No scientist has devoted more time and study to the California Indians
than Dr. A. L. Kroeber. In his description of California tribes and
stocks, published in the Handbook of American Indians, he states that
the California natives are rather shorter than the majority of those in
eastern North America, and in the south, they are unusually dark. The
astonishing characteristic of California Indians is their diversified
languages. There are twenty-one distinct linguistic families. The larger
stocks such as the Athapascan, Shoshonean and Yuman have forced their
way into the State, whereas the great majority are small bands and may
be considered purely Californian.
While pottery was practically unknown, textile arts (particularly
basket-making) were very highly developed. “Houses were often made of
grass, tule, or brush, or of bark, sometimes covered with earth. Only in
the northwest part of the State were small houses of planks in use. In
this region, as well as on the Santa Barbara islands, wooden canoes were
also made, but over the greater part of the State a raft of tules was
the only means of navigation. Agriculture was nowhere practised. Deer
and small game were hunted, and there was considerable fishing; but the
bulk of the food was vegetable. The main reliance was placed on numerous
varieties of acorns, and next to these, on seeds, especially of grasses
and herbs. Roots and berries were less used.[58]
“Both totemism and a true gentile organization were totally lacking in
all parts of the State. The mythology of the Californians was
characterized by unusually well-developed and consistent creation myths,
and by the complete lack not only of migration but of ancestor
traditions. Their ceremonies were numerous and elaborate as compared
with the prevailing simplicity of life, but they lacked almost totally
the rigid ritualism and extensive symbolism that pervade the ceremonies
of most of America. One set of ceremonies was usually connected with a
secret religious society; another, often spectacular, was held in
remembrance of the dead.”
We are concerned in this book with the condition of the California
Indians the past sixty years. Without an exception on the American
continent, there is no area in which the native population has so
suddenly and generally diminished. The confiscation of the mission
properties by the Mexican Government, followed by the great influx of
gold-hunters, adventurers and ranchmen from 1849–1860, are responsible
for the deplorable condition in which these Indians found themselves
about 1880. Prior to the influx of the Forty-niners, the Indians had
been self-supporting (although the action of the Mexican government came
near bringing about their destruction). California people themselves
took little interest in the wretched condition of the aboriginal
inhabitants and it was not until the United States Board of Indian
Commissioners and the Indian Rights Association became active and sent
commissions or individuals to California, that reforms were inaugurated.
Honorable Albert K. Smiley, a citizen of California (and founder of the
Lake Mohonk Conference) was especially active in this humanitarian work.
A Mr. Painter was sent out by the Indian Rights Association in 1885.
Painter made a thorough investigation and laid formal complaint, with
the backing of the Mohonk Conference, before the President of the United
States. The usual delays occurred. The President referred the matter to
the Attorney General, who in turn referred it to the Secretary of the
Interior. The Indian Rights Association now assumed responsibility, and
Mr. Herbert Welsh, Secretary of that organization, sent his check for
$3,300 to be held while the case of the Indians was pending before the
court.[59]
The wrongs of the Indians were made public at Lake Mohonk by various
speakers, and through the country generally by Mrs. H. H. Jackson. The
case of the mission Indians, sustained by these various organizations
and individuals, was heard in the courts and resulted in victory for the
Indians of California.
During the ’90’s the Indians were further evicted and became exceedingly
destitute. Many died of starvation. The Indians seemed utterly unable to
protect themselves and miners and ranchmen alike took every advantage of
them. As an illustration of the situation in California as compared with
that in the Black Hills, South Dakota, I will here relate a story told
me at Deadwood in 1889.
A miner, who had spent some ten years in California, came to the Black
Hills about 1875, when gold was discovered. He wore on his watch-chain,
as a fob, two Indian teeth. In a Deadwood dance hall he informed some
convivial companions, that on one occasion he took a California Indian
by the hair and struck him in the mouth with his six-shooter, knocking
out several teeth. Two of these he had a jeweler drill and wire to his
watch-chain, as souvenirs. An old trapper, who happened to be present,
suggested that the miner procure one or two Sioux teeth, as they might
be different from “Digger teeth”, and would add to his collection. Out
in the foothills in the course of a few days, the miner met a Sioux
Indian, seized him and undertook to treat him as he had the poor
California native. Instead of teeth, as a souvenir he received a
knife-thrust between the ribs and was lucky to escape with his life.
