe is of unusual intelligence,
and the progress made was exceptionally rapid. Another large body had
been congregated at the mouth of the San Carlos, representing those
formerly at old Camp Grant, to which, as we have seen, were added the
Apache-Mojaves from the Verde. The Apache-Mojave and the Apache-Yuma
belonged to one stock, and the Apache or Tinneh to another. They speak
different languages, and although their habits of life are almost
identical, there is sufficient divergence to admit of the entrance of
the usual jealousies and bickerings bound to arise when two strange,
illiterate tribes are brought in enforced contact.
The strong hand and patient will of Major J. B. Babcock ruled the
situation at this point; he was the man for the place, and performed his
duties in a manner remarkable for its delicate appreciation of the
nature of the Indians, tact in allaying their suspicions, gentle
firmness in bringing them to see that the new way was the better, the
only way. The path of the military officers was not strewn with roses;
the Apaches showed a willingness to conform to the new order of things,
but at times failed to apprehend all that was required of them, at
others showed an inclination to backslide.
Crook’s plan was laid down in one line in his instructions to officers
in charge of reservations: “Treat them as children in _ignorance_, not
in _innocence_.” His great principle of life was, “The greatest of these
is charity.” He did not believe, and he did not teach, that an Indian
could slough off the old skin in a week or a month; he knew and he
indicated that there might be expected a return of the desire for the
old wild life, with its absolute freedom from all restraint, its old
familiar food, and all its attendant joys, such as they were. To conquer
this as much as possible, he wanted to let the Indians at times cut and
roast mescal, gather grass seeds and other diet of that kind, and, where
it could be done without risk, go out on hunts after antelope and deer.
It could not be expected that all the tribe should wish to accept the
manner of life of the whites; there would surely be many who would
prefer the old order of things, and who would work covertly for its
restitution. Such men were to be singled out, watched, and their schemes
nipped in the bud.
There were outbreaks, attempted outbreaks, and rumors of outbreaks at
Verde, Apache, and at the San Carlos, with all the attendant excitement
and worry. At or near the Verde, in the “Red Rock country,” and in the
difficult brakes of the “Hell” and “Rattlesnake” cañons issuing out of
the San Francisco Peak, some of the Apache-Mojaves who had slipped back
from the party so peremptorily ordered to the San Carlos had secreted
themselves and begun to give trouble. They were taken in hand by
Schuyler, Seiber, and, at a later date, by Captain Charles King, the
last-named being dangerously wounded by them at the “Sunset Pass.” At
the San Carlos Agency there were disputes of various kinds springing up
among the tribes, and worse than that a very acrimonious condition of
feeling between the two men who claimed to represent the Interior
Department. As a sequel to this, my dear friend and former commanding
officer, Lieutenant Jacob Almy, lost his life.
Notwithstanding the chastisement inflicted upon the Apaches, some of the
minor chiefs, who had still a record to make, preferred to seclude
themselves in the cañons and cliffs, and defy the powers of the general
government. It was a source of pride to know that they were talked about
by the squaws and children upon the reserve, as men whom the whites had
not been able to capture or reduce. Towards these men, Crook was patient
to a wonderful degree, thinking that reason would assert itself after a
time, and that, either of their own motion, or through the persuasion of
friends, they would find their way into the agencies.
The ostensible reason for the absence of these men was their objection
to the system of “tagging” in use at the agencies, which General Crook
had introduced for the better protection of the Indians, as well as to
enable the commanding officers to tell at a moment’s notice just where
each and every one of the males capable of bearing arms was to be found.
These tags were of various shapes, but all small and convenient in size;
there were crosses, crescents, circles, diamonds, squares, triangles,
etc., each specifying a particular band, and each with the number of its
owner punched upon it. If a scouting party found Apaches away from the
vicinity of the agencies, they would make them give an account of
themselves, and if the pass shown did not correspond with the tags worn,
then there was room for suspicion that the tags had been obtained from
some of the Agency Indians in gambling—in the games of “Con Quien,”
“Tze-chis,” “Mush-ka”—to which the Apaches were passionately addicted,
and in which they would play away the clothes on their backs when they
had any. Word was sent to the Indians of whom I am writing to come in
and avoid trouble, and influences of all kinds were brought to bear upon
the squaws with them—there were only a few—to leave the mountains, and
return to their relatives at the San Carlos. The principal chiefs were
gradually made to see that they were responsible for this condition of
affairs, and that they should compel these outlaws to obey the orders
which had been issued for the control of the whole tribe. So long as
they killed no one the troops and Apache scouts would not be sent out
against them; they should be given ample opportunity for deciding; but
it might be well for them to decide quickly, as in case of trouble
arising at San Carlos, the whole tribe would be held responsible for the
acts of these few. One of them was named “Chuntz,” another “Chaundezi,”
and another “Clibicli;” there were more in the party, but the other
names have temporarily escaped my memory. The meaning of the first word
I do not know; the second means “Long Ear,” and is the Apache term for
mule; the third I do not know, but it has something to do with horse,
the first syllable meaning horse, and the whole word, I believe, means
“the horse that is tied.” They lived in the cañon of the Gila, and would
often slip in by night to see their relatives at the agency.
