Here is another point of attack for the men who continually hover aboutthe Indian like vultures above a sick or helpless man—the law providing that the allotments of deceased Indians may be sold for the benefit of their legal heirs, even though the time limit of twenty-five years protected title may not have expired. I consider the law a just one, but the work of determining the heirs is complicated and difficult. It is only last year that Congress has appropriated $50,000 for this purpose, although forty thousand inheritance cases are now pending, and much fraud has already been accomplished.
Representative Burke has shown that the bulk of the minors and incompetent Indians in Oklahoma have been swindled out of their property by dishonest administrators and guardians. Hon. Warren K. Moorehead, of the United States Board of Indian Commissioners, who investigated the situation in that state, intimates that as many as 21,000 such cases exist there. He says the handling of estates in Oklahoma costs often from 30 to 90 per cent., whereas the average rate in thirty states is 3per cent. "Why do not our laws prevent the robbing of Indians? Because they are not enforced," declares Mr. Moorehead, who also investigated White Earth, Minnesota, a few years ago, and uncovered a scandal of large proportions, relating to the theft of over two hundred thousand acres of valuable land, as a result of suddenly removing all restrictions on the mixed bloods at that agency, many of whom were incompetent to manage their own affairs.
Much of this graft might readily be stopped, and the ignorant Indian protected, were it not for the fact that the relationship between the shysters and certain officials is very much like that between the police of New York City and the keepers of illegal resorts. When complaint is made, big envelopes with "U. S." printed in the corner pass back and forth—and that is too often the end of it! The Sioux call the U. S. Indian inspectors, who are supposed to discover and report abuses, "Big Cats"; but an old chief once said to me: "They ought rather to be called prairie owls, who are blind in the daytime and have rattlesnakes for their bedfellows!"
At the suggestion, I believe, of Dr. George Bird Grinnell and HamlinGarland, an attempt was made under President Roosevelt to systematize the Indian nomenclature. The Indian in his native state bears no surname; and wife and children figuring under entirely different names from that of the head of the family, the law has been unnecessarily embarrassed. I received a special appointment to revise the allotment rolls of the Sioux nation. It was my duty to group the various members of one family under a permanent name, selected for its euphony and appropriateness from among the various cognomens in use among them, of course suppressing mistranslations and grotesque or coarse nicknames calculated to embarrass the educated Indian. My instructions were that the original native name was to be given the preference, if it were short enough and easily pronounced by Americans. If not, a translation or abbreviation might be used, while retaining as much as possible of the distinctive racial flavor. No English surname might be arbitrarily given, but such as were already well established might be retained if the owner so desired. Many such had been unwisely given to children by teachers and missionaries, and in one family I found a George Washington, a Daniel Webster, and a Patrick Henry! The task was quitecomplicated and there were many doubts and suspicions to overcome, as some feared lest it should be another trick to change the Indian's name after he had been allotted, and so defraud him safely. During the seven years spent in this work, I came upon many cases of inheritance frauds. In the face of what appear to be iron-clad rules and endless red tape, it is a problem how these things can happen without the knowledge of responsible officials!
Some years since an interesting case came up at Standing Rock Agency,N.D., which illustrates the ability of the modern Indian to manage his own affairs when he is permitted to do so. It was proposed to lease nearly the whole reservation, the occupied as well as the unoccupied portion, to two cattle companies, but in order to be legal, the consent of the Indians was necessary. An effort was made to secure their signatures, and interested parties had nearly the requisite two thirds of them fooled, when a mixed blood by the name of Louis Primeau learned of the game, and brought it to the attention of the people.
They made a strong and intelligent resistance, asked for a hearing in Washington and sent on a delegation to present their case. Immediately the agent got up a rival delegation of "good Indians," fed and clothed for the occasion, to contradict the first and declare that the people were willing to sign, all save the "kickers and trouble-makers."
My brother, the Rev. John Eastman, and I were in Washington at the time. The Indian delegation who protested against the leases was given no show at all before the Department, because it appeared that influential Western Senators were upholding the interests of the cattle companies. Primeau came to my brother for help; and we finally secured a hearing before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.