While interest in the California Indians seemed to lag, Charles F.
Lummis, Esq., a citizen of the State, and editor of a prominent western
publication, _The Land of Sunshine_, began a campaign in the early 90’s
on behalf of the various tribes and bands, most of whom had been evicted
from their ancient homes. I present a brief bibliography of Mr. Lummis’
articles at the conclusion of this chapter, as they sum up in a masterly
fashion the wrongs of the Indian, and the efforts of good citizens to
right them. In all my reading, I have seen no stronger, more direct and
interesting appeals than these made by Mr. Lummis in his journal (now
published under the title, _Out West_.)
The National Indian Association through its Northern California Branch
became active; there was formed the California Indian Association of
which C. E. Kelsey, Esq., a prominent California attorney, was elected
Secretary. This organization cooperated with the others and the Board of
Indian Commissioners and should be credited with the salvation of the
remaining few thousand California aborigines from pauperism.
Mr. Kelsey cooperated with Mr. Lummis and really represented the people
of California. At last Congress was forced to act, the Indian Office
instituted reforms (which it should have inaugurated more than twenty
years ago) and satisfactory results were obtained.
Mr. Kelsey at my request kindly prepared for me a summary of the
California Indians and the work of rescue as projected by friends, and
carried to perfection through his intelligent and unselfish labors. He
has also written me a long letter and I take the liberty of appending in
the form of footnotes a number of extracts from his letter, in addition
to the article.
MR. KELSEY’S BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CALIFORNIA INDIANS
The aboriginal population of California was large, possibly equal to
that of all the rest of the United States. Powers, in his “Indians of
California,” 1877, a work which has been liberally quoted by about
everyone who has since written of the California Indians, estimates the
number at 750,000. Barbour and Wozencraft, who traveled over the State
in 1851 as members of the California Indian Commission, estimated the
native population to be between 200,000 and 300,000. C. Hart Merriam[60]
estimates the numbers at the beginning of the nineteenth century at
260,000. Dr. Kroeber estimates the number at not less than 150,000. The
figures of the Bureau of Indian Affairs for 1913 shows a little less
than 20,000, being slightly larger than the U. S. census for 1910. This
decrease is certainly extraordinary, being nearly 90% of the most
conservative estimate of former population, and nearly all taking place
within the memories of persons now living. The causes are variously
given as war, famine, whiskey, disease, etc., and all doubtless played
their parts in the decrease. Dr. Merriam states the causes as follows:
[Illustration:
LINGUISTIC STOCKS IN CALIFORNIA
From Handbook of American Indians.
]
“The principal cause of the appallingly great and rapid decrease in the
Indians of California is not the number directly slain by the Whites, or
the number directly killed by whiskey or disease, but a much more subtle
and dreadful thing: it is the gradual but progressive and resistless
confiscation of their lands and homes, in consequence of which they are
forced to seek refuge in remote and barren localities, often far from
water, usually with an impoverished supply of food, and not
infrequently, in places where the winter climate is too severe for their
enfeebled constitutions. Victims of the aggressive selfishness of the
Whites, outcasts in the land of their fathers, outraged in their most
sacred institutions, weakened in body, broken in spirit, and fully
conscious of the hopelessness of their condition, must we wonder that
the wail for the dead is often heard in their camps?”
The Special Investigating Agent, appointed under the Act of March 3,
1905, states it as largely due to the “progressive absorption by the
white race of the Indians’ every means of existence.”[61] During the
famines to which all Indian bands were subject after the American
occupation, the old people and especially the children would die.
After California was fully American, the National Government at
Washington, sent out a Commission of distinguished citizens, as it has
done many times in other parts of the country, to make treaties with the
California Indians. This commission consisted of the Honorable George W.
Barbour, Honorable Redick McKee and Honorable O. M. Wozencraft. They
traveled about with a military escort and made treaties with all Indians
west of the Sierra Nevada, about 90% of all in the State at that time.
Two treaties were made by the whole Commission. They then separated,
each member taking a different part of the State. Four treaties were
made by Redick McKee, four by George W. Barbour and eight by O. M.
