Miss Frances Sparhawk Speaks on Indian Industries

Fourth session,
Thursday night, October 17.

After some singing by Rev. Frank Wright, the Conference was called to order by the Chair at 8 p. m.

Miss Frances Sparhawk was invited to speak on Indian industries.

The Indian Industries League.

By Frances Sparhawk.

The object of the league is to open individual opportunities of work to individual Indians, and to build up self-supporting industries in Indian communities.

In many communities the native Indian industries are especially adapted to this purpose. The league, in fostering these and other industries, holds it of the first importance to replace the desultory work of the Indians by the regularity of the white man's occupation, that habits of industry may be attained. And it will labor to that end.

The league has been in communication with the honorable Commissioner of Indian Affairs, with Government matrons, and with missionaries upon the reservations, and others, to learn the opportunities for systematic industrial work among the Indians.

In 1889, by a loan of money to the famous workers among the Cheyenne and Arapahoe at Colony, Okla. the Rev. and Mrs. Walter C. Roe the league stimulated that industry just at the time that it most needed help. Since then the league has secured for this beadwork, from a large Boston firm, orders to the amount of almost $1,000, with prospect of continuance of orders. Also, by teaching the Indians how to adapt the moccasin to the white man's instep it has developed the moccasin among the whites from an article for curio lovers to a practical foot gear, and so a constant industry.

The league has built an industrial room among the Navahos, and for a time paid a matron in charge there, furnishing the room with a range for the instruction of the Indians in cookery; also with sewing machines. This room was intended for rug-weaving and further development in industries.

The league gave a young Indian member who had learned something of carpentry, at Hampton a course of study by correspondence, and, at his request, books on architecture, enabling him to become an efficient industrial teacher in a large Government Indian school. It has loaned money to Indians for industrial purposes; has spent money for tools for Indians; has several times sent contributions of money to Miss Carter for her lace industry; and done other work on these lines.

It has bought Indian goods at the Indians' prices from the Pima, the mission Indians, from the Navahos, and beautiful baskets from the Indians of Washington State. Through friends of the cause it has been enabled to offer several prizes for excellence in basketry. It has sent materials for work to Mrs. Annie M. Sayre among the Pueblos, who are very poor; and it hopes by this means to be able to make a market for their needlework. It has also arranged for other needlework, and it has been prospecting among the Hopi, Paiute, Pawnees, Kickapoo, Ponca, Walapai, Piegan, and Northern Cheyenne.

Since a reservation, in its evil sense, is a condition rather than a place, the systematic labor of the Indians will, of itself, abolish the reservations; for what a man has outgrown that is he freed from.

Mr. John Lolorias, an Indian student from Hampton, was invited to speak.

Mr. Lolorias. My being called on to speak before these great men and public speakers reminds me of a story. An old Indian was once invited to a prayer meeting, and the white men made him understand that they wanted him to pray. So the old Indian got up and said, "O, Lord, January, February; January, February," and he kept on repeating those two names of the months till finally someone motioned to him to sit down. Then a white man said, "We have seen how honestly and earnestly our Indian friend has tried to take part in this meeting, and even if those two words which he spoke do not make us understand what is in his mind, we do understand that he no longer means to shoot anyone with his bows and arrows or to scalp anyone; that he is our friend." So while I shall try to tell you in a few and simple words a little about my own people, I hope, in spite of the imperfection of my speech, you will catch some idea of what I shall try to tell you.

