While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
An Unbroken Administration Of Indian Affairs Should Mean Marked Progress.
For the last thirty years nothing has interfered with progress in civilizing the
Indians more seriously than has the frequent change of men and measures in the
administration of Indian Affairs. For the first time in our history a
Commissioner of Indian Affairs is now completing his fifth year in office. The
time and strength of a Commissioner for the first two years or more of service
must be almost wholly engrossed in learning the details of his official duties,
in withstanding political and commercial pressure to make unwise appointments or
contracts, in mastering the routine of his work and acquiring some personal
acquaintance with appointees and some detailed knowledge of needed improvements
in the service. As a rule, when a good man in this place, by experience, has
become fitted for the greatest usefulness and efficiency, with a change of
administration he goes out of office. His successor has the same lessons to
begin over again. Not infrequently good pieces of work begun, reforms
undertaken, by one Commissioner have been ignored or undone by his successor
because the new Commissioner did not comprehend the importance of the measures.
Too often what a good Commissioner has sought to accomplish has thus failed
under his successor. The true objects for which the Indian Bureau exists have
been ignored.
It is with especial gratification, therefore, that we cooperate with the present
Commissioner as he goes on with the work, which five years of experience have
fitted him to do efficiently. With the general policy of the department as
indicated in the reports and the official utterances and actions of the present
Commissioner for the most part we heartily concur. We take a less critical view
of the Government schools for Indians than does the last report of the
Commissioner, and we deprecate what seems to be a growing tendency to approve
large leases of Indian lands, notwithstanding the clearly expressed official
publications as to the evils which follow the leasing of Indian lands and the
making of annual money payments to Indians; but we speak of these exceptions
only to emphasize the fact that in general we heartily approve the animus and
the acts of the present administration of the Bureau. And we believe that the
generally successful administration of Indian Affairs for the last four or five
years gives reason to expect that within the next three or four years a
continuous administration can and will make marked progress in the work of
fitting the Indians for citizenship and introducing them to the duties of
American citizens in the States and Territories where they reside.
Especial Object Of The Indian Bureau, Its Own Destruction.
That he take a general, comprehensive view of the purpose for which the Bureau
of Indian Affairs exists, is the most serious demand upon a Commissioner. One of
the good results of longer familiarity with the duties of the office is that it
qualifies an administrative and executive officer to take such a view, and to
shape the administration of the Bureau in all its details toward its desired
end.
There can be no doubt that the object of the Indian Bureau is such an
administration of its special trusts and such a discharge of its special duties
as shall help forward in all right ways the civilization of the Indians, and as
soon as possible shall make all Indians self-supporting self-respecting, and
useful citizens of the United States.
This means that, unlike many other divisions of Governmental work, the Indian
Bureau should always aim at its own speedy discontinuance! Its success is to be
shown not in self perpetuation, but in self-destruction! It was created to meet
a temporary need, and not to do a permanent work. It is not essential to our
American system. It is a makeshift, although needful for a time. Whatever tends
to its indefinite perpetuation is un-American and is to be regarded with
suspicion. The worth of the Bureau, and success in its administration, should be
measured by the effectiveness with which it carries out measures to make itself
needless! It should steadily aim at its own early destruction.
As a temporary provision of machinery necessary for the bringing of the savage
aborigines among our inhabitants into a life of self support and civilization,
under American laws and institutions, the Indian Bureau, by one method and
another, has accomplished much. The tendency of such a branch of the
administration is to perpetuate itself to regard itself as in itself an end, and
not as a mere means to an end. Against any feeling that Indian agents and
special Indian funds and separate Indian schools are to be regarded as a
permanent feature of the Government we wish to protest, and we commend to the
department and to Congress the careful consideration of measures and means
speedily to render a separate Indian Bureau and a peculiar system of
administration for Indians superfluous and undesirable. Within the next ten
years most of the work of the Bureau can be Annual Report Of Board Of Indian
Commissioners accomplished. The administration of what will then remain to be
done can safely be placed under the care of the Treasury, the courts of the
several States and of the United States, and the school system of our land.
Emphasize The Family And Citizenship, Break Up The Tribe And The Tribal Funds.
Savage tribes left in isolation will perpetuate savagery for generations.
Children of savage parents, if early surrounded "by Christian civilization, make
such advances toward the standard of civilized life that the second generation
has gained more than would be expected from centuries of unaided evolution where
savages are left to themselves. If the present system of Government schools were
continued and, with such industrial modifications as are now contemplated, were
extended only to the 20,000 Navaho, in 1910 there would be hardly any Indians in
the United States under 40 years of age who would not have known several years
of schooling. Schools alone can not make over a race, but no one instrument is
so powerful in producing desirable changes in a race as are schools for the
young. What you would have come out in the life of a people you must put into
their schools."