It happened to be a Democratic Senate, although a Republican President was in office; and the head of that committee was Senator Stewart of Nevada. Before him the braves fought their unequal battle to a finish. They had their credentials and the minutes of the meeting at which they had been elected, and they stated clearly their people's reasons for opposing the leases—reasons which were sound on the face of them. They also declared that the Indian Commissioner had sent a telegram to theiragent saying that if they would not sign they would be ignored by the Department, and the leases approved without their consent, although such consent was required both by treaty and statute.
It was immediately denied by the other side that any such telegram had been sent, upon which the wily Sioux played their trump card: they produced a certified copy of the dispatch which they had obtained from the operator, and publicly handed this piece of evidence to Senator Stewart.
The Indians also consulted Judge Springer of Illinois, who, after reviewing their case, said that they could serve an injunction on both the Secretary of the Interior and Commissioner, in the District of Columbia. This they did. The officials asked for thirty days; and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs personally hastened to Standing Rock, where he gave the red men a good scolding for their audacity, at the same time telling them that no lease had been made, or would be made.
President Roosevelt then sent Dr. Grinnell, a well-known friend of the Indian, to make an independent investigation. Dr. Grinnell reportedthat the Walker lease was entirely opposed to the Indians' interests, and that it would not only be unwise, but wrong, to approve it. The Lemmon lease of the unoccupied portion of the reservation was afterward executed with the Indians' consent.
There are innumerable such instances, but this one is worthy of mention because of the spirit and success with which the Indians conducted their own case. Very often their property is dissipated in spite of the fact that there are men among them who fully grasp the situation. These men protest, but it is of no use. They are denounced as "insubordinate," "disturbers of the peace," and worthless prevaricators. Here is where national honor and the rights of a dependent people are sacrificed to the politicians. When we consider that the Indian still owns more than 70,000,000 acres of land, and trust funds stated at $48,000,000, the proceeds of ceded territory, it may be seen that this immense estate largely in the hands of "wards" and illiterate persons presents a very serious problem.
It has come to be more and more the case that the Indian, so long and so oppressively paternalized, is allowed to take a hand in his owndevelopment. This is as it should be. Many theories have been advanced concerning him; but I think we all agree that he has outgrown the present method, which now seems to retard his progress. Yet the old machinery continues to exist in cumbersome and more or less inefficient form. It is a question whether it really does much more good than harm; but it seems clear that some of the tribes still need intelligent and honest guardianship. To my mind, this machinery might be adjusted more nearly to the requirements of the present-day Indian.
Professor Moorehead has suggested the plan of putting the Indian Bureau under a commission of several men, to be appointed for long terms or for life, free of political considerations. I can scarcely conceive of wholly non-partisan appointments in this age, but length of service would be a great advantage, and it does seem to me this experiment would be worth trying. Such a commission should have full authority to deal with all Indian matters without reference to any other department. I would add that one half of its members might well be of Indian blood.
It is the impression of many people who are not well informed on theIndian situation that book education is of little value to the race, particularly what is known as the higher education. The contrary is true. What we need is not less education, but more; more trained leaders to uphold the standards of civilization before both races. Among Indian college and university graduates a failure is very rare; I am sure I have not met one, and really do not know of one.
The press is responsible for many popular errors. Whenever an Indian indulges in any notorious misbehavior, he is widely heralded as a "Carlisle graduate," although as a matter of fact he may never have attended that famous school, or have been there for a short time only. Obviously the statement is intended to discredit the educated Indian.But Carlisle is not a college or university, although, because of the wonderful athletic prowess of its students, they have met and defeated the athletes of many a white university on the football field. Its curriculum is considerably below that of the ordinary high school; it is a practical or vocational school, giving a fair knowledge of some trade together with the essentials of an English education, but no Latin or other foreign language. Consequently its graduates must attend a higher preparatory school for several years before they can enter college.
It will be seen, then, that the college-educated men and women of my race have accomplished quite a feat, considering their antecedents and wholly foreign point of view. They have had to adjust themselves to a new way of thinking, as well as a new language, before they could master such abstract ideas and problems as are presented by mathematics and the sciences. Their own schools graduate them at a mature age and do not prepare them for college. Furthermore, they are almost always hampered by lack of means. Nevertheless, an increasing number have succeeded in the undertaking.
