When in 1819 and 1820 Congress provided for the employment of persons
to educate the Indians, the appointment of Agents to specific tribes
began.
When the trading-house system expired in 1822, the factors disappeared.
Indian trade is conducted to-day by licensed traders, who are under
bond, and expected to live within Indian country.
In 1824 the Secretary of War, without authority, organized a Bureau of
Indian Affairs, probably to ease his main office of details; and eight
years later the President was authorized by Congress to appoint a
Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
The Act of 1834 conferred upon the officers of Indian country the
authorities they invoke to-day with respect to control of the native
and those who may seek to oppress him. This Act did not apply to the
Territories of Oregon, Utah, and New Mexico. The Agents for the Pueblo
Indians of New Mexico were handicapped in their work until 1913, when
the Supreme Court of the United States clarified that situation by the
Sandoval decision.
In the early days, army officers were designated to perform the duties
of Indian Agents, and the Indians were brought under strict military
rule; and this, taken in connection with the imperative language of the
laws enacted, tended further to increase the powers of the Agent.
By an Act of 1847, directing distribution of annuities and treaty
goods, most Indians were brought to a condition of complete dependence
on the central Government. If prior thereto they had enjoyed any civil
liberty, the fragment was taken from them. Many looked to the guardian
even for food, and when the guardian was aware of him—most Southwest
groups were outside this soup-kitchen zone—it was provided. And then
came opportunity to those who made a scandal of the “ration” days, and
presented Robert Louis Stevenson and other brilliant sentimentalists
with a slur from which the honest Indian Agent has suffered. Wherever
the Government had cognizance of an Indian, he was a child without
rights other than those his Agent permitted him to enjoy. As late as
1922, acting as a Sioux Agent, and being overwhelmed a thousand times
daily by the emasculated title of Major, I signed many permits allowing
old warriors to leave the so-called Reservation—it was really a
sanctuary for whites—for trading- and visiting-trips, a long-obsolete
bit of red tape that the vanquished one still recognized. I could not
very well have prevented his going without a permit, but as he saw fit
to believe in the old system, I signed the papers cheerfully. At least
those older majors of the army had instilled into the elder Sioux a
respect and obedience, without destroying their pride or confidence.
In 1849 the Department of the Interior was organized, and it was
authorized to have supervisory and appellate powers in Indian Affairs
theretofore exercised by the Secretary of War. The Secretary of the
Interior became head of the Indian Department, the Commissioner of
Indian Affairs acting under him.
The local control of reservations remained quite the same. Native
police were authorized in 1878, but the Agent continued to be sole
judge of the guilt or innocence of Indians charged with offenses. In
1883 the Courts of Indian Offenses were devised, an idealistic
experiment, no doubt originating in the far East. It was hoped to
encourage the Indian somehow to discipline himself. But it has proved
farcical, and when used at all is a mere instrument in the hands of the
Agent. During the past fourteen years I have had charge of four Indian
reserves: the “Moqui,”—now correctly named Hopi,—where are many Navajo;
the Pueblo; the Crow Creek Sioux; and the Colorado River Mohave; these
extended into five states, comprising a total population of 14,000
Indians of six different tribes and many local divisions; and among all
these natives I have found but one Indian having the requisite
intelligence and unprejudiced standpoint to warrant his presiding as a
Judge of the Indian Court. It would be unfair not to name this man. He
is Pablo Abeita, of the Isleta tribe of Tihua—Pueblo—Indians in New
Mexico. And after years of loyalty to his honored Agents (not all of
them were honored) he has reaped as his reward tribal enemies, and
political and civil ones. The one man who proved the value of the
experiment was made the goat. Such are the fruits of idealism,
preserved by new leaders who come staggering under many inventions for
the benefit of Poor Lo.
These historical facts have been briefed from an article entitled “The
Evolution of the Indian Agent,” written by the late Kenneth F.
Murchison, one-time Chief Law Clerk for the Office of Indian Affairs,
and printed in the Commissioner’s Annual Report for 1892. The writer
closed with this significant statement:
The Indian Agent now has almost absolute power in the Indian
country, and so far as the people over whom he rules are concerned,
he has none to contest his power. Appointed at first in the
capacity of a commercial agent or consul of the United States in
the country of an alien people, the Indian Agent, under laws
enacted and regulations promulgated, has developed into an officer
with power to direct the affairs of the Indians and to transact
their business in all details and in all relations.
This is a very curious chapter in our history. There is a striking
contrast between “ministers plenipotentiary” appointed by the
United States to treat with powerful Indian nations, and an army
officer, with troops at his command, installed over a tribe of
Indians to maintain among them an absolute military despotism. Yet
our policy of dealing with Indians has swung from one of these
extremes to the other in a strangely vacillating way. Indeed at
present (1892) the Agent among the Five Civilized Tribes performs
rather the functions of a consul in a foreign nation than those of
an agent.... On the other hand, the absolute military rule finds
its illustration in the present condition of things at San Carlos
(Arizona) and in a modified way at Pine Ridge (South Dakota).
Now the superficially informed person will arise to declaim that this
is ancient history. It is true this was written concerning conditions
of and prior to 1892. But only recently were the troops removed from
Fort Apache in the country adjacent to San Carlos; and very recently we
have had cause to regret that the authorities of the Agent for the Five
Civilized Tribes were ever revoked. The Indian Agent for the Pueblo
Indians of New Mexico, considering their recognized forms of tribal
government that the United States Courts have sustained, should perform
the functions of a consul, plus all the duties of an Agent. It is
difficult for the average appointee to perceive this subtle
distinction.
And should the superficially informed person visit the Southwest and a
closed Indian reservation, to witness the Snake Dance of the Hopi, for
instance; to view one of the pageants of the Pueblo Indians of New
Mexico; or to hunt on Apache grounds,—and always providing that such
Indians have an Agent not afraid of his political shadow, he will find
that the supervision and control of the Indians, and of the
superficially informed person, is based on the authorities related,
which have not been revoked, and which any Indian Agent may invoke at
any time he thinks necessary. In Arizona the State Legislature has
granted additional powers to Indian Agents, as the residents of this
colossal State have no false ideas with respect to its Indian
inhabitants, and wish them managed in the most efficacious way
consistent with justice.
As instances, Arizona has these laws: