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!
In 1879 the agencies for the
Omaha and Winnebago were consolidated and the Government opened an
industrial boarding school in a building that a few years before
had been erected as an infirmary, which proved a failure, the
Indians being unwilling to part with their old and sick. The
illustration (No. 17 of the Exhibit) shows the school and its
seventy scholars, all doing well. This same year the grist and saw
mill and shops were taken down from their position on the river
bottom and removed to the agency, some three miles inland. The
Missouri River had already carried away the bottom lands where the
" make-believe white men" had farmed. It was also in this year
that Indian apprentices were made employees at the Government
blacksmith and carpenter shops. During the past year, 1884, at the
request of the tribe, these shops have been closed as tribal
institutions and opened under individual enterprise; the people
paying for the work done for them. In the picture (No.
18 of the Exhibit) is seen one of the Indian carpenters at
work in his shop.
During the thirty years the
Omaha have been upon their reservation they have had 13
agents, some of whom have been able, careful, and
conscientious men, who have labored earnestly for the
upbuilding of the people, and these well directed efforts
have produced an enduring effect which other less favorable
administrations were not able to fully overthrow. The
problems which beset Indian agents are many and difficult,
and demand first rate ability, to attack and master, for
these problems do not pertain exclusively to the Indians,
but include the white settlers as well, and also involve the
difficult matter of adjusting heedless political
interference.
The earnest missionary labor, not only that which comes
directly under the church, but that which is often given by
Christian agents and employes and their families, has borne
good fruit among the Omaha and this rich harvest is in a.
great measure due to the responsive influence of some of the
leading Indian men, who accepted Christianity as the
standard of life and labored to lead their people toward the
path of industry and morality. It was largely the result of
the energetic rule of Head Chief La Flesche and his corps of
soldiers or police, that twenty years ago intemperance was
so severely punished that no man dared to risk the terrible
flogging given the drunkard. So effectual was the work done
that to-day, although a new generation has arisen, there is
almost no drunkenness among the Omaha.
The Mission Church numbers nearly 100 communicants. The
influence of these Christian men and women has leavened the
tribe, and today it would be difficult to find a community
more peaceful and industrious. Of coarse allowance must be
made for poverty of mind and estate, as but few of the
Indians have anything more than the most elementary
education, and the people, being entirely self-supporting,
have not yet been able to accumulate capital.