Wozencraft. John C. Fremont, E. D. Keyes, George Stoneman, and others
afterward well known, signed as witnesses to some of these eighteen
treaties. The treaties were much alike and were all definite and simple.
In each treaty the Indians accepted the sovereignty of the United
States, agreed to keep the peace with Whites and with other Indians,
ceded to the United States their title to their lands and agreed to
accept reservations, duly laid out by metes and bounds in the treaties.
On its part the United States reserved for Indian use forever the
specified reservations and agreed to pay for the lands ceded by the
Indians, in goods, not cash. When these treaties went to Washington,
they were accompanied by a statement calling attention to the
extraordinary cheapness of the lands acquired and congratulating
themselves and the country upon the fact that the Indians were too
unsophisticated to demand annuities or money. The goods promised
consisted of thousands of beeves, thousands of sacks of flour, thousands
of blankets, suits of clothes, dresses, tools, work animals, cloth,
iron, steel, etc., worth about $1,000,000 at that time. Teachers,
schools, blacksmiths, farmers, etc., were also promised on a large
scale. The reservations promised aggregate more than seven and a half
million acres of land. The eighteen treaties were signed by 422 chiefs
representing 180 tribes, or bands. Some of the reservations were laid
out in the mining districts and there was much opposition to the
treaties among the miners. At that time, 1851–’52, Indian treaties were
submitted to the Senate of the United States for ratification. These
eighteen California treaties were duly brought before the Senate and
were not ratified. Nothing further was heard about them until, fifty-two
years later, they were discovered in the secret archives of the Senate,
the injunction of secrecy removed and the treaties published. The
Government of the United States seems never to have made any attempt to
make any other or further treaties. The Government nevertheless has
taken the land and the reservations, as well, and every other benefit to
be derived from the eighteen treaties, but has not on its part paid the
price agreed or carried out any other engagement then made. It would
seem that if the Government received the benefits of the treaties, it
should pay the price agreed, whether the treaties were ratified or not,
and that the Government should have taken some steps to acquire the
Indian right of occupancy, a right which has not been legally terminated
to this day. The failure of the treaties and the ensuing period of
inaction by the National Government, were disastrous to the Indians of
California. Not a foot of land remained which they could call their own.
There was no source of aboriginal food supply which might not be
appropriated by some white man any day, and most of the country was soon
appropriated for mines or cattle or agriculture. The Indians were forced
into a hand-to-mouth existence, interspersed with periods of famine,
during which the rising generation perished. A great variety of
diseases, previously unknown, were introduced among the Indians, against
which they had no inherited immunity. Diseases which among white people
are considered of little consequence, such as whooping-cough, measles,
etc., are fatal to Indians, especially during periods of scarcity. The
more virulent diseases such as smallpox, tuberculosis, etc., also took
their toll from the Indian camps, and whiskey claimed its thousands of
victims.
In any other part of the United States, the failure of the treaties
would doubtless have resulted in a general Indian war. This was not
possible in California. The extraordinary number of Indian dialects
(over 135 are now known), belonging to some twenty diverse and
antagonistic racial stocks, was enough in itself, to have prevented
anything like united action. Within a year or so California was occupied
by from 100,000 to 200,000 active, vigorous, masterful men, armed with
the best weapons of the day. The Indians could not have mustered 30,000
warriors in the mining districts and possibly not in all California, and
they were armed with bows and arrows and clubs.[62] The Indian cause was
hopeless from the start. Nevertheless, there ensued a period of near
war, with occasional clashes between Indians and Whites, which was fully
as disastrous to the Indians as an open campaign would have been. The
encounters are referred to, locally, as “battles”, of which quite a
large number are recorded. The Indians were usually surrounded and shot
down by posses of miners and citizens, in retaliation of some aggression
by the Indians, or some alleged aggression. Some Indian bands are known
to have been “wiped out” because their room was wanted by cattle men or
settlers. No action by the Federal Government for the protection of the
Indians is recorded. In one case the difficulties resulted in actual
border warfare. The Hupa Indians, goaded into action by the influx of
settlers into their valley, went on the warpath, during the sixties.