My people, the Papago, live in Arizona. Nothing was known about them till a few years ago, when they got into trouble with the Mexicans. They lived on their own land. I call it my home because I was raised there; but any white man has as much right to call that place his home as I have, because that land is open to him, and he can go there and build his house. The Indians used to have cattle, and when they wanted money for food or clothing they sold some cattle. Some who did not have any cattle would work in the mines. Ever since I can remember, the Indians have been writing to the Indian Commissioner to ask that they might have land that they could call their own, for their own homes; but he never has done anything yet. Not a loaf of bread, not a shovel, a hoe or a plow, or anything else, has been given to these Papago. What they have, they have earned it. All the help they have received from Government is the Indian school. As I think of my school days I can almost remember the exact words in which my teacher taught me to read, and my first teacher was a Hampton student. As we looked at the little book we saw the picture of a cat, and then a picture of the cat running, and then where it had caught a mouse. My teacher said to me in the Indian language, 'The first row of black marks tells the color of the cat, the second what he can do, and the third what he has done." Then she began to read: "This is a black cat. The black cat can run. The black cat has caught a mouse." When I went home the first thing I did was to show the book and the pictures to my father, and I said, "The first row of black marks tell the color of the cat, the second what he can do, and the third what he has done." And I read to him: "This is a black cat. The black cat can run. The black cat has caught a mouse." My father said: "That is very interesting, my boy. Return again to the school and stay till you have learned to explain to me the man in the newspaper, tell me his color, what he can do, and what he has done." I did not know then that to be able to explain the man in the newspaper was a step toward civilization, and that nearly everything in the newspaper was a description of the color of the man, of what he can do, and what he has done.

In 1894 I said to my father, "I can not learn much more in this school among my own people," and he told me to go wherever I could learn most.

The same year others were asking to leave their homes and come East to "struggle for better things." For this reason a meeting was called; the Indians came, smoked, and talked about the white man. Up rose an old man and said: " It seems to me that our general opinion of the white people is that every one of them is great in some way. There is a man who performs many wonderful things; we see them with our eyes, and when we can not understand them we say, Here is a great man, let us follow. We allow ourselves and our children to try the white man's tricks, and when one is successful we gather around him and amuse ourselves by seeing the tricks once performed by the white man and now by one of our own people.

'There is another man who writes, reads books, and makes pictures; we say, 'Here is a great man, let us follow.' We send our children away from home to learn these things. How many of them have returned and amused us, made our lives and our homes happier with the knowledge of those things for which we send them abroad?

"There is another man who comes and says, 'This is right and that is wrong; you work today, rest tomorrow, and listen to the story of the Maker of all things, and of his Son who came here, worked, and died for you.' We say, 'Here is a great man, let us follow.' We go into Mexico to learn the Mexican songs and prayers, and when we return home we sing and pray. Now, are we a better people than" we were years ago when we sang our own songs, when we spoke to the Great Spirit in our own language? We asked then for rain, good health, and long life; now, what more do we want? What is that thought so great and so sacred that can not be expressed in our own language, that we should seek to use the white man's words?

We have seen men who seemed to be our friends, and we have told them our stories and our best thoughts. They said we will do this and that for you, but some unexpected time they are gone; we know then that we were deceived. Never did we say, 'Here is a great liar, let us follow, but still we longed for a chance to come when we might return the same deceitfulness to that man, and make him feel as we felt when he deceived us."

So the older Indians talked of what their children learned from the white man when they were sent away to school. It seems to me that the Indian teacher or missionary must know the thoughts that lie deep in the hearts and minds of the old Indians in order to be successful. W T e need not follow the white man just because he is white, and can be seen in the night as well as in the day. It is right that the Indian should amuse himself by the white man's tricks. He who writes books and makes pictures is a great man, and the Indian must follow. But it is the part of the teacher to encourage the students to return to their homes and explain to their people those thoughts in Christianity that are so high, so great, and so sacred, which the old Indian does not yet know.

Rev. Egerton R. Young was asked to speak five minutes.

Rev. E. R. Young, Toronto, Canada. We had a glorious camp meeting this summer among the Indians. I invited you to come, and I invite you again. There were about thirty white people there with us. When we heard of the news about your beloved President I was with the Indians, and more than a thousand of them fell on their knees while we prayed for his restoration.

We were all filled with sorrow over the terrible news. We people of Canada have felt his death as a personal loss. Our cities were draped in black, our flags were at half-mast, and at the time of the funeral services were held in all of our chief churches. We rejoice and thank God for this mighty Republic, whose heart during these later years has learned to beat more and more in sympathy with the motherland. Both lands are doing the great work of giving the gospel and liberty and freedom to the different races which come under them in this great world of ours.