Regulations Adopted To Check Polygamy, To Secure License Before Marriage, To
Keep Registers Of Family Relationships, Etc.
In our last annual report we called attention to the great need of regulations
to prevent polygamy and to build up a true family feeling among the Indians. It
gives us great pleasure to report that, acting upon the suggestions of this
board and in consultation with us, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, with the
approval of the Secretary of the Interior, has issued regulations requiring each
agency and sub-agency to make and to keep up a register of all Indians, giving
their family relations so far as possible, and from this time on keeping an
accurate record of marriages, births, and deaths. These regulations further
prohibit polygamous marriages; require a license before marriage in order to
insure the prevention of polygamy and the proper age in the "contracting
parties, etc.; and they further require the solemnization of each marriage by
missionary, minister, priest, or civil officer of the State or Territory, as the
applicants may choose, with return of names of the contracting parties and
dates, to be made by the person who officiates at the marriage and to be duly
recorded at the agency. Marriage certificates, designed to be framed and hung in
Indian homes, are also issued free of expense to all Indians who are duly
married. Since the severally act has already made full citizens of more than
60,000 Indians, and since all who thus become citizens are under obligation to
observe the laws which govern marriage in the State or Territory in which they
reside, it is evident that these regulations were greatly needed and should be
carefully carried out at every agency.
These Registers Give A Basis For Division Of Funds.
But our board have had another and a hardly less important object in view, in
urging the adoption of these regulations and the careful preparation and keeping
of a register of marriages, births, and deaths at each agency. We believe that
the great undivided tribal funds are a serious hindrance to the civilization of
the Indians. The wish to share in the annual interest payments from such funds
holds many Indians away from civilized life, and binds them in allegiance to the
old tribal system, while they should be learning allegiance to the Constitution
and laws of the United States and sharing in the civilized life of the States
and Territories. We wish to see these tribal funds broken up as rapidly as is
consistent with due regard to what is best for the Indians.
But whenever the Government has undertaken to distribute tribal property to the
individuals who make up the tribe, one of the most serious obstacles in the way
of the speedy and just performance of this task has been the lack of an
authentic list of the persons who are rightly entitled to share in such a
distribution. All who have watched the progress of the difficult task imposed
upon the Dawes Commission in bringing the Indian Territory under the sway of law
and fairly dividing the property which was nominally held in common, know how
much the difficulty of the work of the Commission has been increased by the lack
of such authentic and accurate lists.
It has been our hope and it is our confident expectation that the registers
already opened at substantially all the Indian agencies, except the New York,
the Navaho, and Pueblo, will speedily provide authoritative lists, which can be
made the basis for the rapidly approaching distribution of property owned by
Indians in common. And we believe that the entire administration of the Indian
Bureau in all its methods should be conducted with this end in view. When
Congress, in 1871, resolved to make no more treaties with Indian tribes as
independent nations, for the first time the emphasis of governmental action was
put where it should rest, namely, upon the relation of the individual Indian to
the Government of the United States and to the State or Territory where he
resides.
The severalty act has successfully begun the work of breaking up the great
reservations into individual holdings and putting responsibility for the right
use of his own bodily powers in labor, and for" the right use of his own land,
upon the individual Indian.
We believe that the next great step should now be taken, and that Congress
during the present session should enact a law general in its terms, fixing a
date after which no Indian can be born into tribal relations, which shall give
him a right to an undivided share of tribal funds or tribal property. We believe
that within the year registers of every tribe should be prepared, which should
fix authoritatively a list of the names of those men, women, and children who,
if living, should be entitled (say on the 1st day of January, 1904) to an equal
share in the tribal property of each tribe. Let no children born after that date
have any right to tribal property, save as by the laws of inheritance in the
State or Territory where they reside they may become entitled, as heirs, to a
share of the holding of their parents or other relatives.
Then let such a general law declare, that on a given date (say January 1, 1904)
the tribal funds which belong to each Indian tribe shall be broken up into a
number of equal individual holdings, one to each person entitled on that date to
share therein. Let the names of all persons so entitled to share be entered upon
the books of the Treasury, and an individual account be kept with each such
Indian shareholder in the tribal funds.
Let such a general law further provide that the President of the United States
be authorized and directed, whenever it shall appear to his satisfaction that a
considerable majority of the shareholders in the funds of any such tribe are
capable of managing their own money affairs, by Executive order to fix a date at
which the principal and accrued interest, if any, of each such share shall be
paid by Treasury check to each such individual shareholder or to his heirs under
the laws of the State or Territory in which he resides or did reside at the time
of his death.