They were joined by their neighbors, the Yurocs, or Lower Klamaths, and
a sharp frontier war ensued for a couple of years. The Government
finally bought out the squatters, restored the land to the Indians and
gave the Hupas and Yurocs definite reservations. A similar trouble arose
at Round Valley in the eighties, but war was averted by one of those
compromises well known in the West, under which the Indians received
one-quarter of their own land and the settlers received three-quarters.
Reports published from time to time at Washington show that the Indian
Office was not wholly without knowledge of Indian conditions in
California, but little was attempted and less accomplished for Indian
relief. Several reservations were established, or attempted to be
established by Executive order. One was invalidated by the Courts, which
held the land to be within a Mexican land grant. One was raided and
seized by settlers, who had sufficient political influence to hold the
land and secure the cancellation of the Executive order. One was laid
out with fine timber included and another was desired by cattlemen and
sufficient influence was concentrated upon Congress to secure their
“opening to settlement”. Only one small reservation of that period
remains to this day, and this one, Tule River, was diminished in size
more than half, without the knowledge or consent of the Indians. The few
items appearing in the Indian Office reports, or in reports to the Board
of Indian Commissioners, were rather more optimistic than the situation
warranted, for the officers making those reports were at the same time
giving an account of their own stewardship and doubtless mentioned as
many favorable things as they could. The fact that favorable items were
so few is eloquent of the conditions then existing. Dr. C. Hart Merriam
estimates that the California Indians were decreasing at an average rate
of 7,000 per annum[63], and this must have been under conditions
involving an appalling amount of misery and suffering. It was well
understood that the California Indians were “fading away” rapidly, yet
it seems to have occurred to no one to look into the matter and see why
the Indians were decreasing in numbers or what the physical steps were
by which the Indians were being faded. Commissioner Wozencraft, in the
early fifties, published an appeal to the people of California, but it
met with no particular response. The process of ejecting Indians from
the ownership or possession of anything considered of value to any white
man went on without check, and the number of Indians who perished
diminished each year, simply because there were fewer Indians left to
die. It was hardly to be expected that the members of this savage race
could at once readjust themselves to the fierce civilization under which
they had been submerged so suddenly, and only a few Indians were able to
do so. Nor could it be expected, doubtless, that the new white
population, so largely from the Middle West, with 200 years’ traditions
of Indian fighting behind them, should show any particular consideration
for Indians who were unable to fight. The attitude of the great majority
of white citizens was apathetic, rather than hostile, and the more
active minority were allowed their will with the Indians. For years no
local church seems to have made any efforts on behalf of Indians, and
though there were not wanting distinguished instances where individuals
braved local public opinion by standing out for the rights of Indians,
the effect upon the times was small. The attitude of the Californians is
reflected by the provisions of their early codes in regard to Indians.
See Act of the Legislature of California approved April 22, 1850, Ch.
408, section 3650 et seq. of the California Code of that day. Indians
were placed under justices of the peace. Originally an Indian could not
sue or be sued, but this was altered in 1855. Cruel treatment of Indian
minors was punishable by a fine of $10. Any Indian who had fallen into
the clutches of the law upon a finable offense, had his labor sold to
the highest bidder, until his fine was worked out, the purchaser giving
a bond for the fine.[64] Any Indian could upon the complaint of any
citizen, be haled into a justice court, adjudged an “able-bodied Indian
vagrant” and his labor sold to the highest bidder for four months.[65]
These laws were never enforced very oppressively and had become a dead
letter long before they were finally repealed in 1883. Nor were State
laws the only ones of which Indians might complain. After the American
occupation, for some forty years, there was no practical way in which an
Indian could in California acquire title to land from the public domain.