One night there was an awful time at San Carlos; a train of wagons laden
with supplies for Camp Apache had halted there, and some of the
teamsters let the Apaches, among whom were the bad lot under Chuntz,
have a great deal of vile whiskey. All hands got gloriously drunk, and
when the teamsters refused to let their red-skinned friends have any
more of the poisonous stuff the Apaches killed them. If it could only
happen so that every man who sold whiskey to an Indian should be killed
before sundown, it would be one of the most glorious things for the far
western country. In the present case, innocent people were hurt, as they
always are; and General Crook informed the chiefs that he looked to them
to put a prompt termination to such excesses, and that if they did not
he would take a hand himself. With that he returned to headquarters. The
chiefs sent out spies, definitely placed the outlaws, who had been in
the habit of changing their lodging or hiding spots with great
frequency, and then arranged for their capture and delivery to the
military authorities. They were surprised, summoned to surrender,
refused, and attempted to fight, but were all killed; and as the Apaches
knew no other mode of proving that they had killed them, and as they
could not carry in the whole body of each one, they cut off the heads
and brought them to San Carlos, in a sack, and dumped them out on the
little parade in front of the commanding officer’s tent.
The Apaches of Arizona were now a conquered tribe, and, as Crook well
expressed the situation in a General Order, his troops had terminated a
campaign which had lasted from the days of Cortés. The view entertained
of the work performed in Arizona by those in authority may be summed up
in the orders issued by General Schofield, at that date in command of
the Military Division of the Pacific:
[_General Orders No. 7._]
HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE PACIFIC,
SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., April 28, 1873.
To Brevet Major-General George Crook, commanding the Department of
Arizona, and to his gallant troops, for the extraordinary service they
have rendered in the late campaign against the Apache Indians, the
Division Commander extends his thanks and his congratulations upon
their brilliant successes. They have merited the gratitude of the
nation.
By order of MAJOR-GENERAL SCHOFIELD.
(Signed) J. C. KELTON,
_Assistant Adjutant-General_.
Randall and Babcock persevered in their work, and soon a change had
appeared in the demeanor of the wild Apaches; at San Carlos there grew
up a village of neatly made brush huts, arranged in rectilinear streets,
carefully swept each morning, while the huts themselves were clean as
pie-crust, the men and women no longer sleeping on the bare ground, but
in bunks made of saplings, and elevated a foot or more above the floor;
on these, blankets were neatly piled. The scouts retained in service as
a police force were quietly given to understand that they must be models
of cleanliness and good order as well as of obedience to law. The squaws
were encouraged to pay attention to dress, and especially to keep their
hair clean and brushed. No abuse of a squaw was allowed, no matter what
the excuse might be. One of the most prominent men of the Hualpai
tribe—“Qui-ua-than-yeva”—was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment because
he persisted in cutting off the nose of one of his wives. This fearful
custom finally yielded, and there are now many people in the Apache
tribe itself who have never seen a poor woman thus disfigured and
humiliated.
Crook’s promise to provide a ready cash market for everything the
Apaches could raise was nobly kept. To begin with, the enlistment of a
force of scouts who were paid the same salary as white soldiers, and at
the same periods with them, introduced among the Apaches a small, but
efficient, working capital. Unaccustomed to money, the men, after
receiving their first pay, spent much of it foolishly for candy and
other trivial things. Nothing was said about that; they were to be made
to understand that the money paid them was their own to spend or to save
as they pleased, and to supply as much enjoyment as they could extract
from it. But, immediately after pay-day, General Crook went among the
Apaches on the several reservations and made inquiries of each one of
the principal chiefs what results had come to their wives and families
from this new source of wealth. He explained that money could be made to
grow just as an acorn would grow into the oak; that by spending it
foolishly, the Apaches treated it just as they did the acorn which they
trod under foot; but by investing their money in California horses and
sheep, they would be gaining more money all the time they slept, and by
the time their children had attained maturity the hills would be dotted
with herds of horses and flocks of sheep. Then they would be rich like
the white men; then they could travel about and see the world; then they
would not be dependent upon the Great Father for supplies, but would
have for themselves and their families all the food they could eat, and
would have much to sell.
