REPORT

OF THE

BOARD OF INDIAN COMMISSIONERS.

WASHINGTON, D. C., January 31, 1887. SIR: We have the honor to submit the Eighteenth Annual Report of the Board of Indian Commissioners, in pursuance of the act of May 17, 1882.

During the year 1886 three members of the Board have closed their term of service, viz, Hon. John K. Boies, of Michigan; Hon. William T. Johnson, of Illinois; and Hon. William H. Lyon, of New York. These vacancies have been filled by the appointment of Hon. William H. Waldby, of Michigan, Hon. James Lidgerwood, of New York, and Hon. William D. Walker, of Dakota.

MEETINGS.

Only three meetings of the Board have been held during the year' the first in New York, at the time of the annual awarding of contracts for Indian supplies. The competition for these contracts was more active than ever before. The number of bids for provisions, clothing, hardware, household and farming implements, medicines, and transportation of the goods was four hundred and fifty-one, against four hundred and thirty-three in 1885, and three hundred and fifty-two in 1884. These bids were opened and read in the hearing of a large number of contractors, and contracts were awarded after a careful examination of a large number of samples. This work required the presence of the Board, with the honorable Commissioner of Indian Affairs and a corps of expert inspectors, for several weeks. The subsequent reception of the goods, their comparison with the samples upon which the awards were made, and their shipment received the constant attention of the inspectors and such supervision as the members of the Board residing in New York could find time to give. For a more detailed report of these proceedings reference is made to the report of the chairman of the purchasing committee, which will be found in the appendix.

Our second meeting was at Mohonk Lake, the residence of Commissioner Smiley, at whose hospitable invitation about one hundred friends of Indians met with us. These guests represented several missionary societies and many Indian rights associations lately formed in all parts of the country. The conference continued in session three days, hearing reports of progress during the past year, comparing views, and earnestly discussing questions of policy for the future. Among those who took an active part in these discussions was Hon. Erastus Brooks, who, though in great physical suffering, showed no abatement of mentaĺ and moral vigor. At the close of a long career of public service his last effort was in behalf of the ignorant and wronged Indian. The results

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of the conference, which was of unusual interest from first to last, are embodied in the following statement:

(1) The discussions of the conference have led us to a clearer recognition of a few principles which we believe furnish the key to the solution of the Indian problem. The application and enforcement of these principles by the immediate passage of the Dawes land in severalty bill, the Sioux Reservation bill, and the bill for extending law over all Indians, would at once do more for the cause of the Indians than can be done in years without such legislation.

(2) It is our conviction that the duties of citizenship are of such a nature that they can only be learned by example and practice, and we believe that quicker and surer progress in industry, education, and morality will be secured by giving citizenship first, than by making citizenship depend upon the attainment of any standard of education and conduct; and we therefore urge upon Congress the necessity of ceasing to treat the Indians as incapable of bearing responsibilities, and the advantage of compelling them to undertake the same responsibilities that we impose upon all other human beings competent to distinguish right and wrong.

(3) The uncivilized tribe enforces no law. The tribal relation dwarfs family life and weakens family ties. The reservation shuts off the Indians from civilization, and rations distributed unearned tend to pauperize them. Therefore we are convinced that the sooner family ties and family homesteads replace tribal relations and unsettled herding upon the reservation, the better. Give to every Indian family a home, where needful, with a protected title.

(4) The opening of large parts of our great reservations to actual white settlers by the sale, in the interest of the Indians and with their consent, of lands remaining after all Indians have received ample allotments of land in severalty, we believe can be accomplished by the proposed legislation now before Congress, with justice to the Indian and with advantage alike to him and to the whites.

(5) While these results will follow the proposed legislation, we believe that the great work of education, general, industrial, and moral and religious, should be pressed forward, both by the Government and the religious societies, with unflagging zeal, with larger expenditure of money and of teaching force, at schools in the East, and in the day-schools and the boarding-schools on the reservations, and with greater hope and confidence as we see such encouraging results as have been reported to us here. (6) We believe that the agency system in some form must be temporarily continued ; and since the efficiency of our Indian service depends almost entirely upon the personal fitness and the experience of the inspectors, agents, teachers, and subordinates, who come into immediate and personal relations with the Indians, we have declared our conviction for these and for other reasons elsewhere stated that the principle of civil service reform should be at once applied to our Indian service..

(7) We thankfully express our conviction that each year sees a quickening of the public conscience in matters touching justice for the Indian, and a deepening public sentiment in favor of the full protection of his rights by law, and we invite all good citizens to join us in our efforts to protect, to civilize, and to Christianize the Indians.

The last paragraph of the above statement indicates the purpose for which these conferences and public meetings have been held. They were initiated by our Board sixteen years ago, and have been followed by the several Indian rights associations with great zeal in many of the principal cities of the country. Their influence has been great in calling public attention to the condition of the Indians, in arousing interest in their welfare, and in formulating a policy of justice and peace towards them, which has now taken strong hold of the people, and has become the settled policy of the Government.

While at Mohonk Lake the Board held a meeting for business, and adopted the following minute in relation to the retirement of Commissioner Lyon:

Resolved, That we record our sense of the great value to the Indian service, and to the objects for which this Board was created, of the prolonged service of Mr. William H. Lyon, no longer a member of the Board. As chairman of the purchasing committee for nearly six years he gave to the work of the Board the benefit of his wide experience in business life; and we believe that the time and labor which he devoted to securing and maintaining sound business methods in the purchase and the forwarding of supplies have been attended with results so beneficial to the Government and to the Indians as to deserve from us, who personally knew what his services were, a permanent expression of their marked value.

