satisfaction to the Indians. They are of inferior quality,
unsuited to their wants or tastes. Besides, it consumes the entire
annuity fund for 'beneficial objects,' and a large portion of
the 'incidental fund' to transport these articles to the place
of distribution. No good can possibly result from such a course,
but, on the contrary, great loss. Better articles can be obtained
in this market at a less price, and such as are adapted to their
wants. This fund should be husbanded and disbursed for objects
calculated to benefit the Indians, and not in such transparent
trash as has usually been received.
"One-half the amount, judiciously invested in the purchase of
articles actually required, suited to their tastes, and applicable
to their wants, would render more satisfaction, and would have a
greater tendency to promote their well-being and advance them in
civilization than the whole amount expended in the manner which it
is.
"The policy adopted at present only tends to embarrass the
operations of the agent, and create in the Indian's mind the
impression that there is a deliberate intention on the part of
the government to defraud them of their lands."[36]
Again, C. H. Hale, at the head of the Washington Superintendency,
reported in 1862 as follows:
"The attention of the department has so often been called, both by
agents and former superintendents, to the mistaken policy which has
so long obtained in the payment of annuities, that I forbear to dwell
upon the subject, being well satisfied that if the abundant evidence
which has heretofore been furnished, and forcible arguments which
have been employed, have not convinced the department of the folly
and injustice, not to say the fraud of the practice, it is useless
and vain for me to attempt it." Mr. Hale then advises that annuities
be paid only to Indians willing to reside at the reservations and as
incentives and aids to work; clothing might be furnished only for the
aged or infirm or children attending school. "Whatever may be furnished
in this way," he continues, "should be selected with the greatest
care, and with due reference to its intended application. Any article
needed, for all the purposes specified, can be obtained on this coast
at rates equally favorable as in the Atlantic cities; thus saving the
very large expenditures which have heretofore been made in the way of
freights."[37]
The local superintendents and agents, of course, might have been
in part influenced by desire to benefit the section in which they
were working, and, perhaps, by the design to get expenditures more
completely into their own hands; and the Government, on the other hand,
may have had good reasons for purchasing in New York. But the unanimity
and earnestness of the local officials indicate here a real and grave
source of trouble.
We come now to the important question as to how far the local officials
themselves were honest and capable. The answer to this question is
difficult.
Specific charges of peculation and wrong management are frequent. On
a visit to the Nez Perces reservation in 1861 Superintendent Kendall
found the only evidence of farming operations by the agency to consist
of about three tons of oats in the straw, although the agent had a
full force of treaty employes, and ten laborers besides, at an expense
of seven thousand dollars.[38] As the Superintendent fed his horse,
he sighed to think that each mouthful of the animal's feed cost the
Government at least one dollar. On the Umatilla agency there was an
expenditure called for during the first two years of sixty-six thousand
dollars; as a result there were in sight in 1862 "two log houses,
a half dozen log huts, an open shed for wagons and plows, about a
hundred acres of loamy river bottom fenced and in cultivation, a set of
carpenter's and blacksmith's tools, and farming implements insufficient
for an ordinary half section farm."[39] At the same reservation the
outgoing agent remarked to the special agent appointed to take his
position that the place of agent was worth there $4,000 per year,
although the salary was but $1,500.[40] We could wish, however, in such
cases to hear the accused agent's side of the story. Yet in 1858, Mr.
Dennison, Indian agent for eastern Oregon, according to his own report,
spent $13,500, which "was mostly expended in opening farms upon the
Warm Springs reservation"; the next year there were in cultivation on
this reservation 356 acres.[41] More convincing proof of fraudulent
practices, perhaps, is afforded in the attitude of merchants and others
towards agents. When Mr. Davenport, agent at the Umatilla reservation,
tried to get competitive bids at Portland, dealers were distrustful and
sarcastic, because they thought that he, as was common, was ostensibly
seeking bids while in reality having a deal on with some selected firm.