The Apaches did send into Southern California and bought horses and
sheep as suggested, and they would now be self-supporting had the good
management of General Crook not been ruthlessly sacrificed and
destroyed. Why it is that the Apache, living as he does on a reservation
offering all proper facilities for the purpose, is not raising his own
meat, is one of the conundrums which cannot be answered by any one of
common sense. The influences against it are too strong: once let the
Indian be made self-supporting, and what will become of the gentle
contractor?
Some slight advance has been made in this direction during the past
twenty years, but it has been ridiculously slight in comparison with
what it should have been. In an examination which General Crook made
into the matter in 1884 it was found that there were several herds of
cattle among the Indians, one herd that I saw numbering 384 head. It was
cared for and herded in proper manner; and surely if the Apaches can do
that much in one, or two, or a dozen cases, they can do it in all with
anything like proper encouragement. The proper encouragement of which I
speak is “the ready cash market” promised by General Crook, and by means
of which he effected so much.
In every band of aborigines, as in every community of whites, or of
blacks, or of Chinese, there are to be found men and women who are
desirous of improving the condition of themselves and families; and
alongside of them are others who care for nothing but their daily bread,
and are not particularly careful how they get that so that they get it.
There should be a weeding out of the progressive from the
non-progressive element, and by no manner of means can it be done so
effectually as by buying from the industrious all that they can sell to
the Government for the support of their own people. There should be
inserted in every appropriation bill for the support of the army or of
the Indians the provision that anything and everything called for under
a contract for supplies, which the Indians on a reservation or in the
vicinity of a military post can supply, for the use of the troops or for
the consumption of the tribe, under treaty stipulations, shall be bought
of the individual Indians raising it and at a cash price not less than
the price at which the contract has been awarded. For example, because
it is necessary to elucidate the simplest propositions in regard to the
Indians, if the chief “A” has, by industry and thrift, gathered together
a herd of one hundred cattle, all of the increase that he may wish to
sell should be bought from him; he will at once comprehend that work has
its own reward, and a very prompt and satisfactory one. He has his
original numbers, and he has a snug sum of money too; he buys more
cattle, he sees that he is becoming a person of increased importance,
not only in the eyes of his own people but in that of the white men too;
he encourages his sons and all his relatives to do the same as he has
done, confident that their toil will not go unrewarded.
Our method has been somewhat different from that. Just as soon as a few
of the more progressive people begin to accumulate a trifle of property,
to raise sheep, to cultivate patches of soil and raise scanty crops, the
agent sends in the usual glowing report of the occurrence, and to the
mind of the average man and woman in the East it looks as if all the
tribe were on the highway to prosperity, and the first thing that
Congress does is to curtail the appropriations. Next, we hear of
“disaffection,” the tribe is reported as “surly and threatening,” and we
are told that the “Indians are killing their cattle.” But, whether they
go to war or quietly starve on the reservation effects no change in the
system; all supplies are bought of a contractor as before, and the red
man is no better off, or scarcely any better off, after twenty years of
peace, than he was when he surrendered. The amount of beef contracted
for during the present year—1891—for the Apaches at Camp Apache and San
Carlos, according to the _Southwestern Stockman_ (Wilcox, Arizona), was
not quite two million pounds, divided as follows: eight hundred thousand
pounds for the Indians at San Carlos, on the contract of John H. Norton,
and an additional five hundred thousand pounds for the same people on
the contract of the Chiricahua Cattle Company; and five hundred thousand
pounds for the Indians at Fort Apache, on the contract of John H.
Norton. Both of the above contracting parties are known to me as
reliable and trustworthy; I am not finding fault with them for getting a
good, fat contract; but I do find fault with a system which keeps the
Indian a savage, and does not stimulate him to work for his own support.