I wish to contradict the popular misconception that an educated Indianwill necessarily meet with strong prejudice among his own people, or will be educated out of sympathy with them. From their point of view, a particularly able or well-equipped man of their race is a public blessing, and all but public property. That was the old rule among us. Up to a very recent period an educated Indian could not succeed materially; he could not better himself, because the people required him to give unlimited free service, according to the old régime. I have even known one to be killed by the continual demands upon him.
There was a time (not so long ago, either) when the educated Indian stood in a very uncomfortable position between his people and the Government officials and shady politicians. Every complaint was brought to him, as a matter of course; and he was expected to expose and redress every wrong. As I have said elsewhere, such efforts are generally useless, and resulted only in damage to his financial position and his reputation. No doubt he often invited attacks upon himself by a rashness born of his ardent sympathy for his fellow-tribesmen. In this matter Ispeak from personal experience as well as long observation.
Even in the old, wild days, an education was appreciated by the Indians; but it was a hard life for the educated man. They made him carry too heavy a burden, without much recompense save honor and respect. But we have pretty well passed through that period, and the native graduates of our higher institutions have begun to show their strength and enlarge their views. They have not only done well for themselves and their race, but they stand before the world as living illustrations of its capacity, disproving many theories concerning untutored races.
It was declared without qualification by the Universal Races Congress at London in 1911 that there is no inherently superior race, therefore no inferior race. From every race some individuals have mastered the same curriculum and passed the same tests, and in some instances members of so-called "uncivilized" races have stood higher than the average "civilized" student; therefore they have the same inherent ability.Certain peoples have remained undeveloped because of their religion, philosophy, and form of government; in other words, because of the racial environment. Change the environment, and the race is transformed. Certainly the American Indian has clearly demonstrated the truth of this assertion.
The very mention of the name "Indian" in earlier days would make the average white man's blood creep with thoughts of the war-whoop and the scalping-knife. A little later it suggested chiefly feathers and paint and "Buffalo Bill's Wild West." To-day the association is rather with the Carlisle school and its famous athletes; but to the thinking mind the name suggests deeper thoughts and higher possibilities.
It was no less a man than Theodore Roosevelt who said to me once in the White House that he would give anything to have a drop of Sioux or Cheyenne blood in his veins. It is a fact that the intelligent and educated Indian has no social prejudice to contend with. His color is not counted against him. He is received cordially and upon equal terms in school, college, and society.
Dr. Booker Washington is in the habit of saying jocosely that the negroblood is the strongest in the world, for one drop of it makes a "nigger" of a white man. I would argue that the Indian blood is even stronger, for a half-blood negro and Indian may pass for an Indian, and so be admitted to first-class hotels and even to high society. All that an Indian needs in order to be popular, and indeed to be lionized if he so desires, is to get an education and hold up his head as a member of the oldest American aristocracy. Many of our leading men have married into excellent families and are prominent in cultivated white communities. We want the best in two races and civilizations in exchange for what we have lost.
Some of us have entered upon every known professional career, such as medicine, law, the ministry, education and the sciences, politics and higher business management, art and literature. It may be well to mention some of our best-known professional men and women. The doctors seem to have been the first to enter the general field in competition with their white colleagues: at first, to be sure, as "Indian herb doctors," or quacks of one sort or another, but later as competent graduated physicians. The Government has utilized several in the Indian service, and others have established themselves in private practice.
Perhaps the foremost of these is Dr. Carlos Montezuma of Chicago, afull-blooded Apache, who was purchased for a few steers while in captivity to the Pimas, who were enemies of his people. He was brought to Chicago by the man who ransomed him, a reporter and photographer, and when his benefactor died, the boy became the protégé of the Chicago Press Club. A large portrait of him adorns the parlor of the club, showing him as the naked Indian captive of about four years old.
He went to the public school, then to Champaign University, Illinois, and from there to the Northwestern University, where he was graduated from the medical department. All this time, although receiving some aid from various sources, he largely supported himself. After graduation Dr. Montezuma was sent by the Government as physician to an Indian agency in Montana, and later transferred to the Carlisle school. In a few years he returned to Chicago and opened an office. He has been a prominent physician there for a number of years, and was recently married to alady of German descent. He stands uncompromisingly for the total abolition of the reservation system and of the Indian Bureau, holding that the red man must be allowed to work out his own salvation.