After the division of tribal funds into individual shares upon the books of the
Treasury, and until the date, for the payment of such individual shares shall be
fixed by the President, let the interest upon each individual share be paid to
each shareholder.
The question how individual shares to orphans and minors could be properly
guarded through the laws and the courts, which each State or Territory provides
for this purpose, should be carefully considered in framing this law.
The additional expense for clerical work in opening these individual accounts
would be slight compared to the cost to the Government of maintaining from year
to year needless agencies.
Break Up Tribal Funds, Because They Pauperize Indians.
A strong reason for the breaking up of these tribal funds is to be found in the
fact that the expectation of annuities and of a share in undivided tribal funds
keeps Indians out of civilized life and prevents them from engaging in
self-supporting labor. In general, it tends to pauperize and degrade them. As a
board we respectfully and earnestly commend to Congress and to the Secretary of
the Interior the enactment of laws and the adoption of measures in
administration, which shall build up the individual and strengthen personality
by breaking up the huge tribal funds. The payment of individual shares in some
cases will doubtless be followed by foolish expenditure of the money thus paid
out. But we are convinced that there is no way by which Indian men and women can
learn to manage property save by managing it for themselves, as do other
citizens of the United States, even if it is sometimes managed unwisely. Let the
individual Indian have his own property. Then make him work. Cease to give him
rations. And let those who may prove to be incapable of self-support be cared
for as we care for other incapables. When the Indians are dispersed from their
reservations and live among our other citizens, the proportion of them who will
prove incapable of self-support will be much smaller than many have feared.
For nearly a century the object and end of all treatment of the Indians has been
held to be to make them self-supporting and civilized citizens of the United
States. Only within the last few years has the Government for the first time
been taking active and effectual measures to bring about this result. It is
thirty years since Congress voted to make no more treaties with Indian tribes as
tribes. This was a long stride forward. After fifteen years more, early in 1887,
the Dawes Severally Act was passed. Within the last fifteen years this has
resulted in making over 65,000 Indians citizens. A strong impulse toward family
life and the cultivation of home virtues has resulted from this act, which is
changing the entire outlook for the Native American races. It acts directly upon
the family and the individual. It ignores the tribe and breaks up the
obstructive influence of the "tribal government," so called. The vigorous policy
followed for the last year or two by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in
cutting off the needless rations which have been issued year after year to able
bodied and idle Indians, tends in the same direction. The tribal funds are now
the rallying point and the shelter for the spirit of conservatism, which seeks
to keep the Indians out of the life giving current of American civilization,
American public school life, and citizenship. A practical difficulty in the way
of dividing these funds has always been the lack of an authoritative list of the
individuals who are entitled to share in each such fund. The regulations for the
registration of marriages, births, and deaths to which we have referred as
recently adopted by the Department, if systematically carried out by the several
Indian agents, will enable the Government at an early day to deal directly with
individual Indians in all their relations of property. This measure of reform we
regard as deserving of the highest commendation, not only because it furnishes
an authentic list of individuals, needed for use in breaking up the tribal
organization, but also because it inculcates sound views of the marriage
relation and of family life.
Several Indian Agencies Should At Once Be Done Away With.
we renew the recommendation made in our last annual report that it is not a
kindness, but rather an injury, to Indians to insist upon appointing and
continuing Indian agents at places where the Indians are citizens and are
capable of caring for themselves? We believe that the last Indian appropriation
bill would have been a wiser measure had eight or ten of the agencies therein
named been discontinued. Only by managing their own affairs can the Indians who
are able to begin to stand alone learn independence and self reliance.
At Least Break Up, Without Further Delay, Certain Smaller Tribal Funds.
We could name certain tribes of Indians with reference to whose funds a plan for
division into individual holdings could wisely be put into execution during this
session of Congress:
(A) Certain small tribes whose members are now entirely qualified to take charge
of their own funds and to manage them as well as our average white citizens
manage their affairs.
(B) Certain other tribes equally well qualified to manage their own affairs,
where some appropriation of money by Congress would be necessary in order to pay
to the Indians the principal fund upon which interest is now paid by the
Government, although the principal is not in the Treasury.
(C) A number of tribal centers where nominal government by Indian councils, and
the control of Indian funds and annuities by such councils, is injuriously
corrupt and productive of evil in all its tendencies and results.
Nearly 9,000 additional allotments of land to Indians were approved during the
year ending July 1, 1901. These allotments covered 1,125,970.81 acres. In all,
since the severally act went into operation (aside from grants for individual
Indians and mixed bloods mentioned by name in various treaties), the number of
allotments on the 1st of July, 1901, was 64,853, covering 7,862,475 acres of
land.
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Thirty-Third Annual Report Of The Board Of Indian Commissioners,
1901