"The practice of combining against the Government for mutual profit
is so common," comments Mr. Davenport, "that all agents are regarded
in the same unenviable light. I said to one of the older merchants:
'It is easy to say that all the agents pilfer in this way, but what
do you know about it?' His answer was: 'I say all because all that I
know about are guilty.' The agent at Warm Springs, at the Grande Ronde,
at the Umatilla, at the Siletz does so, and I presume that the rest
of them do the same."[42] Another method whereby an agent might line
his own pockets was by allowing substitutions of inferior goods in
government invoices; Mr. Davenport was offered $1000 for the privilege
of exchanging annuity goods for others, item by item.[43]
But, indeed, how could it be expected that these administrators would
be efficient and honorable when we consider the system under which
they were appointed and did their work? No civil service rules were
applied. Men were generally appointed, not because of special fitness
either through natural aptitude or through administrative training, but
because of political partisanship and at the demand of some Senator or
Representative; or, later, they were appointed because of religious
affiliations at the suggestion of some religious body. No national
tests were applied, nor was there a sustaining esprit d' corps. There
could be no right spirit, indeed, when many government officials
considered that the agency system was merely a cheap way of keeping
the Indians quiet, and when the western population in general was
profoundly skeptical as to the possibility of civilizing the Indian.[44]
The outlook was the more discouraging since the great American
panacea--education--seemed a dismal failure when applied to these
Indians according to forms then in vogue. There might be quite a furore
when a reservation school was opened and the novelty was unworn; but
the white child's spelling book or reader soon proved very tame to the
young Indian, the more so because of the difficulties of pronunciation.
But the principal cause of failure of the day schools was the nomadic
habits of the parents; hardly had the Indian child started to school,
when away would go the family to the fishing or hunting grounds or to
the camass fields. Teachers who were in earnest met this difficulty
by establishing boarding schools, where the children could be kept
removed from the parental impulsiveness. The next step was natural.
These schools emphasized practical training, particularly agriculture
for the boys and housekeeping for the girls. This step, taken at a time
when in American educational methods, comparatively little attention
had been paid seriously to this phase of education, was significant and
produced good results.[45] Whatever the shortcomings of the American
method of dealing with the Indians in contrast to that of British
Columbia, in respect to education, at least, the American system
appears to advantage; for the colonial government of British Columbia
did practically nothing for the education of the natives.
There were two terrible evils, prevalent both in British Columbia
and in the territories, which weakened and degraded the Indians and
hindered efforts of every sort for improvement. These were prostitution
and the use of liquor.
No more pitiable condition can be imagined than that of the helpless
Indian women and girls who were devoted by their husbands and fathers
to prostitution among vile whites. The northern Indians brought down to
the Songish reserve at Victoria their young women, many of them girls
from ten to fourteen years of age, and remained all summer as pimps
and procurers.[46] Reports of American Indian agents along the Coast
make frequent mention of this practice. In the interior there is less
evidence of its existence, but wherever Indians had a chance to linger
around towns, they became demoralized. Employes agencies prostituted
Indian women or took them for concubines; the Superintendent of
Washington Territory issued a circular warning all employes from
such acts.[47] The results of prostitution are found in reports of
physicians of the various agencies, who almost always speak of venereal
diseases as common. It should very clearly be understood that these
facts were not true of all tribes in like degree; the tribes in the
interior were more robust physically and morally and farther removed
from contamination. Nor should the chastity of all the individuals
of a tribe be judged by specimens which hung about the towns. In the
interior, particularly, it was probably true that "unchastity among
Indians is the exception, as it is among the whites."[48]
Everywhere, both north and south of the Boundary, Indian welfare was
assailed by the liquor traffic, and everywhere the Government engaged
in a less or more futile struggle to combat it. Many of the Indians
undoubtedly believed, like an Indian orator at Ft. Simcoe, that they
had a right to drink whiskey if they wanted to, especially so long
as the white man made it,--and there were always white men ready to
sell it.[49] Local government took little part in suppressing the
trade in the United States, the work being regarded as belonging to
the officials of the general Government. These were hindered by lack
of summary powers, by the scarcity of jails, and by the reluctance
of juries to convict. Only on the reservations were the powers of
the agents ample, and even here they might, in part, be nullified by
the planting of resorts on the edges. The whole power of Government
in British Columbia, on the other hand, could be utilized for the
punishment of offenders. Magistrates had summary powers, and conviction
entailed heavy fines and, in the case of regular dealers, loss of
license. But the magistrates had the care of immense districts, and
the Indians were not localized as they were in the United States after
the reservation system was completely established. Yet this form of
lawlessness, in common with other forms, was better checked on the
whole in British Columbia than in the territories.