The Indian was not a citizen and could not select land under the
homestead or other land acts. He was not an alien and could not be
naturalized as a citizen. There was no law under which a California
Indian could become a citizen, until the passage of the general
allotment Act in 1887.[66] The Indian homestead Acts of 1875 and 1883
were of little value, as the technical requirements were too onerous, no
one was designated to see that Indians were assisted and few Indians
ever heard of the Acts. Under the general allotment Act and subsequent
to 1891, some 1800 Indian allotments were made in California. This
allotting was done by Special Agents sent from Washington, who were
unfamiliar with local conditions, hence water rights, soil qualities,
timber, etc., were not looked after, and at least two-thirds of these
allotments were of little or no value to the Indian allottees. About
1400 of the 1800 allotments were made in the five northeastern counties
of the State and in these counties the few allotments that were
inhabitable have proved of great value to the Indians. In the remainder
of the State there was little land unappropriated and the allotment laws
brought no relief to the larger number of Indians.[67]
The period of war, near war and oppression lasted rather less than
twenty years and was succeeded by a period of eviction of somewhat
longer duration. At first, when a white man filed on a tract of land and
summarily ejected any Indians he might find living there, the Indians
could move on to some adjoining tract, where the opportunities for
starvation were equally good. But as time went on, land became much
scarcer and fewer land owners were willing to allow Indians to occupy
their ranches even in small part. The evictions continued and as those
recently evicted could find no unoccupied tract to live on, they began
to crowd into other settlements, which had not yet been summoned to
move. The result was that in many parts of the State, the Indians
gradually concentrated in small settlements, locally known as
rancherias, where they lived upon the sufferance of some kindly-disposed
land owner. A change in ownership of the land usually meant eviction for
the Indians. In these rancherias the conditions were unspeakable, both
as to sanitation and morals. The Indians felt they were in their last
ditch and that there was nothing for them to look forward to but
extinction. The Indians were surrounded by civilization, but not of it.
They came in contact chiefly with the vices of civilization and the
vicious white element. Forty years after the American occupation
three-fourths of the California Indians had still to learn what a
missionary might be and nine-tenths of them were still heathen. The
priest and the Levite had passed by on the other side, and the good
Samaritan had been unavoidably detained in Jerusalem.
The first general awakening as to conditions among the Indians of
California came with the publication of Helen Hunt Jackson’s “Century of
Dishonor” and “Ramona”, in the eighties, and by 1890 Congress had passed
an act for the relief of the Indians of Southern California. This was
much needed. The Smiley Commission appointed under this Act increased
the number of small reservations in Southern California from about
seventeen to thirty-four and enlarged most of those formerly in
existence. They were able to give a fixed indefeasible title and these
Indians were thenceforward secure in their homes. The Smiley Commission
was not given funds sufficient to develop water upon the tracts
reserved, a most important matter, for the Indians had been crowded into
the mountains and on to barren tracts, which no white man at that time
wanted. The Southern California Indians had to wait some fifteen to
twenty years longer before an attempt was made to put their lands into
habitable shape, where they could live with some approach to comfort.
The Indians of Northern and Central California, numbering more than
three-fourths of those in the State, received no benefit from the
awakening as to Southern California. Their necessities were fully as
great and they were as fully deserving, but interest in the California
Indians died away largely before anything was accomplished north of
Tehachipi. Two things did follow, first sending some allotting agents to
Northern California, where they did some good, though they largely
failed to live up to their opportunities, and second, a branch of the
National Indian Association was established in Northern California and
mission and school work was begun among the Indians. The policy of this
Association has been to establish a school or a mission and when it is
in good working order to turn it over to some church or society that
will agree to carry on the work. Then the Association establishes
another mission in the same manner. Some twenty missions and schools,
reaching about 12,000 Indians, have been established in California,
directly or indirectly through the efforts of the National Indian
Association or of its Northern California branch. For some eight or ten
years after the founding of the Northern California branch in 1894,
their efforts were largely confined to the establishment of missions and
schools among the Indians and to relieving such cases of distress as
came to their knowledge. There were considerable difficulties. No church
or other organization could afford to take over or begin work unless
there was some fixity of tenure for the Indians. Where the Indians were
subject to eviction at any time, as the majority were, no one could
afford to begin work, for their work might be dissipated any day and the
Indians scattered. Hence, for the first few years the efforts were
confined to those places where Indians held land in some form.
The second awakening began about 1903, when the Northern California
Indian Association, or as it is often called, the California Indian
Association, began its campaign for the relief of the homeless Indians
of California, then supposed to number about 8,000 souls. Every avenue
of assistance proposed seemed to lead back to the land question. Without
some security of tenure it seemed impossible to accomplish any lasting
improvement in Indian conditions, and inasmuch as the landless condition
of the Indians was due to the acts and omissions of the National
Government, the Indian Association appealed to the Congress of the
United States for relief, in so far as land was necessary. The
Association did not ask for reservations, believing that more Indian
reservations in California would be detrimental to all concerned. They
did not ask that the Indians be given farms, or that they should be made
rich; merely that they be given small allotments of land, where they
would be secure. The California Indians have always been
self-sustaining. That is, they have received no aid from the Government
or from anyone else. They have often been below the starvation line and
usually not far above it, but such as their living was, it was their
own. Most of the California Indians have in some measure adjusted
themselves to the industrial life about them and perform whatever labor
they can get. The Indian Association planned not to interfere in any
manner with their independence, or with their industrial position. Above
all things they did not wish the Indians pauperized. Also, the Indian
Association did not wish the Indians concentrated. Where too many
Indians are concentrated in one place, there is not sufficient work and
the Indians themselves have their own reasons for remaining within their
ancestral districts, which we may call superstitious or sentimental. The
old racial antagonism between the antagonistic racial stocks also
renders it inadvisable to concentrate. The Indian Association therefore
proposed that in places where no land for allotment could be secured
from the public domain, small tracts should be purchased, in the
immediate neighborhood of the Indians, where they have friends and
employers.[68]
The Indian Association then, 1904, began a vigorous campaign in
California, largely educational, for the purpose of securing from
Congress the land necessary as a basis for further work on behalf of the
California Indians. In this effort nearly all of the societies working
for the benefit of Indians joined. In Southern California matters had
been nearing a crisis, with the Indians there, owing to lack of water on
most reservations, indefinite boundaries, etc., and they were also
asking for relief. The Sequoya League, of which Charles F. Lummis, Esq.,
was the leading spirit, was the most active body in Southern California.
In 1905 Congress directed an investigation of the whole Indian situation
in California, and C. E. Kelsey, General Secretary of the Northern
California Indian Association, was selected to make the investigation.
The report of this investigation was published by the Indian Office
March 21, 1906. Congress soon made an appropriation of $100,000 for the
relief of the California Indians and $50,000 was further appropriated
two years later. Some further sums were also given for fencing,
surveying and other such items. The plan presented by the Indian
Association met favor with the Board of Indian Commissioners and the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs and was adopted almost _in toto_. Mr.
Kelsey was appointed to have charge of purchasing and allotting such
lands as were required and served until the appropriations were
exhausted. The need for water upon the Southern California reservations
was met chiefly from direct appropriations for the Irrigation Service
and a large share of this work is already completed. The vexing boundary
questions in Southern California have all been settled and some
considerable additions made to the reservations from the public domain
and from purchase. In Northern California the work of getting all
Indians on their own small fraction of land is not quite so far along,
but is nearing completion. When, in 1903, the Northern California Indian
Association began its movement to secure land for the landless Indians
of California, the land situation of the California Indians was
estimated about as follows:
On reservations, So. Calif. 3,500
On reservations, No. Calif. 1,700
On allotments, So. Calif. 250
On allotments, No. Calif. 2,800
On land owned by churches, societies, etc., and by themselves 1,100
Estimated to be landless 8,000
——————
17,350
It was estimated that about 2,000 could be given homes from the public
domain. The above estimates proved inadequate in some respects. There
were some 2,000 more Indians in the State than had been estimated and
fewer Indians had land of their own than was supposed. Still as it
proved possible to take care of 4,200 from the public domain and within
the National Forests, the number from whom land must be purchased was
not increased.
Congress has recently appropriated $10,000 more for the purchase of land
for these Indians, but this will not be enough to take care of one-half
of those remaining. When this appropriation shall have been used, nearly
10,000 of the California Indians will have been given homes. The others
should be provided for immediately. It should be understood that all
this has been done without the establishment of reservations or agencies
and with practically no expense for maintenance. In comparison with the
magnitude of the work, the expense has been small and it must be
conceded that the debt which the Government owes the California Indians
is by no means extinguished.
The present land situation (1914) in California is about as follows:
On reservations, No. Calif. 1,944
On reservations, So. Calif. 3,416
On allotments, No. Calif. (Old) 2,800
On allotments, So. Calif. (Old) 250
On allotments, No. Calif. (New) 400
On allotments, So. Calif. (New) 238
On National Forests 3,000
On newly purchased lands 4,800
Allotments arranged for 600
On land owned by Indians 300
On land owned by churches, societies, etc. 250
Not yet taken care of 1,841
——————
19,839
The awakening in regard to the California Indians was by no means
confined to land. The Indian Association has been working upon public
sentiment from the first. After the land purchases were under way, the
Association began efforts to secure schools and school privileges and to
urge religious and other organizations to take up various phases of
Indian work. The Indian Office established some eight day schools and
increased the capacity of others. Also an increased number of field
matrons were appointed. In 1904 it was estimated that only 1000 Indian
children of school age in Northern California were in any kind of a
school, out of 2800. By 1914 it is estimated that less than 1000 were
not in school. The increase in school attendance is largely in the
public schools of the State. Racial prejudice against Indians in
California in the earlier days was intense and the idea of allowing an
Indian child in school was considered preposterous. As the Indians
decreased in numbers all fear of them passed away, and in time a
kindlier feeling arose. For many years this racial prejudice prevented
the greater number of Indians from getting an adequate amount of work.
With increased population and the increased development of California
came an increased demand for labor with a diminished prejudice against
Indians. The industrial position of the Indians has therefore improved.
In some parts of the State the Indians are fairly well employed at fair
pay. In others there is little work for anyone and in these portions of
the State Indians have to go many miles for a little work. They cut
wood, put up hay, cultivate and pick hops, pick grapes and other fruit
and do all kinds of odd jobs. As their employment is still largely
seasonal, it is not wholly satisfactory. One excellent thing about the
more recent revival of interest in the California Indians is that it is
largely in California itself.
In 1907 there were five Protestant missions to the Indians of Northern
California and two or three Roman Catholic missions. By 1914 the
Protestant missions have increased to seventeen, with twenty
missionaries. The Catholic work has also been extended. There are now
missionaries in the field for about 14,000 of the California Indians and
quite a number of local churches have interested themselves in the
Indians in their own neighborhoods. The number of converts probably does
not exceed 4,000.
In California a considerable number of Indians, some 3,600, were found
living within the National Forests, of whom some 600 had allotments made
before the forests were established. Further legislation was necessary
before the 3,000 could be given their own homes. This was accomplished
in 1910. (36 Stat. L. 855)
The California Indian, often termed “Digger”, has been considerably
maligned. Statements are not wanting that the California Indians were of
deficient mentality, little above the brutes and about the lowest of all
human beings. Such statements are entitled to no credence. Kroeber,
Barrett, Goddard, Merriam, Powers, Lummis, and all writers having actual
acquaintance with the California Indians, place them as equal to any of
the other American tribes. Teachers in the California Indian schools say
that the California Indian children are as intelligent and capable as
any Indians they have ever taught. Nearly one thousand Indian children
are in the public schools of California and their scholarship is in no
wise inferior to that of the white children of the same age, though it
must be admitted that few Indian children attend after adolescence. A
few of those in better financial circumstances have graduated from high
schools with honors. Employers of Indian labor, without exception,
pronounce them honest, reliable and capable. They can be trusted to work
alone, which cannot be done with Oriental labor or floating Whites.
Conviction of an Indian for theft is almost unheard of. Statistics
gathered in 1909 showed twenty-eight Indians in the prisons of
California for crimes of violence, mostly committed when under the
influence of liquor, and not one Indian for theft or robbery or crimes
against property. This is remarkable when we consider the straits under
which the Indians are often placed.
Present conditions look favorable for the California Indians. In
Southern California the most harassing troubles have been settled, and
water is being supplied wherever possible. Southern California is
over-schooled. The Government schools have a capacity for about 1200
pupils and there are about 800 Indian children of school age in that
district. In Northern California seven-eighths of the Indians have been
supplied with minute amounts of land. The California white people seem
aroused to the need for other forms of assistance and it seems unlikely
that matters will ever revert to former conditions. The new
appropriation will take care of a part of the Indians still homeless.
More has been accomplished in this “spurt” than all others put together.
