Kansas Indian Tribes in the 1890 Census

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Total Indian Population As Of June 1, 1890

Total 1,682

Reservation Indians, not taxed (not counted. in the general census) 939
Indians in prison, not otherwise enumerated 7
Indians off reservation, self-supporting and taxed (counted in the general census) 736

The self-supporting Indians taxed are included in the general census. The results of the special Indian census to be added to the general census are;

Total 1,012
Reservation Indians, not taxed 939
Indians in prison, not otherwise enumerated 7
Other persons with Indians, nut otherwise enumerated 66

Indian Reservations

Pottawatomie and Great Nemaha agency
Pottawatomie reservation. Pottawatomie, Prairie band
Kickapoo reservation, Kickapoo Tribe
Iowa reservation, Iowa Tribe
Chippewa and Munsee reservation, Chippewa and Munsee Tribe

The civilized (self-supporting) Indians of Kansas, counted in the general census, number 736 (455 males and 281. females), and are distributed as follows:

Douglas County, 440; Johnson County, 18; Pottawatomie County, 77; Shawnee County, 45; Wabaunsee County, 22; Wyandotte County, 23; Other counties (17 or less in each), 111.

The condition of the citizen Indians has been indicated in the description of the respective tribes.

Historic Review.
Pottawatomie Reservation

Early in 1600 the Pottawatomies (Algonkian) were occupying the lower peninsula of Michigan in scattered bands, whence they were finally driven westward by the Iroquois and settled about Green Bay. The French acquired much influence over them and joined in their wars with the Iroquois. They joined Pontiac in his uprising in 1763, and were hostile to the colonists during the Revolution, but made peace with them in 1795, joining the English again in 1812. By treaties of August 29, 1821, and after, their lands were almost entirely conveyed away.

Iowa Reservation

The Iowa Indians of Kansas and Nebraska are fairly educated, at least the younger portion of them. Nearly all of them understand the English language; many of them speak it fluently, and many of their women are well educated. They are of good physical condition. They are also free from any external evidence of venereal disease. They are vigorous and active, and in appearance temperate, although it is said many of the men will drink whenever they can get whisky.

As a rule they cultivate their farms with judgment and skill, and raise all that is necessary to supply their wants and leave much to sell, while many of them are accumulating property and surrounding themselves with the comforts of life. Orchards of apple, peach, plum and cherry trees are numerous. The women are careful, industrious, and prudent, and many of them are good housekeepers and excellent cooks. The marriage relation is regarded by them as sacred, and not to be broken by either party, while all agree that their women are as a rule virtuous.

These people seem to be prosperous and happy. They dress in citizens' clothes and are very much like white people, many of them so near white that the Indian blood is quite difficult to discover.

Their wealth consists in lands, horses, cattle, and swine. Their farms are all fenced. They were allotted some years ago under a special act of Congress. They have selected their tracts, but patents have not yet been issued to them. They live in good houses, either frame or log, or both combined. Many of them have 2-story frame houses with large frame barns. They are increasing quite first in a natural way. Last year there were 9 births and only 1 death. The year previous there were 8 births and only 6 deaths.

Their lands are good and all available for either tillage or pasturage. They are well watered, and the soil is rich and fertile, producing in abundance all the crops usual in this latitude. Some of their lands near the Missouri river are quite rough and broken, but covered with timber and can be made available for pasturage. There are no minerals found upon these lands nor quarries of stone. The rainfall is usually sufficient for all agricultural purposes. The agency buildings are in very fair repair and belong jointly to this tribe and the Sacs and Foxes of Missouri, whose reservation adjoins this. Their value is about $6,000:

Many of them have become Christianized, the larger number being Catholics, though some of them have become members of the Episcopal church; a few, however, remain pagans. Their children are sent to school at the government boarding school provided jointly for them along with the Sacs and Foxes of Missouri.
Of this reservation 5,120 acres lie in Kansas.