As we turn, now, to consider the efforts to solve the Indian problem
in British Columbia, quotations from two American administrators will
help to set before us the better ordered conditions under British
rule. The first is from General Harney: "Like all Indians they [the
northern Indians] are fond of whisky, and can be seen at all hours of
the day in the streets of Victoria drinking whenever they can get it,
yet they are not permitted to become disorderly. These Indians are
more obedient under British rule, which appears to be kind, but firm,
than their fellow men with us under any of the systems adopted by our
government."[50] The other is from an Indian agent, Mr. Davenport, to
whom we have before referred. "We have only to look across the line
into the British possessions of North America," he says, "to see that
their treatment of the Indian has been more promotive of peace and
good will than ours, and some people are swift to conclude that the
Canadians are of a higher moral tone than the people of the United
States. The true reason lies in the fact that their system has a more
constant and restraining influence upon the lawless class in society.
There is more individual freedom with us, and consequently more room
for departure from the normal line of conduct. This difference is
boldly in evidence to those of our citizens who have lived in mining
regions governed by Canadian officers, whose official tenure does not
depend upon the mood of the populace."[51]
The policy of the Colonial Government of British Columbia with respect
to the Indian population was distinguished by the following principal
features: (1) Title to the soil was not recognized as belonging to
the Indians; (2) No compensation, therefore, was allowed to Indians
either in the shape of payments, annuities, or of special educational
grants; (3) Indians were held to be fellow subjects with white men, and
entitled, as individuals, to the protection of law, and responsible
for obedience to law; (4) Sequestration of the native population upon
large reservations was not followed, but, as settlement progressed,
small reserves were assigned to families and septs, in proximity to
settlements of the whites.[52]
The adoption of this policy, so different to that of the United States,
was not due to differences between the Indian populations north and
south of the line. Some differences, it is true, there were: a great
part of the natives of British Columbia had been more uninterruptedly
under the tutelage of the Hudson's Bay Company than those across the
Boundary, and were somewhat more inclined to work; no one tribe in the
Colony was so powerful or so well organized as the Nez Perces; nor
did the Indians of the Interior of British Columbia possess so many
horses as did those to the south. Yet Kootenays, Pend d'Oreilles, and
Okanogans crossed the Line at pleasure; the Shuswaps were very like
the Coeur d'Alenes or the Cayuses; and the untameability of the nomads
south of the Snake was matched by the wildness and ferocity of the
Indians to the far north. In numbers, organization, and character it
is difficult to see why the natives of the one section were the more
adapted to any certain system than those of the other.[53]
The initiation of this policy (especially with respect to the
non-recognition of Indian title and the withholding of compensation)
was in part due to pressure for funds in the Colony and to the refusal
of the Imperial Government to assume any financial responsibility in
the matter. Governor Douglas before the founding of the Colony had
acted, apparently, on a different principle when, as agent for the
Hudson's Bay Company, he had bought in 1850-51 considerable areas
from various tribes in Vancouver's Island.[54] Compensation of some
sort to Indians on the mainland was at least tentatively endorsed by
the colonial office of the Home Government while it was in charge
of Sir E. B. Lytton; yet Lytton was careful to state that he did
not adopt the views of the Aborigines' Protective Society as to the
means for extending protection to the natives.[55] This society was
an organization in England which had "taken for many years a deep
interest in the welfare of the Indian Tribes to the west as well as
the east of the Rocky Mountains," and it may be looked upon as a
British manifestation of the same sort of philanthropic sentiment in
regard to Indians as existed among certain classes in the eastern
part of the United States. The Secretary of the Society, in a long
letter to Lytton, after quoting a long extract from a New York paper
relative to the extreme cruelty of miners to Indians in California
and characterizing the Indians of British Columbia as a "strikingly
acute and intelligent race of men," "keenly sensitive to their own
rights," and "equally alive to the value of the gold discoveries,"
claimed for them protection against wanton outrages and asked that "the
Native title should be recognized in British Columbia, and that some
reasonable adjustment of their claims should be made by the British
Government."[56] The policy of compensation to Indians was further
endorsed by Governor Douglas in regard to lands on Vancouver Island,
on the occasion of the transmission of a petition from the House of
Assembly of Vancouver Island, "praying for the aid of Her Majesty's
Government in extinguishing the Indian title to the public lands in the
Colony." The money then needed amounted to £3000, and Douglas proposed
that it be advanced by the Imperial Government, payment to be made
from the proceeds of sales of land. But the Duke of Newcastle, then
Secretary of State for the Colonies, replied tersely that he was "fully
sensible of the great importance of purchasing without loss of time the
native title to the soil of Vancouver Island; but the acquisition of
the title is a purely colonial interest, and the Legislature must not
entertain any expectation that the British taxpayer will be burdened to
supply the funds or British credit pledged for that purpose."[57]
Whatever the reason, however, for denying recognition of title to the
Indians both of the Island and of the Mainland, and for withholding
compensation, there can be no doubt of the fact: "The title of the
Indians in fee of the public lands, or any portion thereof," wrote an
eminent colonial official, "has never been acknowledged by Government,
but, on the contrary is distinctly denied."[58]
The beginnings of a positive Indian policy in British Columbia may be
traced in an early letter of Governor Douglas to Sir E. B. Lytton,
March 14, 1859. This letter was in reply to one from the latter (Dec.
30, 1858), in which Lytton inquired whether a plan for settling the
Indians in permanent villages, like the plan used by Sir George Grey
with the Kaffirs in South Africa, might not be feasible.[59]
Douglas endorsed the plan as of advantage both to the Indians and to
the Colony and then sketched the principles upon which he proposed to
establish reserves on the mainland. In the first place, the reserves
should "in all cases include their cultivated fields and village sites,
for which from habit and association they invariably conceive a strong
attachment, and prize more, for that reason, than for the extent or
value of the land."[60]. Such settlements, in the second place, were
to be entirely self-supporting. The Governor here adverted to the plan
pursued in the United States with regard to Indian reservations, but
stated that that plan was expensive to the Government and debasing to
the Indians. The system followed by the Spanish missions in California,
likewise, he regarded as defective, in that it kept the Indians in
a state of pupilage and did not train them to self-government and
self-reliance. He would avoid the evils of both these systems and, in
particular, cultivate the pride of independence. He proposed to that
end, that each family have title to its own plot of ground, but without
power of alienation; that they should be encouraged to add to their
possessions by purchasing property apart from the reserve; "that they
should in all respects be treated as rational beings, capable of acting
and thinking for themselves; and, lastly, that they should be placed
under proper moral and religious training and then be left, under the
protection of the laws, to provide for their own support."[61] "I
have impressed upon the miners," wrote Douglas to Lytton, "the great
fact that the law will protect the Indian equally with the white man,
and regard him in all respects as a fellow subject."[62] "The Indian
population," he wrote to another, "are considered by the laws of
England as fellow subjects, entitled to protection and punishable,
when guilty of offenses, through the sole action of the law."[63]
In a review of the Colonial Indian policy, written in 1875, the
Attorney General stated that that policy "was based on the broad and
experimental principle of treating the Indian as a fellow subject."[64]
It now remains for us to inquire how this Indian policy, so based,
was applied by the Colonial Government to this class of Her Majesty's
subjects; not omitting, as we do so, to notice contrasts to
administration in the United States.
