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Make Believe Names
In the midst of this labor and prosperity of the people
in their new life they cared little for the derisive name of "the
make-believe white men," given them by the conservative Indians.
In the treaty of 1855-56 the chiefs had stipulated for
the survey and apportioning of the land to individuals, and they never
ceased to urge upon the Government the fulfillment of this agreement. In
1866, when the Omaha sold a strip off the northern part of their reservation
as a home for the distressed Winnebago, the partition of the land in
severalty was again agreed upon, and after five years more of waiting and
struggle the country was surveyed and over 200 allotments were made to the
Indians. The certificates issued were supposed to be patents, and eight
years later the disappointment and anxiety which followed upon a knowledge
of the inadequate legal character of the papers tendered to cripple the
ambition and abate the courage of the farmers, who had scattered from their
village, taking down their little houses and putting them up upon their
allotments. Meanwhile the old village of sod dwellings had been broken up
and the example of the progressive men, together with the influence of
agents and missionaries, made itself felt throughout the entire tribe.
Wagons, harness, and agricultural implements had been purchased with the
annuity money (rations were not issued), and a large, portion of the tribe
were working in ploughed fields.
Many were the prayers offered up by the Christian
Indians that the land so dear to them might. be spared to them and their
children. Urgent appeals were made to Congress, while subtle influences were
brought to bear on some of the non-progressive Indians to urge a movement of
the tribe to the Indian Territory. After a time of sorrowful waiting help
came unexpectedly through a student, who had gone among the Omaha solely for
ethnological study; and, when the story of the work of the people upon their
farms became known, Congress passed a bill giving the Omaha titles to their
lands in severalty. In Jane, 1884, the work of allotment was completed, and
nearly 76,000 acres are now owned individually by 1,179 persons: 160 acres
by each head of .a family, 80 acres by each orphan and single person over 18
years, and 40 acres by each person under 18 years of age, the United States
holding the patent in trust for 25 years.
The Omaha have about 8,000 acres under cultivation, and
raise large crops of corn, wheat, and other small grains, potatoes, and
vegetables. The picture (No,10 of the Exhibit) is of a farmer on his way to
the mill with a load of corn. The crops are mainly sold in the towns on the
southern border of the reservation: Bancroft, Lyons, Oakland, and Decatur.
The result of Omaha farming for the year 1884 amounts to 100,000 bushels of
corn, 50,000 bushels of wheat, 30,000 bushels of vegetables, and over 30,000
tons of hay put up. All this represents the labor of individual farmers,
working on farms from 3 acres to 100 in acres in extent, and without any
outside help, for there is not a hired farm laborer on the reservation.
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