One of the earliest practitioners of our race was Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte of the Omaha tribe. Having prepared at Hampton Institute and elsewhere, she entered the Philadelphia Medical College for Women. When she had finished, she returned to her tribe, and was for some time in the Government service. She has since taken up private practice and also had charge of a mission hospital. Dr. Picotte is a sister of Bright Eyes (Susette La Flesche) and also of Francis La Flesche of Washington, D. C. There is another Indian doctor, not of full blood, who is president of the City Club of Chicago and active in civic reform. In several Middle Western cities there are successful doctors and dentists of my race.
In the profession of law we have none of full blood whose fame is national. Judge Hiram Chase of the Omahas and others have won local distinction. The Hon. Charles Curtis, Senator from Kansas, was a successful lawyer in Topeka when he was elected to the House of Representatives, and later to the United States Senate. His mother is aKaw Indian. Mr. Curtis was and is a leader of the Republican party in his state. Senator Owen of Oklahoma is part Cherokee. The whole country has come to realize his ability and influence. Representative Carter of Oklahoma is also an Indian.
During my student days in New Hampshire I was often told that Daniel Webster was part Indian on his mother's side. Certainly his physiognomy as well as his unequalled logic corroborated the story. We all know that governors and other men of mark have proclaimed themselves descendants of Pocahontas; I have met several in the West and South. I know that the late Senators Quay of Pennsylvania and Morgan of Alabama had some Indian blood, for they themselves told me so; and I have been told the same of Senators Clapp and La Follette, but have never verified it. Their wonderful aggressiveness and dauntless public service in my mind point to native descent, and if they can truthfully claim it I feel sure that they will be proud to do so. They must know that many distinguished army officers as well as traders and explorers left sons and daughters among the American tribes, especially during the first half of the nineteenthcentury. As late as 1876 Dr. Washington Mathews, a surgeon in the United States Army, brought down on a Missouri River steamboat a Gros Ventre son, and left him with the missionary teacher, Dr. Alfred L. Riggs, to rear and educate. This military surgeon and scientist not only attained the rank of major-general, but he became one of our foremost archæologists. The boy was called Berthold, from the place of his birth. He was afterward sent to Yankton College, but I do not know what became of him. As for those brilliant men, so many in number, who have the blood of both races in their veins, I will not pretend to claim for the Indian all the credit of their talents and energy.
In the ministry we have many able and devoted men—more than in any other profession. The Presbyterian Church alone has thirty-eight and the Episcopal Church about twenty, with a less number in several other denominations, and two Roman Catholic priests. Most of these labor among their own people, though the Rev. Frank Wright, a Choctaw, is well known as an evangelistic preacher and singer.
One of our best-known clergymen is Rev. Sherman Coolidge, a full-blood Arapahoe. He has had an unusual career, having been taken prisoner as aboy by an officer of the army. He was sent to school and eventually graduated from Bishop Whipple's Seabury Divinity School at Faribault, Minn. Since that time Doctor Coolidge has devoted himself to the Christianization of his race. He is the president of our recently organized Society of American Indians.
Bishop Whipple developed many able preachers, of whom perhaps the most accomplished was the Rev. Charles Smith Cook, of the Yankton Sioux. He was the son of a Sioux woman and a military officer. Mr. Cook was graduated from Trinity College, Hartford, and later from Seabury Divinity School. He had unusual eloquence and personal charm, and became at once one of Bishop Hare's ablest helpers in his great work among the Sioux. Stationed at Pine Ridge at the time of the Wounded Knee massacre, he opened his church to the wounded Indian prisoners as an emergency hospital. His much regretted death occurred a few months later. He was a tireless worker and much loved by his people.
One of our promising young ministers is the Rev. Henry Roe Cloud, a Winnebago, graduated from Yale and Oberlin. Stephen Jones, a Sioux, whowas graduated from the Y. M. C. A. training-school at Springfield, Mass., has done good work as field secretary among the Indians for a number of years. I should add that there are many ministers of my race who have no college degree nor much education in the English language, yet who are among our most able and influential leaders. My own brother, Rev. John Eastman, who passed but a short time in school, has not only been a successful preacher among the Sioux but for many years their trusted adviser and representative to look after their interests at the national capital.
