CHAPTER XII.

THE PROBLEM OF CIVILIZING THE APACHES—THE WORK PERFORMED BY MASON, SCHUYLER, RANDALL, RICE, AND BABCOCK—TUCSON RING INFLUENCE AT WASHINGTON—THE WOUNDING OF LIEUTENANT CHARLES KING—THE KILLING OF LIEUTENANT JACOB ALMY—THE SEVEN APACHE HEADS LAID ON THE SAN CARLOS PARADE GROUND—CROOK’S CASH MARKET FOR THE FRUITS OF APACHE INDUSTRY—HIS METHOD OF DEALING WITH INDIANS.

There was no time lost in putting the Apaches to work. As soon as the rest of the band had come in, which was in less than a week, the Apaches were compelled to begin getting out an irrigating ditch, under the superintendence of Colonel Julius W. Mason, Fifth Cavalry, an officer of much previous experience in engineering. Their reservation was established some miles above the post, and the immediate charge of the savages was intrusted to Lieutenant Walter S. Schuyler, Fifth Cavalry, who manifested a wonderful aptitude for the delicate duties of his extra-military position. There were absolutely no tools on hand belonging to the Indian Bureau, and for that matter no medicines, and only the scantiest supplies, but Crook was determined that work should be begun without the delay of a day. He wanted to get the savages interested in something else besides tales of the war-path, and to make them feel as soon as possible the pride of ownership, in which he was a firm believer.

According to his idea, the moment an Indian began to see the fruits of his industry rising above the ground, and knew that there was a ready cash market awaiting him for all he had to sell, he would see that “peace hath her victories no less renowned than war.” He had been going on the war-path, killing and robbing the whites, not so much because his forefathers had been doing it before him, but because it was the road to wealth, to fame, to prominence and distinction in the tribe. Make theApache or any other Indian see that the moment he went on the war-path two white men would go out also; and make him see that patient industry produces wealth, fame, and distinction of a much more permanent and a securer kind than those derived from a state of war, and the Indian would acquiesce gladly in the change. But neither red man nor white would submit peaceably to any change in his mode of life which was not apparently to his advantage.

The way the great irrigating ditch at Camp Verde was dug was this. All the Apaches were made to camp along the line of the proposed canal, each band under its own chiefs. Everything in the shape of a tool which could be found at the military post of Camp Verde or in those of Whipple and Hualpai was sent down to Mason. There were quantities of old and worn-out spades, shovels, picks, hatchets, axes, hammers, files, rasps, and camp kettles awaiting the action of an inspector prior to being thrown away and dropped from the returns as “worn out in service.” With these and with sticks hardened in the fire, the Apaches dug a ditch five miles long, and of an average cross-section of four feet wide by three deep, although there were places where the width of the upper line was more than five feet, and that of the bottom four, with a depth of more than five. The men did the excavating; the women carried off the earth in the conical baskets which they make of wicker-work. As soon as the ditch was ready, General Crook took some of the chiefs up to his headquarters at Fort Whipple, and there had them meet deputations from all the other tribes living within the territory of Arizona, with whom they had been at war—the Pimas, Papagoes, Maricopas, Yumas, Cocopahs, Hualpais, Mojaves, Chimahuevis—and with them peace was also formally made.

Mason and Schuyler labored assiduously with the Apaches, and soon had not less than fifty-seven acres of land planted with melons and other garden truck, of which the Indians are fond, and every preparation made for planting corn and barley on a large scale. A large water-wheel was constructed out of packing-boxes, and at a cost to the Government, including all labor and material, of not quite thirty-six dollars. The prospects of the Apaches looked especially bright, and there was hope that they might soon be self-sustaining; but it was not to be. A “ring” of Federal officials, contractors, and others was formedin Tucson, which exerted great influence in the national capital, and succeeded in securing the issue of peremptory orders that the Apaches should leave at once for the mouth of the sickly San Carlos, there to be herded with the other tribes. It was an outrageous proceeding, one for which I should still blush had I not long since gotten over blushing for anything that the United States Government did in Indian matters. The Apaches had been very happy at the Verde, and seemed perfectly satisfied with their new surroundings. There had been some sickness, occasioned by their using too freely the highly concentrated foods of civilization, to which they had never been accustomed; but, aside from that, they themselves said that their general condition had never been so good.