At one time an epidemic of scarlet fever broke out among the children on
the Apache reservation, and numbers were carried off. Indians are prone
to sacrifice property at the time of death of relations, and, under the
advice of their “Medicine Men,” slaughtered altogether nearly two
thousand sheep, which they had purchased with their own money or which
represented the increase from the original flock. Crook bought from the
Apaches all the hay they would cut, and had the Quartermaster pay cash
for it; every pound of hay, every stick of wood, and no small portion of
the corn used by the military at Camp Apache and San Carlos were
purchased from the Apaches as individuals, and not from contractors or
from tribes. The contractors had been in the habit of employing the
Apaches to do this work for them, paying a reduced scale of remuneration
and often in store goods, so that by the Crook method the Indian
received from two to three times as much as under the former system, and
this to the great advantage of Arizona, because the Indian belongs to
the Territory of Arizona, and will stay there and buy what he needs from
her people, but the contractor has gone out to make money, remains until
he accomplishes his object, and then returns to some congenial spot
where his money will do most good for himself. Of the contractors who
made money in Arizona twenty years ago not one remained there: all went
into San Francisco or some other large city, there to enjoy their
accumulations. I am introducing this subject now because it will save
repetition, and will explain to the average reader why it was that the
man who did so much to reduce to submission the worst tribes this
country has ever known, and who thought of nothing but the performance
of duty and the establishment of a permanent and honorable peace,
based—to quote his own language—“upon an exact and even-handed justice
to red men and to white alike,” should have been made the target for the
malevolence and the rancor of every man in the slightest degree
interested in the perpetuation of the contract system and in keeping the
aborigine in bondage.
To sum up in one paragraph, General Crook believed that the American
Indian was a human being, gifted with the same god-like apprehension as
the white man, and like him inspired by noble impulses, ambition for
progress and advancement, but subject to the same infirmities, beset
with the same or even greater temptations, struggling under the
disadvantages of an inherited ignorance, which had the double effect of
making him doubt his own powers in the struggle for the new life and
suspicious of the truthfulness and honesty of the advocates of all
innovations. The American savage has grown up as a member of a tribe, or
rather of a clan within a tribe; all his actions have been made to
conform to the opinions of his fellows as enunciated in the clan
councils or in those of the tribe.
It is idle to talk of de-tribalizing the Indian until we are ready to
assure him that his new life is the better one. By the Crook method of
dealing with the savage he was, at the outset, de-tribalized without
knowing it; he was individualized and made the better able to enter into
the civilization of the Caucasian, which is an individualized
civilization. As a scout, the Apache was enlisted as an individual; he
was made responsible individually for all that he did or did not. He was
paid as an individual. If he cut grass, he, and not his tribe or clan,
got the money; if he split fuel, the same rule obtained; and so with
every grain of corn or barley which he planted. If he did wrong, he was
hunted down as an individual until the scouts got him and put him in the
guard-house. If his friends did wrong, the troops did not rush down upon
him and his family and chastise them for the wrongs of others; he was
asked to aid in the work of ferreting out and apprehending the
delinquent; and after he had been brought in a jury of the Apaches
themselves deliberated upon the case and never failed in judgment,
except on the side of severity.
There were two cases of chance-medley coming under my own observation,
in both of which the punishment awarded by the Apache juries was much
more severe than would have been given by a white jury. In the first
case, the man supposed to have done the killing was sentenced to ten
years’ hard labor; in the other, to three. A white culprit was at the
same time sentenced in Tucson for almost the same offence to one year’s
confinement in jail. Indians take to trials by jury as naturally as
ducks take to water. Trial by jury is not a system of civilized people;
it is the survival of the old trial by clan, the rudimentary justice
known to all tribes in the most savage state.
General Crook believed that the Indian should be made self-supporting,
not by preaching at him the merits of labor and the grandeur of toiling
in the sun, but by making him see that every drop of honest sweat meant
a penny in his pocket. It was idle to expect that the Indian should
understand how to work intelligently in the very beginning; he
represented centuries of one kind of life, and the Caucasian the slow
evolution of centuries under different conditions and in directions
diametrically opposite. The two races could not, naturally, understand
each other perfectly, and therefore to prevent mistakes and the doing of
very grievous injustice to the inferior, it was the duty and to the
interest of the superior race to examine into and understand the mental
workings of the inferior.
The American Indian, born free as the eagle, would not tolerate
restraint, would not brook injustice; therefore, the restraint imposed
must be manifestly for his benefit, and the government to which he was
subjected must be eminently one of kindness, mercy, and absolute
justice, without necessarily degenerating into weakness. The American
Indian despises a liar. The American Indian is the most generous of
mortals: at all his dances and feasts the widow and the orphan are the
first to be remembered. Therefore, when he meets with an agent who is
“on the make,” that agent’s influence goes below zero at once; and when
he enters the trader’s store and finds that he is charged three dollars
and a half for a miserable wool hat, which, during his last trip to
Washington, Albuquerque, Omaha, or Santa Fé, as the case may be, he has
seen offered for a quarter, he feels that there is something wrong, and
he does not like it any too well. For that reason Crook believed that
the Indians should be encouraged to do their own trading and to set up
their own stores. He was not shaken in this conviction when he found
agents interested in the stores on the reservations, a fact well
understood by the Apaches as well as by himself. It was a very touching
matter at the San Carlos, a few years ago, to see the then agent
counting the proceeds of the weekly sales made by his son-in-law—the
Indian trader.