Chippewa and Munsee Reservation

The Chippewa, and Munsee (Christian) Indians have almost ceased to be Indians in the ordinary acceptation of the term. They are quite equal to the average white pioneers in mental capacity. They read, write, and speak the English language at all times. Their physical condition is as good as that of the average. whites about them. They have no constitutional diseases nor any results of vicious habits.

They dress like the whites, cultivate the soil, and raise corn, wheat, and other crops. Nearly all of the older members of these tribes have thrifty orchards of the apple, peach, cherry, and plum, and receive a considerable income from them.

The majority of these Indians are industrious and good citizens, while a few are shiftless and lazy. They live in comfortable houses built of logs nicely hewed, with the interstices well chinked up and pointed with lime mortar, which are very neat and tidy. Some hire in frame houses, while some of the houses are frame and log combined. Inside their dwellings are neat and tidy. They cook on kitchen stoves, have cupboards and dishes, eat on tables, and sleep in comfortable beds and upon fair looking bedsteads. They have knives and forks and spoons; in fact, if there were no Indians near, one would think he was in a white man's house.

The upward progress of these people has been very marked. They marry legally have one wife only and live- as virtuous lives as the white population about them. In fact, were it not for the bad influence of some of the whites who have married into the tribes they would be making quite rapid progress in all that goes to make good citizens. Some of the squaw men are decidedly bad and are the cause of much trouble among the good Indians in various ways, such as teaching bad morals to the younger men and getting them quite dissatisfied with the manner in which the older and better men of the tribe have managed their affairs, and are using their influence with them against education and religious instruction.

Many of these Indians are Christians, and are regarded as quite as good and consistent in their lives as the white Christians around them. They are under the care of the Moravian church, and that society has built a chapel for their use and supports a Moravian missionary among them, whose labors meet the constantly opposing influence of bad squaw men. The Moravians have educated several young men at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and they are a credit to that church and the tribe. Their children attend the public schools in the neighborhood or go to the Haskell Institute at Lawrence, Kansas.

Their wealth consists principally of their land and its products. Many of them have horses, cattle, and hogs, and, what is unusual among Indians, they raise, chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese in large numbers and derive walking. They were neighbors of the Sacs and Foxes. In 1700 they were on the Mankato and constantly roaming with the western Algonkins. Early in the present century they numbered about 1,500, and were involved in wars with the Osages, Omahas, and the Sioux, losing heavily. Later they became much reduced through the ravages of the smallpox and other diseases. The first treaty was made with them in 1815. In 1830 the tribe, numbering 992, was removed to the west bank of the Missouri, and from this time rapidly declined in numbers, many of theta becoming vagrants in other tribes, and others killed themselves by intemperance. ht 1846 they had decreased to 700. In 1861 the tribe, then reduced to 305, ceded all their lands except 16,000 acres. In 1832, while wild Indians, they lived in a village, and depended chiefly on their cornfields for subsistence. Their hereditary chief in 1832, Mew-hu-she-kaw (The White Cloud), was a famous man on the border.

The Iowas in Kansas went to their present reservation in 1854. The Iowas at Sac and Fox agency, Oklahoma, went to Indian Territory in 1868, and their present reservation was created by executive order of August 15, 183. The Iowas are civilized Indians.

The total Iowa population in the United States in 1890, with location, is as follows:

Total 267
Iowas at Iowa reservation, Kansas 165
Iowas at Sac and Fox agency, Oklahoma 102