A few men and many women have succeeded in the teaching profession, most of them in the United States Indian Service. It is the express policy of the Government to use the educated Indians, whenever possible, in promoting the advancement of their race; indeed some of the treaties include this stipulation. Therefore preference is given them by the Indian Bureau, and although they must pass a civil-service examination to prove their fitness, such examination, in their case, is non-competitive. They have been prepared in the larger Government schools, in many instances with the addition of normal and collegecourses. At least two are superintendents of schools. A number of young women, Carlisle graduates, have taken up trained nursing as a profession, and are practising successfully both among whites and Indians.
In the sciences, especially in ethnology and archæology, we have several who have rendered material service. William Jones, a Sac and Fox quarter blood, was a graduate of Hampton and of Harvard University. He took post-graduate work at Columbia, and was a pupil of those distinguished scientists, Dr. Putnam and Dr. Boas. The latter has called him one of our ablest archæologists. Dr. Jones travelled among the various tribes, even to the coast of Labrador, and labored assiduously in the cause of science for Harvard and the Marshall Field Museum of Chicago, as well as other institutions. It was the Chicago Museum which sent him to the Philippine Islands, where he was murdered by the natives a few years ago.
We have also such men as Professor Hewitt of the Smithsonian Institution, Francis La Flesche of the same, and Arthur C. Parker of Albany, N. Y., who is state archæologist.
In literature several writers of Indian blood have appeared during thepast few years, and have won a measure of recognition. Francis La Flesche, an Omaha, has collaborated with Miss Alice C. Fetcher in ethnological work, and is also the author of a pleasing story of life in an Indian school called "The Middle Five." Zitkalasa, a Sioux (now Mrs. Bonney), attended a Western college, where she distinguished herself in an intercollegiate oratorical contest. Soon afterward she appeared in theAtlantic Monthlyas the writer of several papers of an autobiographical nature, which attracted favorable attention, and were followed by a little volume of Indian legends and several short stories. Mrs. Bonney has more recently written the book of an Indian opera called "The Sun Dance," which has been produced in Salt Lake City by university students. John Oskinson, a Cherokee, was first heard of as the winner in an intercollegiate literary contest, and he is now on the staff ofCollier's Weekly. The Five Civilized Nations of Oklahoma can show many other writers and journalists.
In higher business lines a number have shown special ability. General Pleasant Porter, who died recently, was president of a short railroad line in Oklahoma; Mr. Hill, of Texas, is reputed to be a millionaire;Howard Gansworth, a graduate of Carlisle and Princeton, is a successful business man in Syracuse, N. Y.; and many of more or less Indian blood have gone forth into the world to do business on a large scale.
In the athletic world this little race has no peer, as is sufficiently proven by their remarkable record in football, baseball, and track athletics. A few years ago I asked that good friend of the Indian, Gen. R. H. Pratt, why he did not introduce football in his school. "Why," said he, "if I did that, half the press of the country would attack me for developing the original war instincts and savagery of the Indian! The public would be afraid to come to our games!"
"Major," I said, "that is exactly why I want you to do it. We will prove that the Indian is a gentleman and a sportsman; he will not complain; he will do nothing unfair or underhand; he will play the game according to the rules, and will not swear—at least not in public!"
Not long afterward the game was introduced at Carlisle, and I was asked by the General to visit Montana and the Dakotas to secure pupils for the school, and, incidentally, recruits for his football warriors. The Indians' victory was complete. These boys always fight the battle onits own merits; they play a clean game, and lose very few games during the season, although they meet all our leading universities, each on its own home grounds.
From the fleet Deerfoot to this day we boast the noted names of Longboat, Sockalexis, Bemus Pierce, Frank Hudson, Tewanima, Metoxen, Myers, Bender, and Jim Thorpe. Thorpe is a graduate of the Carlisle school, and at the Olympic Games in Sweden in 1912 he won the title ofthe greatest all-round athlete in the world.