At the date of the reduction of the Apaches, the success of the
Government schools was not clearly established, so that the subject of
Indian instruction was not then discussed except theoretically. General
Crook was always a firm believer in the education of the American
Indian; not in the education of a handful of boys and girls sent to
remote localities, and there inoculated with new ideas and deprived of
the old ones upon which they would have to depend for getting a
livelihood; but in the education of the younger generation as a
generation. Had the people of the United States taken the young
generation of Sioux and Cheyennes in 1866, and educated them in
accordance with the terms of the treaty, there would not have been any
trouble since. The children should not be torn away from the parents to
whom they are a joy and a consolation, just as truly as they are to
white parents; they should be educated within the limits of the
reservation so that the old folks from time to time could get to see
them and note their progress. As they advanced in years, the better
qualified could be sent on to Carlisle and Hampton, and places of that
grade. The training of the Indian boy or girl should be largely
industrial, but as much as possible in the line of previous acquirement
and future application. Thus, the Navajos, who have made such advances
as weavers and knitters, might well be instructed in that line of
progress, as might the Zunis, Moquis, and other Pueblos.
After the Indian had returned to his reservation, it was the duty of the
Government to provide him with work in his trade, whatever it might be,
to the exclusion of the agency hanger-on. Why should boys be trained as
carpenters and painters, and then see such work done by white men at the
agency, while they were forced to remain idle? This complaint was made
by one of the boys at San Carlos. Why should Apache, Sioux, or Cheyenne
children who have exerted themselves to learn our language, be left
unemployed, while the work of interpretation is done, and never done any
too well, at the agencies by white men? Does it not seem a matter of
justice and common sense to fill all such positions, as fast as the same
can be done without injustice to faithful incumbents under the present
system, by young men trained in our ideas and affiliated to our ways?
Let all watchmen and guardians of public stores—all the policemen on the
reserves—be natives; let all hauling of supplies be done by the Indians
themselves, and let them be paid the full contract rate if they are able
to haul no more than a portion of the supplies intended for their use.
Some of these ideas have already been adopted, in part, by the Indian
Bureau, and with such success that there is more than a reasonable
expectancy that the full series might be considered and adopted with the
best results. Instruct the young women in the rudiments of housekeeping,
as already outlined. Provide the reservations with saw-mills and
grist-mills, and let the Indians saw their own planks and grind their
own meal and flour. This plan has been urged by the Apaches so
persistently during recent years that it would seem not unreasonable to
make the experiment on some of the reservations. Encourage them to raise
chickens and to sell eggs; it is an industry for which they are well
fitted, and the profits though small would still be profits, and one
drop more in the rivulet of gain to wean them from idleness, ignorance,
and the war-path. Let any man who desires to leave his reservation and
hunt for work, do so; give him a pass; if he abuses the privilege by
getting drunk or begging, do not give him another. I have known many
Indians who have worked away from their own people and always with the
most decided benefit. They did not always return, but when they did they
did not believe in the prophecies of the “Medicine Men,” or listen to
the boasts of those who still long for the war-path.
The notion that the American Indian will not work is a fallacious one;
he will work just as the white man will—when it is to his advantage to
do so. The adobes in the military post of Fort Wingate, New Mexico, were
all made by Navajo Indians, the brothers of the Apaches. The same tribe
did no small amount of work on the grading of the Atlantic and Pacific
Railroad where it passes across their country. The American Indian is a
slave to drink where he can get it, and he is rarely without a supply
from white sources; he is a slave to the passion of gaming; and he is a
slave to his superstitions, which make the “Medicine Men” the power they
are in tribal affairs as well as in those relating more strictly to the
clan and family. These are the three stumbling-blocks in the pathway of
the Indian’s advancement; how to remove them is a most serious problem.
The Indian is not the only one in our country who stumbles from the same
cause; we must learn to be patient with him, but merciless toward all
malefactors caught selling intoxicating liquors to red men living in the
tribal relation. Gambling and superstition will be eradicated in time by
the same modifying influences which have wrought changes among the
Caucasian nations; education will afford additional modes of killing
time, and be the means of exposing the puerility of the pretensions of
the prophets.