Chippewa and Munsee Reservation

Portions of the Chippewa and Munsee Indians, known as Christian Indians, have been for more than a century under the charge of the Moravians. The Christian Indians have been located in Indiana, Michigan, New York, northern Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and were made up from many bands. Gathered up from roaming Delawares, Mohicans, and Shawnees, the Munsee portion, 47 in number, of this little band of 75 civilized Indians. is a remnant. At Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1740 the Moravians, after the arrival of the Christian Indians front. Shekomeo, a Mohican village in New York, founded a town 30 miles up the Lehigh River, called Gnadenhutten. (tents of grace), used as headquarters for Indians gathered from surrounding tribes, where, in 1749, were located as farmers and mechanics several hundred Christian Indians. The mission closed during the French and Indian war. In 1755 the town was destroyed and many of the Christian Indians were killed. In 1757 the Moravians began a new settlement for these Indians at Nain, an outskirt of Bethlehem, which prospered. The Pontiac war of 1763 and the attacks of savage Indians upon the white settlers prejudiced the people against all Indians, and the Christian Indians of Nain, who were persecuted by their red brethren for being Christians and by many Christians for being savages, fled, and finally went to Philadelphia. In 1705 they, numbering 83, permanently removed from Nain to a town in northern Pennsylvania named Friedenshutten. Here they remained until 1771. In the meantime Pennsylvania, in 1768, by the treaty of Fort Stanwix obtained title to the lands on which the town was built, and because of the encroachments of white people, and for social reasons, in June, 1771, they, numbering 200, again moved, this time to a tract of land on the Muskingum River or one of its branches, in Ohio. Pennsylvania gave them a grant of £125 for their improvements and some Friends contributed $100 more. They went down the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers in 15 canoes, and up the Beaver River to their new home in the Tuscarawas. Valley, in Ohio. May 4, 1772, the Moravian mission town of Schonbrunn (beautiful spring) was located. Other Moravian Indian towns were Gnadenhutten and Lichtenau. These 3 towns contained 414 Christian Indians in 1776. Schools were kept up, trades taught, and homes and farms made. The Revolutionary War changed the aspect of things, and the soldiers of the 2 armies annoyed the Indians. The 3 towns, for safety, were consolidated for a time into 1, Lichtenau. Hostile Indians after this were constantly annoying and robbing the white people, who, becoming incensed, decided in 1780 upon the removal of Lichtenau, which was on and along the trail of Indian warpaths, and Salem, a new town, was built for the people of Lichtenau, 6 miles from Gnadenhutten. In 1781 the British had been defeated by the colonists and they incited their Indian allies to renewed efforts against them, The colonists resolved in retaliation for this to blot out the 3 Christian Indian towns; so in the autumn the. Christian Indians, accompanied by the faithful Moravian missionaries, were removed by force to a location on the Sandusky River, in Ohio. A cold and desolate winter followed. A pint of corn a day was issued to each person. Many of the Indians, fearing starvation, scattered, and some returned to their old home at Gnadenhutten, in the Tuscarawas valley. Prior to this a party of settlers had arrived from the Monongahela Pennsylvania, in pursuit of certain Indians who had massacred a family. They came back through Gnadenhutten on their return, and finding these few defenseless Christian Indians, to punish the guilty resolved to murder the innocent. The massacre occurred March 8, 1782. The men were placed in one building, the women and children in another, and in the course of an hour 90 (28 men, 29 women, and 33 children) inoffensive Christian Indians; were killed. Ninety years after the massacre the Moravians met at Gnadenhutten and dedicated a monument, to the memory of the murdered Christian Indians. The monument stands upon the site of the old mission church, and the shaft, 25 feet above the base, was unveiled by 4 Moravian Indian's, one of whom was the great-grandson of Joseph Schebosh, the first victim of, the massacre. The shaft on its western face bears this inscription: "Here triumphed in death 90 Christian Indians, March 8, 1782". Bishop De Schweintz in his address gave the names of the victims. (See Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society Quarterly, volume fit, page 295.) The Indians who escaped returned to Sandusky. New Salem vas built on Lake Erie in 1787, and ceased to be a Christian Indian town in 1791. A new settlement of Gnadenhutten was attempted again in 1791-1792 by Zeisberger and discontinued in 1809, the Christian Indians going to Canada. The Christian Indians in April, 1782, at the settlement on the Sandusky were ordered away by the half king of the Hurons and wandered away to the west and joined the Chippewas, Miamis, and Shawnees in northern Ohio or in Michigan, and thence to Indiana, where they became known as the Munsee Christian Indians.

A treaty was first made by the United States with the Munsee Christian Indians and the Miamis of the Lake
July 4, 1805. A treaty was also made May 9, 1836, and many more followed, July 16, 1859, a final treaty was made with the Munsee Christian Indians at Sac and Fox agency, wherein their desire to unite with the Chippewas was agreed to, and a reservation west of the Mississippi River of about 4,880 acres, the present one in Brown County, Kansas, was set aside for them. Thereafter they became known as the Chippewa and Munsee Indians, and moved to their present reservation in Kansas.

Indians In Kansas, 1890

The lands within Kansas were the roaming grounds of the Kansas or Kaw, Osages, Pawnees, and some Sioux.

The original Kansas Indians were long since removed to Indian Territory, and are now in Oklahoma. The 3 reservations and 1 in part now in Kansas contain Indians who were removed from east of the Mississippi River between 1830 and 1834, The remainder, who have been removed and are now living in Indian Territory at Quapaw agency, are the Delawares, Kaskaskias, Oneidas, Peorias, Piankeshaws, Quapaws, Senecas, Shawnees, Tuscaroras, and Weas.

Pottawatomie and Great Nemaha Agency

Report, of Special Agent Reuben Sears on the Indians of the Pottawatomie, Kickapoo, Iowa, and Chippewa and Munsee reservations, Kansas, August and September 1890.

Names of Indian tribes or parts of tribes occupying said reservations :(a) Prairie band of Pottawatomi, Kickapoo, [Iowa], Chippewa, and Munsi.

The unallotted areas of these reservations are: Pottawatomi, 77,358 acres, or 120.75 square miles; treaties of June 5, 1846, 9 U. S. Stats, p. 853; of November 15, 1861 (12 U. S. Stats, p. 1191); treaty of relinquishment, February 27, 1867 (15 U. S. Stats, p. 531). Kickapoo, 20,273 acres, or 31.75 square miles; treaty of June 28, 1862 (13 U. S. Stats, p. 623). Iowa, 16,000 acres, or 25 square miles (5,120 acres in Kansas); treaties of May 17, 1854 (10 U. S. Stats., p. 1069, and of March 6, 1861; 12 U. S. Stats., p. 1171). Chippewa and Munsi, 4,395 acres, or 5.75 square miles; treaty of July 16, 1859 (12 U. S. Stats., p. 1105).

Indian population 1890: Pottawatomies, 402; Kickapoos, 237; Iowas, 165; Chippewas and Munsees, 75; total, 939.

Pottawatomie Reservation

The returns had been made of the enumeration of the Prairie band of Pottawatomie, Indians, as well as of their school schedule, before my arrival. I examined the census methods, and have no doubt but that they were carefully and correctly taken.

These Indians seem intelligent and apt. Very many can speak the English language, and read and write it as well. There is no lack of mental ability among them. Their physical condition, however, is not so encouraging. They look very well, but a large number of them are troubled with scrofulous eruptions, and many waste away with lung diseases: Many of them are infected with syphilitic poison; some of them are regarded as incurable. They are subject to rheumatic complaints. They dress well, in American costumes of the present styles. Many of them dress richly. Many of the women are neat and clean housekeepers, having good furniture, pianos, organs, and sewing machines in their homes. They are good, industrious wives and kind mothers, and are generally virtuous. Polygamy is not practiced among them, and when a man and woman marry they expect' to continue the relation of husband and wife for life. The men are more or less industrious, but unfortunately a large portion of them will drink whenever they can get whisky. In appearance these people will compare very favorably with many communities of white people.