A full report of the proceedings of the Mohawk conference will be found in the appendix.

Our third meeting was held in this city, to which we invited the secretaries of the several missionary societies conducting missions and schools among the Indians, and a large number of other gentlemen and ladies interested in this benevolent and Christian work. The efforts of the churches to educate and christianize the Indian race are growing in interest and success from year to year. We find no better Indian schools than those maintained by the Christian missionary societies, and we believe that all possible encouragement and aid should be given by the Government for the continuance and extension of their useful service. We invite special attention to the reports of these religious societies and of our conference with them, which are given in the appendix.

The following resolutions were adopted:

Resolved, That the reports and other evidence laid before the conference indicate progress during the past year in many departments of effort for the improvement of the Indians. This evidence is found in the increased attendance upon schools, the enlarged membership of churches, the awakened interest of the people at large in securing justice to the Indians, in more liberal legislation by Congress touching their interests, and the wholly sympathetic attitude of the Executive in regard to the ends we seek.

Resolved, That the President is entitled to the thanks of the nation for his prompt, firm, and energetic action in protecting some of the reservations from the encroachments of cattlemen and white settlers, and that this conference most earnestly desires that he will use all vigilance to maintain the integrity of all of them, especially those in California, against unlawful seizure.

Resolved, That the conference has learned with grief that in many individual cases Indians are despoiled of their lands by fraudulent means, and invokes the aid of the Government, through its legal officers, for the protection of Indians in all their civil rights.

Resolved, That the conference regards with great satisfaction the fact that during the past year more than one-third of the Indian children of proper age to attend school have been under school instruction for at least one month. We would press upon the attention of Congress the economy of placing all this class of children under such educational influences as shall prepare them for right living.

Resolved, That the gratification afforded by the liberal appropriations for schools and for farmers to instruct the Indians has been tempered with the regret that the system of appointments to the Indian service for partisan reasons in many instances defeats the good intentions of Congress, and that this conference would respectfully but earnestly ask that the President will extend the rules of civil service to the Department of Indian Affairs.

Resolved, That as the fruits of the co-operation of the Government with the various religious bodies in the work of Indian civilization have been so abundant hitherto, we earnestly urge upon the Government an increase of this joint labor, so far as it may be compatible with constitutional limitations.

Resolved, That we hail with much hope and pleasure the passage by the House of Representatives of the Senate bill providing for the allotment of lands in severalty under wise restrictions, the extension of the laws of the States and Territories over the Indians, giving the protection, rights, and immunities of citizens. That this conference memorialize the President with reference to the importance of making this bill a law by signing it after it has been amended so as to secure in the best way possible these ends. And that the President be urged to appoint those alone who are men of the highest character and undoubted qualifications to carry out its provisions. Resolved, That we express our unqualified condemnation of the permission tacitly given by the Government authorities to selfish men to employ Indians in exhibitions of customs belonging to their former savage state; we believe such shows mislead the public as to the present character of the Indians, and as to the possibilities of their civilization, thereby frustrating the good effects upon public sentiment of our Indian schools and churches.

INSPECTION OF AGENCIES AND SCHOOLS.

Commissioner Waldby has visited the Mackinac Agency in Michigan, and made a careful investigation of Isabella Reservation and the condition of the Indians formerly occupying that reservation and now residing in its vicinity. From his report it appears that the granting of lands in fee simple to those Indians without restriction as to alien

ation was a mistake. Out of 86,200 acres thus granted not more than 2,000 acres now remain in the possession of the Indians. This sad result of a well-meant but unwise measure is a strong argument in favor of the plan proposed in the bills now pending, of making the homesteads given in severalty inalienable for a period of twenty-five years, with discretion vested in the President to extend the period in cases where the Indians shall not be sufficiently advanced to care for and protect their property.

Mr. Waldby has also visited the Indian school at Genoa, Nebr., the Haskell Institute, near Lawrence, Kans., and the Chilocco school, in the Indian Territory; in all these schools he saw "much to admire and approve." We invite attention to his reports in the appendix.

We would willingly do more in this line of inspection not only of the schools, but of all branches of the Indian service. In the early years of the Board we gave much attention to the quality of supplies of all kinds when delivered at the agencies. We found that constant vigilance was necessary to secure an exact and honest fulfillment of contracts at all points. The temptation is great to smuggle in flour, clothing, and other articles inferior in grade to that required by the terms of contract. Once this sharp practice was quite common. We believe it has been checked in great measure and nearly suppressed. But occasional complaints still reach us that goods and provisions received are unfit for use. Were we furnished with sufficient funds simply to pay the necessary traveling expenses we could promptly investigate such complaints, and in addition assist in such negotiation with Indians as may from time to time be authorized and required by law.

LEGISLATION AND PROGRESS.

Though for the reasons above stated we have been unable to inspect personally to any great extent the condition of the several agencies, yet by correspondence and from the reports of agents, we have abundant evidence that the Indians were never in a better condition, and that their progress towards true manhood and civilization has never been greater, than during the last year. Their land under cultivation has been increased by 124,035 acres. They have a much larger number of farming implements of the most approved modern patterns, many of them purchased with the proceeds of their own labor. They have learned to appreciate the value of education, especially industrial education, as shown in the increased attendance of their children at the Government schools, the total enrollment being 12,316, and the average attendance 9,528.*

*The following is a general summary of the statistics:

Mission schools entirely supported by religious societies are not included in this summary. These societies have expended for missions and schools among the Indians during the last year $286,872, so far as reported.