This may be attributed to the fact that the external influences lasted
longer. That is, an outsider from the Indian Association was in charge
of the work for some eight years. The last one hundred years tend to
show that the Indian Office has not within itself the power to initiate
any movement for the relief of Indians. The spirit that compels redress
has not resided in the Indian Office. The Indian Office has received at
all times sufficient reports from the field and may be presumed to have
had knowledge of conditions at all times and yet every movement for
relief has come from the outside, from individuals, or more often from
associations who have compelled an unwilling bureau to act, or, often an
unwilling Congress to act. This is doubtless always the case with
bureaucracy. I am inclined to think this results largely from the manner
of organization. As it is, the authority to decide questions lies with
persons who seldom or never see the field and are without personal
knowledge of that they are doing. The men who know the field have no
power and the men who have the power do not know the field.
Bureaucracy has one curious result and I am inclined to think more so in
the Indian Service than in others. The employees seem to lose all power
of initiative and all sense of individuality. They soon learn to resent
any but routine work. This is probably why the reports of conditions in
California and elsewhere have fallen into deaf pigeonholes.
My Brother’s Keeper.—_Charles F. Lummis_, 1899. Land of Sunshine.
Vol. XI, pp. 139, 207, 263, 333.
My Brother’s Keeper.—_Charles F. Lummis_, 1900. Land of Sunshine.
Vol. XII, pp. 28, 90.
The Story of Cyrus Hawk.—_C. J. Crandall_, 1900. Land of Sunshine.
Vol. XII, pp. 352.
The Pity of It.—_Bertha S. Wilkins_, 1900. Land of Sunshine. Vol.
XII, pp. 244.
The Sequoya League.—_Charles F. Lummis_, 1903. Out West. Vol. XVIII,
pp. 81, 213, 355.
Turning a New Leaf. The Warner Ranch Indians, Out West, 1903. Vol.
XVIII, pp. 441; Out West, Part II, Vol. XVIII, pp. 589.
The Sequoya League.—_Charles F. Lummis_, 1903. Out West. Vol. XVIII,
pp. 477, 625.
Bullying the “Quaker Indians.”—_Charles F. Lummis_, 1903. Out West.
Vol. XVIII, pp. 669.
The Sequoya League.—_Charles F. Lummis_, 1903. Out West. Vol. XVIII,
pp. 743.
Reports of the Board of Indian Commissioners, and Interior
Department, 1871–1908, for full descriptions of investigations, etc.
-----
Footnote 58:
Handbook of American Indians, page 191, Vol I.
Footnote 59:
Eighteenth Annual Report of the Board of Indian Commissioners, 1886,
page 46.
Footnote 60:
American Anthropology, page 599, volume VII.
Footnote 61:
Report of C. E. Kelsey, Special Agent, March 21, 1906.
Footnote 62:
The Federal census for 1850 showed a population of 92,597 Indians;
State Census of 1852, 255,122 Indians, 31,266 being “domesticated.”
Footnote 63:
American Anthropologist, page 603, Vol. VII, No. 4.
Footnote 64:
Sec. 3662.
Footnote 65:
Sec. 3668.
Footnote 66:
Act of Feb. 28, 1887 (24 Statutes at Large, page 388).
Footnote 67:
In thirteen cases I found the land the Indians were occupying, that
is, the more valuable little valleys, was outside of the reservation
as laid out and in six of these cases the land occupied was not only
unpatented and unprotected, but the land patented to the Indians was
barren rocks, utterly worthless. In one case the reservation patented
was six miles away from the land selected for the Indians in an
entirely different township. In most cases the boundaries were not
marked at all and the adjoining owners moved the lines over onto the
Indians.
Footnote 68:
When Kelsey took charge he found on no reservation was there an
adequate supply of water for irrigation and on most of them none at
all. This in a country where irrigation is absolutely life. On no
reservation was there any attempt made to protect the water supply,
and land which controlled the water was carefully left out of the
reservations in most cases. I think the surveyors must have done so
knowingly. This meant fifteen or twenty years’ slow starvation for the
Indians, and greatly increased difficulties later when we tried to
correct things. I presume I have spent one-third of my time during the
last ten years in fighting for things for the Southern California
Indians, which ought to have been settled twenty years before.