Their children are sent to school. Some of the children are very bright, and learn quickly in all branches except arithmetic. This seems to be a common trouble among Indian school children, and at the stores an Indian always asks for an article and the price, and then pays for it, then asks for another article and pays for it. In like manner they continue until their trading is finished. This is done to avoid adding up the cost of all. They are all able to count what money they have and tell readily the denominations of paper currency as well as of gold or silver. There is a government boarding school provided for them. In their homes they sleep on beds and bedsteads like the whites; have good cooking stoves and utensils, good heating stoves, and dishes and crockery in abundance. They have wells near their houses, and many have windmills for raising the water. Their orchards and gardens are numerous, and they have an abundance of domestic fowls. They are farmers and stock raisers. They have some farms of from 128 to 190 acres fenced and cultivated; many of them have large herds of cattle, horses, and hogs. They raise good crops. One herd of shorthorn Durhams was especially noticeable, many of them thoroughbred and registered. They have 2,650 cattle and 2,712 horses and mules; also 400 hogs of good breeds, and large fields of corn and other crops. One Pottawatomie has a herd of over 1,000 head of cattle and many horses and carriages. He has a number of fine farms off the reservation, and owns a large portion of the stock of a neighboring bank. He deals largely in cattle, and is the trader for the tribe.

Most of these Indians now desire to own cows and have the milk for their children and to make butter, which is a new feature in Indian life. Many of them are becoming rich. Their women sometimes marry white men quite superior to the ordinary squaw men.

The older houses are built of logs, but look comfortable; all the later houses are of frame and well built; some quite, commodious and of more than a single story. A few are built of stone, of which there is an abundant supply on the reservation. Some also have good barns and outhouses, but the most improved farms belong to those who have a large percentage of white blood in their veins.

The larger part have progressive ideas and desire, that the tribe shall move forward. The others do not desire any improvement in aboriginal life, and are opposed to change. They do not desire schools or to have their children taught white man's ways. This portion is ignorant and very superstitious.

These Indians increase slowly. The births in the year ending June 30, 1889, were 16, deaths 12; in the year ending June 30, 1890, births 19, deaths 14 Their roll shows for 1889, 447; for 1890, 462. (a) This very slow increase among these Indians, and in fact among all others partially civilized, must be due to some cause out of the ordinary course. It no doubt lies in their superstitious belief in the necessity of separating the sexes during the period of menstruation. The women during this period are compelled to live apart in a separate tepee or wigwam for a period of not less than 10 days, or until ovaryation, thus preventing in many or most cases the chance of conception. Where their women are married to white men and become more accustomed to the ways of white men they have as many children and as large families as white people. This also seems to be the result where Indian men are married to white women, so that small Indian families are usually the result of custom. Another thing that accounts for their small increase is the fact that after the birth of the child the mother and child are isolated from the remainder of the family and confined in a separate habitation for 30 clays. This exposure frequently causes the death of the child and impairs the health of the mother. They frequently take their boys out of the schools because they think that being in company in the school room with the larger girls during menstruation they are liable to get sick, and if they do get sick at school they are apt to attribute it to such cause, and they believe that allowing the women to live with the family within the period of 30 days after confinement is a prolific source of disease and death to others.

In general appearance the reservation is a most beautiful land, with rich, rolling prairie's and a number of streams running through them and fringed with timber, giving the casual observer an idea that it is a reservation of marvelously rich and productive soil. This is true of a part, but not by any means of the whole. On the creek bottoms, in the hollows between the hills, and on the sloping hillsides the soil is rich and productive in ordinary seasons; but the appearance of much of the land is very deceptive, it being underlaid with stone near the surface and covered with grass growing in shallow soil and with so much loose stone among it as to render it unfit for cultivation, thus making its meadow land fit only for grazing purposes. Some of these lands are dotted here and there with spots of alkali. Many of the hills are covered with a fair soil, which will in a wet season raise crops. Ordinarily the greater part of this reservation can be used only for grazing.

The timber along the streams is of a very inferior quality for posts and is used for fuel only. There are numerous ledges of rock, a poor quality of limestone fit only for foundations for houses or for walling wells. Some ledges may perhaps be found fit for building purposes. Not to exceed one-half of the reservation is fit for farming purposes. The good and poor lands can not be divided into tracts and allotted purely by themselves, but good and poor lands will have to go together. The lands are not arid, strictly speaking, but the rainfall here is quite uncertain. For the last 6 years they have not been saturated with water, and in the majority of the years the rainfall has been so deficient as to make the crops a partial failure. Still it is a soil which can stand much drought and produce fair crops. The lack of rain for the last 6 years has caused the subsoil to dry out, with a consequent drying up of the streams, so that in midsummer they cease to flow.

The water of the wells is alkaline in many cases from the surface, but many of the wells are supplied from an undercurrent of pure and wholesome water.

The Pottawatomies in their original belief held to the existence of one great Supreme Creator and to a future state of rewards and punishments. They believed that if an Indian was good, honest, kind, hospitable, and true in all things he would go when he died to a happy limiting ground where timber was plenty, with beautiful running streams, ponies, and game, where he would live, in peace and plenty, and Where he could get his game easily and live a life of ease and quiet abundance; but if he was a bad Indian, had lied, stolen, and debauched other Indians' wives and murdered his fellows, after death he would go to a place where wood and streams were scarce, where there were no ponies to ride, and where all his travel would be on foot. If he saw a deer or other game he would have to pursue it day after day, it being able to elude him so that he would never be able to catch up with it. He would be weary and hungry and have to live in the storms and winds without shelter or protection.

He would he forever living a life of constant desires, always to be unsatisfied, and with no hope of anything better in the future.

While one-third of these Indians belong to the Roman Catholic church and hold to its faith tenaciously, the remainder hold to their original belief.

The agency buildings are of the value of about $7,000, and are in fair repair, except the boarding house and the wagon and smith shop. The boarding house is in bad repair.

Kickapoo Reservation

The enumeration of the Kickapoos was made before my arrival, but upon examination I find that it was correctly done.

The mental capacity of these people is high. They are smart, intelligent, and bright men and women. Their physical condition is good, and they are a clean, vigorous, and upright people.

Their economical condition shows many evidences of prosperity. They are raising good crops for the season. They are every year breaking up additional prairie land, fencing in their fields, improving their homes, setting out fruit trees, cutting fodder like white farmers, and otherwise adding to their comforts and purses. Virtue in both sexes is the rule. There is a growing disposition of the man to work and provide for the wants of the family, while the woman cares for the home and brings up the children. They have a church, built by themselves, and native preachers. They hold services twice on the Sabbath, regardless of the weather, and always with a good attendance. The preaching is in the native language. They are told to do right, to be honest, to be sober, to be industrious, to raise good crops, to get cattle and hogs, to get good homes, and to live like good white people; to stop finding fault, and take hold of life like white men; to be good husbands, wives, and children; to be virtuous men and women, and get better and do better every day and every year; to surround their homes with trees, cultivate good gardens, and plant fruit trees. Their creed is morality, duty, and honesty; they do not belong to any religious denomination, and are entirely independent of all other churches; but this creed is evidently doing a good work among this people, and in their own way. They have 2 native ministers, who are upright and respected men. They have attracted much attention recently.

These people, except in the color of their skin and their language, would be easily taken for early settlers in a new country. They all wear white men's clothing. They are progressing steadily. In all things there is great, encouragement; except that many of the men out of the church will drink whisky. The children are sent to school, and a majority of the tribe speaks English. About 100 members, including children, are on their church roll. There is an officer of the church who is called "the whipper-in", designed for the welfare of the children of the tribe, If any of the children absent themselves from church or behave badly when there, it is his duty to use the switch vigorously upon them and compel attendance at the services and good behavior.

The Kickapoos' lands are their chief wealth, and many are now getting herds of cattle, hogs, and horses. The horses belonging to this tribe seem to be of much better stock than the ordinary Indian pony. Wheat, corn, and flax raising is quite an industry with them. Their houses are small frame buildings, comfortable, and built by themselves. They provide shelter for their stock in winter. Some have orchards, and nearly every house has a good well of water. They use stoves for cooking and for warming their houses, and sleep on bedsteads like the white people. Very few live in wigwams either in summer or winter.

These Indians are usually progressive in their ideas, but many are held back by their old chiefs, who oppose all progress and do not believe in improvements of any kind.