I should like to have referred to the English method of dealing with the Indians, and tell you how it is that we have never had a war with any Indian tribe or spent a dollar in feeding Indians, and politics is forever banished from the selection of Indian agents, but there is no time. Let me give you one incident in connection with our camp meeting this summer in closing. Two or three drunken Indians came to the camp ground one day, and some of the white people said, "Send them to jail;" but there were some Christian Indians gathered there, and they said, "There is a little house out beyond the village, and there are some good beds and plenty of food, and we will send some of our people with these drunken young fellows to keep them quiet and sober; and w r hen they are sober we will bring them to the prayer meeting and try to get the spirit of Christ in them instead of the spirit of fire water." That is the sort of thing that Christian Indians will do.

Mrs. A. S. Quinton was invited to speak for the women of the country and their work for Indians.

Mrs. A. S. Quinton, president of the Women's National Indian Association. I can not speak for the women of the whole country, of course, but I have a message to this conference from the women of the Women's National Indian Association, and I believe I speak for the women of the missionary societies of the churches. We all believe in what has been said in regard to land. We long for the destruction of the reservation system. We should be grateful to see the unnecessary reservation abolished at once, and it would be according to the thought of all the workers if Indian agents could be instructed to keep in view as the end of the Indian Service the winding up of all that is peculiarly Indian and the placing Indians fully as citizens. Most of the Indians, we believe, are ready for the change. Those not ready the women would desire to have protected carefully and prepared for citizenship as rapidly as possible.

In regard to the New York Indians, we women believe that they are ready for citizenship and that their reservations ought to be divided in severalty. Among the Seneca's not a few have libraries, musical instruments, and are already truly civilized.

In the realm of law we should be very glad if genuine citizenship" could be given to all, thus letting the Indians realize that they are free citizens in fact. Citizenship should and could be made real by giving them all the privileges and protections that belong to citizenship. The women believe in the last appeal the appeal to the President; and we have felt for years that there was sufficient discretionary power in the hands of the President to reform many, if not most, of the evils of the administration of Indian affairs, and we should be glad to make that last appeal.

In the matter of funds there is great interest. We most heartily indorse what the Commissioner of Indian Affairs has said in his report. We should be delighted to see all the funds due the Indian tribes paid over to their individual members. Of course some money would be wasted and lost, but it seems clear that the great proportion of the funds would be more wisely used than now. When one sees that the Indians have earned a million and a half a year by civilized industries, one cannot be afraid that they would be left helpless. The Osages have been hindered in their industrial and moral development by their riches. The payment of their funds could be in such wise as to promote and hasten their civilization.

In regard to missions, what more can be said than has been said? If anything is to be achieved for any people, the wise thing is to do that which will best help them. The whole power of the man is secured if he recognizes his relation to God, heartily accepts that relationship, and makes right doing the rule of his life. Christian missions certainly do thus persuade men. Missionaries do much secular work also. We rejoice that in Manila they are doing work in an undenominational way. That seems like a clarion note of the millennium. The women wish that all Christian work for pagans could be done in that way; that we might teach Christianity pure and simple, and not churchianity. I can assure you that the women of the churches are interested in the evangelization of all these peoples named in this conference, and that they believe in combined effort, the combined efforts of all Christian workers, and especially in this Indian Service. The service, which is now most needed, is the consecrated service of those who can work along undenominational lines. And what privilege is there so great as to be permitted to share the divine work of the world's evangelization by the methods laid down in the New Testament?

Hon. William A. Jones, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, was invited to speak. Mr. Jones asked that first General Whittlesey might be allowed to read a paper with certain facts relating to the present condition of the Indians.

General Whittlesey. I take pleasure in reading this paper, which has been compiled by that capable little woman known to many of you as "Miss Minnie Cook."

Report of Board of Indian Commissioners

Notes About this Publication:

Source: Thirty-Third Annual Report Of The Board Of Indian Commissioners, 1901,  Government Printing Office.

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.

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