The move did not take place until the winter following, when the Indians flatly refused to follow the special agent sent out by the Indian Bureau, not being acquainted with him, but did consent to go with Lieutenant George O. Eaton, Fifth Cavalry, who has long since resigned from the army, and is now, I think, Surveyor-General of Montana. At Fort Apache the Indians were placed under the charge of Major George M. Randall, Twenty-third Infantry, assisted by Lieutenant Rice, of the same regiment. This portion of the Apache tribe is of unusual intelligence, and the progress made was exceptionally rapid. Another large body had been congregated at the mouth of the San Carlos, representing those formerly at old Camp Grant, to which, as we have seen, were added the Apache-Mojaves from the Verde. The Apache-Mojave and the Apache-Yuma belonged to one stock, and the Apache or Tinneh to another. They speak different languages, and although their habits of life are almost identical, there is sufficient divergence to admit of the entrance of the usual jealousies and bickerings bound to arise when two strange, illiterate tribes are brought in enforced contact.

The strong hand and patient will of Major J. B. Babcock ruled the situation at this point; he was the man for the place, and performed his duties in a manner remarkable for its delicate appreciation of the nature of the Indians, tact in allaying their suspicions, gentle firmness in bringing them to see that the new way was the better, the only way. The path of the military officers was not strewn with roses; the Apaches showed a willingness to conform to the new order of things, but at timesfailed to apprehend all that was required of them, at others showed an inclination to backslide.

Crook’s plan was laid down in one line in his instructions to officers in charge of reservations: “Treat them as children inignorance, not ininnocence.” His great principle of life was, “The greatest of these is charity.” He did not believe, and he did not teach, that an Indian could slough off the old skin in a week or a month; he knew and he indicated that there might be expected a return of the desire for the old wild life, with its absolute freedom from all restraint, its old familiar food, and all its attendant joys, such as they were. To conquer this as much as possible, he wanted to let the Indians at times cut and roast mescal, gather grass seeds and other diet of that kind, and, where it could be done without risk, go out on hunts after antelope and deer. It could not be expected that all the tribe should wish to accept the manner of life of the whites; there would surely be many who would prefer the old order of things, and who would work covertly for its restitution. Such men were to be singled out, watched, and their schemes nipped in the bud.

There were outbreaks, attempted outbreaks, and rumors of outbreaks at Verde, Apache, and at the San Carlos, with all the attendant excitement and worry. At or near the Verde, in the “Red Rock country,” and in the difficult brakes of the “Hell” and “Rattlesnake” cañons issuing out of the San Francisco Peak, some of the Apache-Mojaves who had slipped back from the party so peremptorily ordered to the San Carlos had secreted themselves and begun to give trouble. They were taken in hand by Schuyler, Seiber, and, at a later date, by Captain Charles King, the last-named being dangerously wounded by them at the “Sunset Pass.” At the San Carlos Agency there were disputes of various kinds springing up among the tribes, and worse than that a very acrimonious condition of feeling between the two men who claimed to represent the Interior Department. As a sequel to this, my dear friend and former commanding officer, Lieutenant Jacob Almy, lost his life.

Notwithstanding the chastisement inflicted upon the Apaches, some of the minor chiefs, who had still a record to make, preferred to seclude themselves in the cañons and cliffs, and defy the powers of the general government. It was a source of pride to know that they were talked about by the squaws and children upon thereserve, as men whom the whites had not been able to capture or reduce. Towards these men, Crook was patient to a wonderful degree, thinking that reason would assert itself after a time, and that, either of their own motion, or through the persuasion of friends, they would find their way into the agencies.

The ostensible reason for the absence of these men was their objection to the system of “tagging” in use at the agencies, which General Crook had introduced for the better protection of the Indians, as well as to enable the commanding officers to tell at a moment’s notice just where each and every one of the males capable of bearing arms was to be found. These tags were of various shapes, but all small and convenient in size; there were crosses, crescents, circles, diamonds, squares, triangles, etc., each specifying a particular band, and each with the number of its owner punched upon it. If a scouting party found Apaches away from the vicinity of the agencies, they would make them give an account of themselves, and if the pass shown did not correspond with the tags worn, then there was room for suspicion that the tags had been obtained from some of the Agency Indians in gambling—in the games of“Con Quien,”“Tze-chis,” “Mush-ka”—to which the Apaches were passionately addicted, and in which they would play away the clothes on their backs when they had any. Word was sent to the Indians of whom I am writing to come in and avoid trouble, and influences of all kinds were brought to bear upon the squaws with them—there were only a few—to leave the mountains, and return to their relatives at the San Carlos. The principal chiefs were gradually made to see that they were responsible for this condition of affairs, and that they should compel these outlaws to obey the orders which had been issued for the control of the whole tribe. So long as they killed no one the troops and Apache scouts would not be sent out against them; they should be given ample opportunity for deciding; but it might be well for them to decide quickly, as in case of trouble arising at San Carlos, the whole tribe would be held responsible for the acts of these few. One of them was named “Chuntz,” another “Chaundezi,” and another “Clibicli;” there were more in the party, but the other names have temporarily escaped my memory. The meaning of the first word I do not know; the second means “Long Ear,” and is the Apache term for mule; the third I do not know, but it has something to do with horse,the first syllable meaning horse, and the whole word, I believe, means “the horse that is tied.” They lived in the cañon of the Gila, and would often slip in by night to see their relatives at the agency.