These old chiefs grieve because they have not their old influence and position, and also because they no longer receive the annuities of the tribe and the right to distribute them, They insist on the old Indian life, and say that when the Indian becomes educated and enlightened he will no longer be an Indian. They increase in number about as do the whites in a new country, the increase with them the last 10 years being a little over 5.5 per cent annually. They number 237, and hold 20,273 acres of land, which, divided among them, would give a little more than 85.5 acres each. Generally it would seem that allotment, unless the power to transfer is very carefully guarded for many years, would be disastrous to Indian tribes. Some years since 109 of this tribe were allotted their lands in severalty to the east of and near the present reservation. Only 27 of these people, by themselves or their heirs, now hold these lands, while the remaining 82 have disposed of their tracts, squandered their property, and are now living with the tribe on the reservation, and are a burden upon them; in fact half-way paupers, who are not counted as members of the tribe, but only as poor dependents. Their lands are valuable for agricultural purposes. They grow fine winter wheat, corn, oats, barley, rye, and flax, in fact all kinds of grain, fruits, vegetables, and grapes, of the finest quality. This land is well watered with streams, which in ordinary seasons afford an abundant supply of running water, while plenty of water is found a short distance below the surface of excellent quality. There is scarcely an acre of these lands which is not valuable either for cultivation or grazing. There seems to be ledge rock for all needed purposes and timber sufficient for fuel and posts. The agency buildings are in bad condition and have an appearance of neglect. The mission boarding houses also in very bad condition. One thousand five hundred dollars would be a very liberal estimate of its value.

Iowa Reservation

The Iowa Indians of Kansas and Nebraska are fairly educated, at least the younger portion of them. Nearly all of them understand the English language; many of them speak it fluently, and many of their women are well educated. They are of good physical condition. They are also free from any external evidence of venereal disease. They are vigorous and active, and in appearance temperate, although it is said many of the men will drink whenever they can get whisky.

As a rule they cultivate their farms with judgment and skill, and raise all that is necessary to supply their wants and leave much to sell, while many of them are accumulating property and surrounding themselves with the comforts of life. Orchards of apple, peach, plum; and cherry trees are numerous. The women are careful, industrious, and prudent, and many of them are good housekeepers and excellent cooks. The marriage relation is regarded by them as sacred, and not to be broken by either party, while all agree that their women are as a rule virtuous.

These people seem to be prosperous and happy. They dress in citizens' clothes and are very much like white people, many of them so near white that the Indian blood is quite difficult to discover.

Their wealth consists in lands, horses, cattle, and swine. Their farms are all fenced. They were allotted some years ago under a special act of Congress. They have selected their tracts, but patents have not yet been issued to them. They live in good houses, either frame or log, or both combined. Many of them have 2-story frame houses with large frame barns. They are increasing quite first in a natural way. Last year there were 9 births and only 1 death. The year previous there were 8 births and only 6 deaths.

Their lands are good and all available for either tillage or pasturage. They are well watered, and the soil is rich and fertile, producing in abundance all the crops usual in this latitude. Some of their lands near the Missouri river are quite rough and broken, but covered with timber and can be made available for pasturage. There are no minerals found upon these lands nor quarries of stone. The rainfall is usually sufficient for all agricultural purposes. The agency buildings are in very fair repair and belong jointly to this tribe and the Sacs and Foxes of Missouri, whose reservation adjoins this. Their value is about $6,000.

Many of them have become Christianized, the larger number being Catholics, though some of them have become members of the Episcopal church; a few, however, remain pagans. Their children are sent to school at the government boarding school provided jointly for them along with the Sacs and Foxes of Missouri. Of this reservation 5,120 acres lie in Kansas.

Chippewa And Munsee Reservation

The Chippewa, and Munsee (Christian) Indians have almost ceased to be Indians in the ordinary acceptation of the term. They are quite equal to the average white pioneers in mental capacity. They read, write, and speak the English language at all times. Their physical condition is as good as that of the average whites about them. They have no constitutional diseases nor any results of vicious habits.