I have been asked why my race has not produced a Booker Washington. There are many difficulties in the way of efficient race leadership; one of them is the large number of different Indian tribes with their distinct languages, habits, and traditions, and with old tribal jealousies and antagonisms yet to be overcome. Another, and a more serious obstacle, is the dependent position of the Indian, and the almost arbitrary power in the hands of the Indian Bureau.
About fifteen years ago the idea of a national organization of progressive Indians was discussed at some length by Rev. Sherman Coolidge, my brother, John Eastman, and myself. At that time weconcluded that the movement would not be understood either by our own race or the American people in general, and that there was grave danger of arousing the antagonism of the Bureau. If such a society were formed, it would necessarily take many problems of the race under consideration, and the officials at Washington and in the field are sensitive to criticism, nor are they accustomed to allowing the Indian a voice in his own affairs. Furthermore, many of the most progressive red men are enlisted in the Government service, which would make their position a very difficult one in case of any friction with the authorities. Very few Indians are sufficiently independent of the Bureau to speak and act with absolute freedom.
Some ten years later I was called to Columbus, Ohio, to lecture for the Ohio State University on the same course with Dr. Coolidge and Dr. Montezuma. Prof. F. A. McKenzie of the university arranged the course, and soon afterward he wrote me that he believed the time was now ripe to organize our society. We corresponded with leading Indians and arranged a meeting at Columbus for the following April. At this meeting five were present besides myself: Dr. Montezuma, Thomas Sloan, Charles E.Dagenett, Henry Standingbear, and Miss Laura Cornelius. We organized as a committee, and issued a general call for a conference in October at the university, upon the cordial invitation of Dr. McKenzie and President Thompson.
Four annual conferences have now been held, and the fifth is announced for next October at Oklahoma City. The society has 500 active and about the same number of associate members; the latter are white friends of the race who are in sympathy with our objects. Our first president is Rev. Sherman Coolidge, and Arthur C. Parker is secretary and treasurer. The Society of American Indians issues a quarterly journal devoted to the proceedings of the conferences and the interests of the Indian race. At these meetings and in this journal various phases of our situation have been intelligently and courageously discussed, and certain remedies have been suggested for the evils brought to light. These debates should at least open the public ear.
Of course the obstacles to complete success that I have referred to still exist, and there are others as well. Our people have not been trained to work together harmoniously. It is a serious question what principles we should stand for and what line of work we ought to undertake. Should we devote ourselves largely to exposing the numerousfrauds committed upon Indians? Or should we keep clear of these matters, avoid discussion of official methods and action, and simply aim at arousing racial pride and ambition along new lines, holding up a modern ideal for the support and encouragement of our youth? Should we petition Congress and in general continue along the lines of the older Indian associations? Or should we rather do intensive work among our people, looking especially toward their moral and social welfare?
I stand for the latter plan. Others think differently; and, as a matter of fact, a Washington office has been opened and much attention paid to governmental affairs. It is a large task. The declared objects of the society, in almost the words originally chosen by its six founders, are as follows:
First.To promote and coöperate with all efforts looking to the advancement of the Indian in enlightenment which leave him free, as a man, to develop according to the natural laws of social evolution.
Second.To provide through our open conferences the means for a free discussion on all subjects bearing on the welfare of the race.
Third.To present in a just light the true history of the race, to preserve its records and emulate its distinguishing virtues.
Fourth.To promote citizenship and to obtain the rights thereof.
Fifth.To establish a legal department to investigate Indian problems and to suggest and to obtain remedies.
Sixth.To exercise the right to oppose any movement that may be detrimental to the race.
Seventh.To direct its energies exclusively to general principles and universal interests, and not allow itself to be used for any personal or private interest.The honor of the race and the good of the country shall be paramount.
The physical decline and alarming death-rate of the American Indian ofto-day is perhaps the most serious and urgent of the many problems that confront him at the present time. The death-rate is stated by Government officials at about thirty per thousand of the population—double the average rate among white Americans. From the same source we learn that about 70,000 Indians in the United States are suffering from trachoma, a serious and contagious eye disease, and probably 30,000 have tuberculosis in some form. The death-rate from tuberculosis is almost three times that among the whites.