One night there was an awful time at San Carlos; a train of wagons laden with supplies for Camp Apache had halted there, and some of the teamsters let the Apaches, among whom were the bad lot under Chuntz, have a great deal of vile whiskey. All hands got gloriously drunk, and when the teamsters refused to let their red-skinned friends have any more of the poisonous stuff the Apaches killed them. If it could only happen so that every man who sold whiskey to an Indian should be killed before sundown, it would be one of the most glorious things for the far western country. In the present case, innocent people were hurt, as they always are; and General Crook informed the chiefs that he looked to them to put a prompt termination to such excesses, and that if they did not he would take a hand himself. With that he returned to headquarters. The chiefs sent out spies, definitely placed the outlaws, who had been in the habit of changing their lodging or hiding spots with great frequency, and then arranged for their capture and delivery to the military authorities. They were surprised, summoned to surrender, refused, and attempted to fight, but were all killed; and as the Apaches knew no other mode of proving that they had killed them, and as they could not carry in the whole body of each one, they cut off the heads and brought them to San Carlos, in a sack, and dumped them out on the little parade in front of the commanding officer’s tent.

The Apaches of Arizona were now a conquered tribe, and, as Crook well expressed the situation in a General Order, his troops had terminated a campaign which had lasted from the days of Cortés. The view entertained of the work performed in Arizona by those in authority may be summed up in the orders issued by General Schofield, at that date in command of the Military Division of the Pacific:

[General Orders No. 7.]Headquarters Military Division of the Pacific,San Francisco, Cal., April 28, 1873.To Brevet Major-General George Crook, commanding the Department of Arizona, and to his gallant troops, for the extraordinary service they haverendered in the late campaign against the Apache Indians, the Division Commander extends his thanks and his congratulations upon their brilliant successes. They have merited the gratitude of the nation.By order ofMajor-General Schofield.(Signed)J. C. Kelton,Assistant Adjutant-General.

[General Orders No. 7.]

Headquarters Military Division of the Pacific,San Francisco, Cal., April 28, 1873.

Headquarters Military Division of the Pacific,

San Francisco, Cal., April 28, 1873.

To Brevet Major-General George Crook, commanding the Department of Arizona, and to his gallant troops, for the extraordinary service they haverendered in the late campaign against the Apache Indians, the Division Commander extends his thanks and his congratulations upon their brilliant successes. They have merited the gratitude of the nation.

By order ofMajor-General Schofield.

(Signed)J. C. Kelton,Assistant Adjutant-General.

(Signed)J. C. Kelton,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

Randall and Babcock persevered in their work, and soon a change had appeared in the demeanor of the wild Apaches; at San Carlos there grew up a village of neatly made brush huts, arranged in rectilinear streets, carefully swept each morning, while the huts themselves were clean as pie-crust, the men and women no longer sleeping on the bare ground, but in bunks made of saplings, and elevated a foot or more above the floor; on these, blankets were neatly piled. The scouts retained in service as a police force were quietly given to understand that they must be models of cleanliness and good order as well as of obedience to law. The squaws were encouraged to pay attention to dress, and especially to keep their hair clean and brushed. No abuse of a squaw was allowed, no matter what the excuse might be. One of the most prominent men of the Hualpai tribe—“Qui-ua-than-yeva”—was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment because he persisted in cutting off the nose of one of his wives. This fearful custom finally yielded, and there are now many people in the Apache tribe itself who have never seen a poor woman thus disfigured and humiliated.

Crook’s promise to provide a ready cash market for everything the Apaches could raise was nobly kept. To begin with, the enlistment of a force of scouts who were paid the same salary as white soldiers, and at the same periods with them, introduced among the Apaches a small, but efficient, working capital. Unaccustomed to money, the men, after receiving their first pay, spent much of it foolishly for candy and other trivial things. Nothing was said about that; they were to be made to understand that the money paid them was their own to spend or to save as they pleased, and to supply as much enjoyment as they could extract from it. But, immediately after pay-day, General Crook went among the Apaches on the several reservations and made inquiries of each one of the principal chiefs what results had come to their wives and families from this new source of wealth. He explained that money could be made to grow just as an acornwould grow into the oak; that by spending it foolishly, the Apaches treated it just as they did the acorn which they trod under foot; but by investing their money in California horses and sheep, they would be gaining more money all the time they slept, and by the time their children had attained maturity the hills would be dotted with herds of horses and flocks of sheep. Then they would be rich like the white men; then they could travel about and see the world; then they would not be dependent upon the Great Father for supplies, but would have for themselves and their families all the food they could eat, and would have much to sell.

The Apaches did send into Southern California and bought horses and sheep as suggested, and they would now be self-supporting had the good management of General Crook not been ruthlessly sacrificed and destroyed. Why it is that the Apache, living as he does on a reservation offering all proper facilities for the purpose, is not raising his own meat, is one of the conundrums which cannot be answered by any one of common sense. The influences against it are too strong: once let the Indian be made self-supporting, and what will become of the gentle contractor?

Some slight advance has been made in this direction during the past twenty years, but it has been ridiculously slight in comparison with what it should have been. In an examination which General Crook made into the matter in 1884 it was found that there were several herds of cattle among the Indians, one herd that I saw numbering 384 head. It was cared for and herded in proper manner; and surely if the Apaches can do that much in one, or two, or a dozen cases, they can do it in all with anything like proper encouragement. The proper encouragement of which I speak is “the ready cash market” promised by General Crook, and by means of which he effected so much.

In every band of aborigines, as in every community of whites, or of blacks, or of Chinese, there are to be found men and women who are desirous of improving the condition of themselves and families; and alongside of them are others who care for nothing but their daily bread, and are not particularly careful how they get that so that they get it. There should be a weeding out of the progressive from the non-progressive element, and by no manner of means can it be done so effectually as by buying from the industrious all that they can sell to the Government for thesupport of their own people. There should be inserted in every appropriation bill for the support of the army or of the Indians the provision that anything and everything called for under a contract for supplies, which the Indians on a reservation or in the vicinity of a military post can supply, for the use of the troops or for the consumption of the tribe, under treaty stipulations, shall be bought of the individual Indians raising it and at a cash price not less than the price at which the contract has been awarded. For example, because it is necessary to elucidate the simplest propositions in regard to the Indians, if the chief “A” has, by industry and thrift, gathered together a herd of one hundred cattle, all of the increase that he may wish to sell should be bought from him; he will at once comprehend that work has its own reward, and a very prompt and satisfactory one. He has his original numbers, and he has a snug sum of money too; he buys more cattle, he sees that he is becoming a person of increased importance, not only in the eyes of his own people but in that of the white men too; he encourages his sons and all his relatives to do the same as he has done, confident that their toil will not go unrewarded.

Our method has been somewhat different from that. Just as soon as a few of the more progressive people begin to accumulate a trifle of property, to raise sheep, to cultivate patches of soil and raise scanty crops, the agent sends in the usual glowing report of the occurrence, and to the mind of the average man and woman in the East it looks as if all the tribe were on the highway to prosperity, and the first thing that Congress does is to curtail the appropriations. Next, we hear of “disaffection,” the tribe is reported as “surly and threatening,” and we are told that the “Indians are killing their cattle.” But, whether they go to war or quietly starve on the reservation effects no change in the system; all supplies are bought of a contractor as before, and the red man is no better off, or scarcely any better off, after twenty years of peace, than he was when he surrendered. The amount of beef contracted for during the present year—1891—for the Apaches at Camp Apache and San Carlos, according to theSouthwestern Stockman(Wilcox, Arizona), was not quite two million pounds, divided as follows: eight hundred thousand pounds for the Indians at San Carlos, on the contract of John H. Norton, and an additional five hundred thousand pounds for the same people onthe contract of the Chiricahua Cattle Company; and five hundred thousand pounds for the Indians at Fort Apache, on the contract of John H. Norton. Both of the above contracting parties are known to me as reliable and trustworthy; I am not finding fault with them for getting a good, fat contract; but I do find fault with a system which keeps the Indian a savage, and does not stimulate him to work for his own support.

At one time an epidemic of scarlet fever broke out among the children on the Apache reservation, and numbers were carried off. Indians are prone to sacrifice property at the time of death of relations, and, under the advice of their “Medicine Men,” slaughtered altogether nearly two thousand sheep, which they had purchased with their own money or which represented the increase from the original flock. Crook bought from the Apaches all the hay they would cut, and had the Quartermaster pay cash for it; every pound of hay, every stick of wood, and no small portion of the corn used by the military at Camp Apache and San Carlos were purchased from the Apaches as individuals, and not from contractors or from tribes. The contractors had been in the habit of employing the Apaches to do this work for them, paying a reduced scale of remuneration and often in store goods, so that by the Crook method the Indian received from two to three times as much as under the former system, and this to the great advantage of Arizona, because the Indian belongs to the Territory of Arizona, and will stay there and buy what he needs from her people, but the contractor has gone out to make money, remains until he accomplishes his object, and then returns to some congenial spot where his money will do most good for himself. Of the contractors who made money in Arizona twenty years ago not one remained there: all went into San Francisco or some other large city, there to enjoy their accumulations. I am introducing this subject now because it will save repetition, and will explain to the average reader why it was that the man who did so much to reduce to submission the worst tribes this country has ever known, and who thought of nothing but the performance of duty and the establishment of a permanent and honorable peace, based—to quote his own language—“upon an exact and even-handed justice to red men and to white alike,” should have been made the target for the malevolence and the rancor of every man in the slightest degreeinterested in the perpetuation of the contract system and in keeping the aborigine in bondage.

To sum up in one paragraph, General Crook believed that the American Indian was a human being, gifted with the same god-like apprehension as the white man, and like him inspired by noble impulses, ambition for progress and advancement, but subject to the same infirmities, beset with the same or even greater temptations, struggling under the disadvantages of an inherited ignorance, which had the double effect of making him doubt his own powers in the struggle for the new life and suspicious of the truthfulness and honesty of the advocates of all innovations. The American savage has grown up as a member of a tribe, or rather of a clan within a tribe; all his actions have been made to conform to the opinions of his fellows as enunciated in the clan councils or in those of the tribe.

It is idle to talk of de-tribalizing the Indian until we are ready to assure him that his new life is the better one. By the Crook method of dealing with the savage he was, at the outset, de-tribalized without knowing it; he was individualized and made the better able to enter into the civilization of the Caucasian, which is an individualized civilization. As a scout, the Apache was enlisted as an individual; he was made responsible individually for all that he did or did not. He was paid as an individual. If he cut grass, he, and not his tribe or clan, got the money; if he split fuel, the same rule obtained; and so with every grain of corn or barley which he planted. If he did wrong, he was hunted down as an individual until the scouts got him and put him in the guard-house. If his friends did wrong, the troops did not rush down upon him and his family and chastise them for the wrongs of others; he was asked to aid in the work of ferreting out and apprehending the delinquent; and after he had been brought in a jury of the Apaches themselves deliberated upon the case and never failed in judgment, except on the side of severity.

There were two cases of chance-medley coming under my own observation, in both of which the punishment awarded by the Apache juries was much more severe than would have been given by a white jury. In the first case, the man supposed to have done the killing was sentenced to ten years’ hard labor; in the other, to three. A white culprit was at the same time sentencedin Tucson for almost the same offence to one year’s confinement in jail. Indians take to trials by jury as naturally as ducks take to water. Trial by jury is not a system of civilized people; it is the survival of the old trial by clan, the rudimentary justice known to all tribes in the most savage state.

General Crook believed that the Indian should be made self-supporting, not by preaching at him the merits of labor and the grandeur of toiling in the sun, but by making him see that every drop of honest sweat meant a penny in his pocket. It was idle to expect that the Indian should understand how to work intelligently in the very beginning; he represented centuries of one kind of life, and the Caucasian the slow evolution of centuries under different conditions and in directions diametrically opposite. The two races could not, naturally, understand each other perfectly, and therefore to prevent mistakes and the doing of very grievous injustice to the inferior, it was the duty and to the interest of the superior race to examine into and understand the mental workings of the inferior.

The American Indian, born free as the eagle, would not tolerate restraint, would not brook injustice; therefore, the restraint imposed must be manifestly for his benefit, and the government to which he was subjected must be eminently one of kindness, mercy, and absolute justice, without necessarily degenerating into weakness. The American Indian despises a liar. The American Indian is the most generous of mortals: at all his dances and feasts the widow and the orphan are the first to be remembered. Therefore, when he meets with an agent who is “on the make,” that agent’s influence goes below zero at once; and when he enters the trader’s store and finds that he is charged three dollars and a half for a miserable wool hat, which, during his last trip to Washington, Albuquerque, Omaha, or Santa Fé, as the case may be, he has seen offered for a quarter, he feels that there is something wrong, and he does not like it any too well. For that reason Crook believed that the Indians should be encouraged to do their own trading and to set up their own stores. He was not shaken in this conviction when he found agents interested in the stores on the reservations, a fact well understood by the Apaches as well as by himself. It was a very touching matter at the San Carlos, a few years ago, to see thethen agent counting the proceeds of the weekly sales made by his son-in-law—the Indian trader.

At the date of the reduction of the Apaches, the success of the Government schools was not clearly established, so that the subject of Indian instruction was not then discussed except theoretically. General Crook was always a firm believer in the education of the American Indian; not in the education of a handful of boys and girls sent to remote localities, and there inoculated with new ideas and deprived of the old ones upon which they would have to depend for getting a livelihood; but in the education of the younger generation as a generation. Had the people of the United States taken the young generation of Sioux and Cheyennes in 1866, and educated them in accordance with the terms of the treaty, there would not have been any trouble since. The children should not be torn away from the parents to whom they are a joy and a consolation, just as truly as they are to white parents; they should be educated within the limits of the reservation so that the old folks from time to time could get to see them and note their progress. As they advanced in years, the better qualified could be sent on to Carlisle and Hampton, and places of that grade. The training of the Indian boy or girl should be largely industrial, but as much as possible in the line of previous acquirement and future application. Thus, the Navajos, who have made such advances as weavers and knitters, might well be instructed in that line of progress, as might the Zunis, Moquis, and other Pueblos.

After the Indian had returned to his reservation, it was the duty of the Government to provide him with work in his trade, whatever it might be, to the exclusion of the agency hanger-on. Why should boys be trained as carpenters and painters, and then see such work done by white men at the agency, while they were forced to remain idle? This complaint was made by one of the boys at San Carlos. Why should Apache, Sioux, or Cheyenne children who have exerted themselves to learn our language, be left unemployed, while the work of interpretation is done, and never done any too well, at the agencies by white men? Does it not seem a matter of justice and common sense to fill all such positions, as fast as the same can be done without injustice to faithful incumbents under the present system, by young men trained in our ideas and affiliated to our ways? Let all watchmenand guardians of public stores—all the policemen on the reserves—be natives; let all hauling of supplies be done by the Indians themselves, and let them be paid the full contract rate if they are able to haul no more than a portion of the supplies intended for their use.

Some of these ideas have already been adopted, in part, by the Indian Bureau, and with such success that there is more than a reasonable expectancy that the full series might be considered and adopted with the best results. Instruct the young women in the rudiments of housekeeping, as already outlined. Provide the reservations with saw-mills and grist-mills, and let the Indians saw their own planks and grind their own meal and flour. This plan has been urged by the Apaches so persistently during recent years that it would seem not unreasonable to make the experiment on some of the reservations. Encourage them to raise chickens and to sell eggs; it is an industry for which they are well fitted, and the profits though small would still be profits, and one drop more in the rivulet of gain to wean them from idleness, ignorance, and the war-path. Let any man who desires to leave his reservation and hunt for work, do so; give him a pass; if he abuses the privilege by getting drunk or begging, do not give him another. I have known many Indians who have worked away from their own people and always with the most decided benefit. They did not always return, but when they did they did not believe in the prophecies of the “Medicine Men,” or listen to the boasts of those who still long for the war-path.

The notion that the American Indian will not work is a fallacious one; he will work just as the white man will—when it is to his advantage to do so. The adobes in the military post of Fort Wingate, New Mexico, were all made by Navajo Indians, the brothers of the Apaches. The same tribe did no small amount of work on the grading of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad where it passes across their country. The American Indian is a slave to drink where he can get it, and he is rarely without a supply from white sources; he is a slave to the passion of gaming; and he is a slave to his superstitions, which make the “Medicine Men” the power they are in tribal affairs as well as in those relating more strictly to the clan and family. These are the three stumbling-blocks in the pathway of the Indian’s advancement;how to remove them is a most serious problem. The Indian is not the only one in our country who stumbles from the same cause; we must learn to be patient with him, but merciless toward all malefactors caught selling intoxicating liquors to red men living in the tribal relation. Gambling and superstition will be eradicated in time by the same modifying influences which have wrought changes among the Caucasian nations; education will afford additional modes of killing time, and be the means of exposing the puerility of the pretensions of the prophets.

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