They dress like the whites, cultivate the soil, and raise corn, wheat, and other crops. Nearly all of the older members of these tribes have thrifty orchards of the apple, peach, cherry, and plum, and receive a considerable income from them.

The majority of these Indians' are industrious and good citizens, while a few are shiftless and lazy. They live in comfortable houses built of logs nicely hewed, with the interstices well chinked up and pointed with lime mortar, which are very neat and tidy. Some live in frame houses, while some of the houses are frame and log combined. Inside their dwellings are neat and tidy. They cook on kitchen stoves, have cupboards and dishes, eat on tables, and sleep in comfortable beds and upon fair looking bedsteads. They have knives and forks and spoons; in fact, if there were no Indians near, one would think he was in a white man's house.
The upward progress of these people has been very marked. They marry legally, have one wife only and live as virtuous lives as the white population about them. In fact, were it not for the bad influence of some of the whites who have married into the tribes they would be making quite rapid progress in all that goes to make good citizens. Some of the squaw men are decidedly bad and are the cause of much trouble among the good Indians in various ways, such as teaching bad morals to the younger men and getting them quite dissatisfied with the manner in which the older and better men of the tribe have managed their affairs, and are using their influence with them against education and religious instruction.

Many of these Indians are Christians, and are regarded as quite as good and consistent in their lives as the white Christians around them. They are under the care of the Moravian church, and that society has built a chapel for their use and supports a Moravian missionary among them, whose labors meet the constantly opposing influence of bad squaw men. The Moravians have educated several young men at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and they are a credit to that church and the tribe. Their children attend the public schools in the neighborhood or go to the Haskell Institute at Lawrence, Kansas.

Their wealth consists principally of their land and its products. Many of them have horses, cattle, and hogs, and, what is unusual among Indians, they raise, chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese in large numbers and derive quite an income from their sale. Some of them are quite well off, keep a bank account, and pay their debts with checks. These Indians have made bat little increase for the last 2 years; in fact, each year for the last 2 they have had 1 death more than births; bat this was the result of accident and not of ordinary fatality. Their loss the last 2 years has been about 1.5 per cent annually.

Their lands are rough, scraggy hills. The soil, sandy and thin, when newly cultivated, will raise good crops in ordinary seasons, bat only for a few years; then it requires fertilizers, rest, and very careful tillage. Without great care it will soon wear out and become worthless.

The unsettled condition of the titles to their lands greatly annoys these, Indians and retards their progress. Some years since their lands were allotted to them in severalty under a special act of Congress, but their evidences of title were not left in good shape. Since then there have been deaths, and, the heirships remaining unsettled, now there are strifes and dissensions among them and an unwillingness to improve their lands while these uncertainties exist.

These Indians are citizens of the United States and are entirely self-sustaining. They receive $1,064 semiannually from the United States as an annuity. They vote in Nebraska and pay taxes on their personal property.

Schools.-A government Indian training school, Haskell Institute, is located at Lawrence. It had in 1890 an enrollment of 460 pupils. The cost to the government was about $76,000. There was an enrollment of 33 Indian pupils under government contract at the Mennonite Mission Boarding School at Halstead, costing about $3,300, and an enrollment under government contract of 25 tit St. Ann's Academy at Neosho, costing about $2,250.

a Reports Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1889, pogo 502, and 1800, page 452.

Condition of the Indian by State, 1890

Notes About the Book:

Source:  Report on Indians Taxed and Indians not Taxed in the United States, Except Alaska at the Eleventh Census: 1890, Department of the Interior, Government Printing Office, Washington DC., 1894

A Report to the Secretary of War of the United States on Indian Affairs, by Rev. Jedidiah Morse, 1822, Printed by S. Converse

Online Publication: The manuscript was scanned and then ocr'd. Minimal editing has been done, and readers can and should expect some errors in the textual output. Several spellings have been used for the same tribe of Indians.

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