These are grave facts, and cause deep anxiety to the intelligent Indian and to the friends of the race. Some hold pessimistic views looking to its early extinction; but these are not warranted by the outlook, for in spite of the conditions named, the last three census show a slight but continuous increase in the total number of Indians. Nor is this increase among mixed-bloods alone; the full-blooded Indians are also increasing in numbers. This indicates that the race has reached and passed the lowest point of its decline, and is beginning slowly but surely torecuperate.
The health situation on the reservations was undoubtedly even worse twenty years ago than it is to-day, but at that period little was heard and still less done about it. It is well known that the wild Indian had to undergo tremendous and abrupt changes in his mode of living. He suffered severely from an indoor and sedentary life, too much artificial heat, too much clothing, impure air, limited space, indigestible food—indigestible because he did not know how to prepare it, and in itself poor food for him. He was compelled often to eat diseased cattle, mouldy flour, rancid bacon, with which he drank large quantities of strong coffee. In a word, he lived a squalid life, unclean and apathetic physically, mentally, and spiritually.
This does not mean all Indians—a few, like the Navajoes, have retainedtheir native vigor and independence—I refer to the typical "agency Indian" of the Northwest. He drove ten to sixty miles to the agency for food; every week-end at some agencies, at others every two weeks, and at still others once a month. This was all the real business he had to occupy him—travelling between cabin and agency warehouses for twenty-five years! All this time he was brooding over the loss of his freedom, his country rich in game, and all the pleasures and satisfactions of wild life. Even the arid plains and wretched living left him he was not sure of, judging from past experience with a government that makes a solemn treaty guaranteeing him a certain territory "forever," and taking it away from him the next year if it appears that some of their own people want it, after all.
Like the Israelites in bondage, our own aborigines have felt the sweet life-giving air of freedom change to the burning heat of a desert as dreary as that of Egypt under Pharaoh. It was during this period of hopeless resignation, gloomily awaiting—what, no Indian could even guess—that his hardy, yet sensitive, organization gave way. Who can wonder at it? His home was a little, one-roomed log cabin, about twelveby twenty feet, mud-chinked, containing a box stove and a few sticks of furniture. The average cabin has a dirt floor and a dirt roof. They are apt to be overheated in winter, and the air is vitiated at all times, but especially at night, when there is no ventilation whatever. Families of four to ten persons lived, and many still live, in these huts. Fortunately the air of the plains is dry, or we should have lost them all!
Remember, these people were accustomed to the purest of air and water. The teepee was little more than a canopy to shelter them from the elements; it was pitched every few days upon new, clean ground. Clothing was loose and simple, and frequent air and sun baths, as well as baths in water and steam, together with the use of emollient oils, kept the skin in perfect condition. Their food was fresh and wholesome, largely wild meat and fish, with a variety of wild fruits, roots, and grain, and some cultivated ones. At first they could not eat the issue bacon, and on ration days one might see these strips of unwholesome-looking fat lying about on the ground where they had been thrown on the return trip. Flour, too, was often thrown away before the women had learned to make bread raised with cheap baking-powder and fried in grease. But thefresh meat they received was not enough to last until the next ration day. There was no end of bowel trouble when they were forced by starvation to swallow the bacon and ill-prepared bread. Water, too, was generally hauled from a distance with much labor, and stood about in open buckets or barrels for several days.
As their strength waned, they made more fire in the stove and sat over it, drinking rank coffee and tea that had boiled all day on the same stove. After perspiring thus for hours, many would go out into the bitter cold of a Dakota winter with little or no additional clothing, and bronchitis and pneumonia were the inevitable result. The uncured cases became chronic and led straight to tuberculosis in its various forms.
Furthermore, the Indian had not become in any sense immune to disease, and his ignorance placed no check upon contagion and infection. Even the simpler children's diseases, such as measles, were generally fatal. The death-rate of children under five was terrific. I have known women to bear families of six or eight or ten children, and outlive them all, most dying in infancy. In their state of deep depression disease had its golden opportunity, and there seemed to be no escape. What was thereto save the race from annihilation within a few years? Nothing, save its heritage of a superb physique and a wonderful patience.