In the administration of justice the courts of British Columbia
treated the Indian as the white man was treated. "When Indians commit
offenses," ordered Governor Douglas, "they are to be dealt with
impartially and to receive a fair trial before the proper authorities,
and not to be treated like the wild beasts of the forest."[65] We get
a glimpse of the way in which the law was administered with respect
to Indians from the terse records of the old Ft. Hope Police Book. An
Indian, for stealing money from another was sentenced to two days in
jail. Two Indians, for being drunk and disorderly, were sent to jail
for twenty-four hours. Simon B. McClure was charged by an Indian with
assaulting him and was fined forty shillings. William Welch, charged
by another Indian with the same offense, claimed that the Indian had
beaten his dog and attacked him with a knife; Welch was let off, and
the Indian was reprimanded. An Indian who struck an Indian woman in the
face with a gun had his hair cut off. J. Spencer Thompson, for selling
about one pint of liquor to an Indian had to pay a fine of $100, with
costs, and lost his license to sell liquor. The sentences, it will be
observed, were generally light for minor offenses, but not for selling
liquor to Indians. Whites and Chinamen, the records reveal, were
treated exactly as the Indians. Of course for grave offenses Indians,
as well as others, were bound over to the assizes. In a number of cases
Indians were hung for murder. This even-handed, carefully adjusted
dealing out of justice to Indians, whites, and Chinese alike, contrasts
plainly with the carelessness, ruthlessness, and lack of system in the
territories. One could scarcely imagine an event like the following
occurring on an American frontier: "May 28, 1862. Chas. Millard, Capt.
of the Ft. Hope (steamboat) appeared to answer the complaint of Jim (an
Indian) for having on the 16th inst. broken and otherwise damaged his
canoe at Union, valued at twenty-five dollars ($25.00).
"Ordered to pay four pounds ($20.00) being the damage sustained by the
Indian as sworn to by C. C. Craigie & Wm. Yates. Paid. P. O'Reilly, J.
P."[66]
It is difficult in the mining regions south of the Line to find
satisfactory records as to how justice was administered to the Indian.
The reservation system, as it was being applied in the Pacific
Northwest, weakened the ancient tribal authority; the "subsidy plan"
tended to alienate the people from the chiefs, and the presence of
Agents lessened their prestige in the eyes of the young or of those
inclined to be bad. The Agents, on their part, had no authority for the
punishment of criminal acts. If they had possessed magisterial powers,
both with regard to whites and Indians, justice might have been better
administered. Local authorities had no jurisdiction over Indians
who were on reservations, although they sometimes punished those who
were off of them.[67] Only United States courts had full power, but
these courts were slow in action, and could not be expected, moreover,
to take cognizance of minor cases. Indian criminals, finally, were
sometimes arrested by army officials and tried by army courts with
scanty consideration.[68] For the Indian, indeed, there seems to have
been at this period practically no real protection before the law in
the American procedure.
In case of Indian outbreak the British Columbia system aimed to punish
offenders as individuals and not to take revenge on tribes. One of
the marked features of the history of the Colony of British Columbia
is that there was but one serious Indian outbreak during the colonial
period.[69] This happened in April, 1864, when some Chilcotin Indians
killed roadmakers and settlers to the number of fourteen. The whole
tribe went on the warpath, but were subdued by volunteers from New
Westminster and Cariboo. Rewards of $250 each were offered for the
individual murderers, the aim being, as Governor Seymour expressed it,
"to secure justice, not vengeance."[70] Too often, south of the Line,
in case of Indian depredations, there was no discrimination between the
tribe and guilty members of the tribe.[71]