The doctors who were in the service in those days had an easy time of it. They scarcely ever went outside of the agency enclosure, and issued their pills and compounds after the most casual inquiry. As late as 1890, when the Government sent me out as physician to ten thousand Ogallalla Sioux and Northern Cheyennes at Pine Ridge Agency, I found my predecessor still practising his profession through a small hole in the wall between his office and the general assembly room of the Indians. One of the first things I did was to close that hole; and I allowed no man to diagnose his own trouble or choose his pills. I told him I preferred to do that myself; and I insisted upon thoroughly examining my patients. It was a revelation to them, but they soon appreciated the point, and the demand for my services doubled and trebled.
As no team was provided for my use to visit my patients on areservation nearly a hundred miles square (or for any other agency doctor at the time), I bought a riding horse, saddle and saddle-bags, and was soon on the road almost day and night. A night ride of fifty to seventy-five miles was an ordinary occurrence; and even a Dakota blizzard made no difference, for I never refused to answer a call. Before many months I was supplied by the Government with a covered buggy and two good horses.
I found it necessary to buy, partly with my own funds and partly with money contributed by generous friends, a supply of suitable remedies as well as a full set of surgical instruments. The drugs supplied by contractors to the Indian service were at that period often obsolete in kind, and either stale or of the poorest quality. Much of my labor was wasted, moreover, because of the impossibility of seeing that my directions were followed, and of securing proper nursing and attention. Major operations were generally out of the question on account of the lack of hospital facilities, as well as the prejudice of the people, though I did operate on several of the severely injured after the massacre at Wounded Knee. In many cases it was my task to supply my patients with suitable food and other necessaries, and my wife wasalways prepared for a raid on her kitchen and storeroom for bread, soup, sheets, and bandages.
The old-time "medicine-man" was really better than the average white doctor in those days, for although his treatment was largely suggestive, his herbs were harmless and he did allay some distress which the other aggravated, because he used powerful drugs almost at random and did not attend to his cases intelligently. The native practitioners were at first suspicious of me as a dangerous rival, but we soon became good friends, and they sometimes came frankly to me for advice and even proposed to borrow some of my remedies.
Of course, even in that early period when the average Government doctor feared to risk his life by going freely among the people (though there was no real danger unless he invited it), there were a few who were sincere and partially successful, especially some military surgeons.
Now that stage of the medical work among the Indians is past, and the agency doctor has no valid excuse for failing to perform his professional duty. It is true that he is poorly paid and too often overworked; but the equipment is better and there is intelligent supervision. At Pine Ridge, where I labored single-handed, there arenow three physicians, with a hospital to aid them in their work. To-day there are two hundred physicians, with a head supervisor and a number of specialists, seventy nurses, and eighty field matrons in the Indian service.
Another serious mistake has been made in the poor sanitary equipment of Indian schools. Close confinement and long hours of work were for these children of the forest and plains unnatural and trying at best. Dormitories especially have been shamefully overcrowded, and undesirable pupils, both by reason of disease and bad morals, allowed to mingle freely with the healthy and innocent. Serious mishaps have occurred which have given some of these schools a bad name; but I really believe that greater care is being taken at the present time. It was chiefly at an early period of the Indian's advance toward civilization that both mismanagement and adverse circumstance, combined with his own inexperience and ignorance of the new ways, weakened his naturally splendid powers and paved the way for his present physical decline. His mental lethargy and want of ambition under the deadening reservation system have had much to do with the outcome.
He was in a sense muzzled. He was told: "You are yet a child. You cannotteach your own children, nor judge of their education. They must not even use their mother tongue. I will do it all myself. I have got to make you over; meanwhile, I will feed and clothe you. I will be your nurse and guardian."
This is what happened to this proud and self-respecting race! But since then they have silently studied the world's history and manners; they have wandered far and wide and observed life for themselves. They have thought much. The great change has come about; the work has been done, whether poorly or otherwise, and, upon the whole, the good will prevail. The pessimist may complain that nothing has come of all the effort made in behalf of the Indian. I say that it is not too late for the original American to regain and reëstablish his former physical excellency. Why should he not? Much depends upon his own mental attitude, and this is becoming more normal as the race approaches and some part of it attains to self-support and full citizenship. As I have said, conditions are improving; yet much remains to be done; and it should be done quickly.An exhaustive inquiry into health conditions among the tribes was made in accordance with an act of Congress in 1912, and the report presented in January, 1913, was in brief as follows: