University of Virginia Library

AN INDIAN ON THE PROBLEMS OF HIS RACE.
BY S. PO-KA-GON, AN EDUCATED CHIEF OF THE POTTAWATTAMIES.

1. I. THE SQUAW MAN OF THE INDIAN TERRITORY.

IN traveling through the Indian Territory, a short time since, I was deeply mortified to find nearly all the common people of both races living in such ignorance and poverty. I visited many families of the lower classes, and learned from them that they had no opportunities whatever to secure homes, as all the best lands had been gobbled up by a few hundred "squaw white men" and "half breed Indians," who were swimming in plenty and luxury while they themselves were being drowned in want and poverty. I next visited one of the "squaw white men," a land king, who owned thousands of cattle and over one hundred thousand acres of good land, besides a squaw wife attired like a queen. I cautiously asked him how he happened to marry her. He replied that under the law of his nation white men were entitled to citizenship provided they married Indian women, and that it further provided that a citizen could hold such land as he might fence in or plow around. In answer to my question as to how he liked his wife, he said: "It is the only investment I have ever made in my life that has paid me, and I cannot go back on the bridge that carries me safely over." I then inquired of him how long he expected to hold his vast estate. His answer was: "I suppose always, as my nation has been guaranteed by the United States to be perpetual, and our law-making power never to be interfered with by them. So you see we are wisely protected for all time to come, and if white men trouble us here, the United States has promised by a solemn treaty to drive them out of our nation." He further informed me he was talked of for senator.

I next called on a member of the legislature who was a high-headed half-breed, owning 60,000 acres of land, besides many horses and cattle. After he had shown me his little farm and stock, I very carefully referred him to the laws which the "squaw man" had told me of, and asked him if he considered that they had a legal right to make such enormous land grants to a favored few, while the common people were deprived of all good land, and the necessaries of life as well. His reply was: "Our law makers are an educated body of people, and know what laws are best for the people of the United States." I then said, "Do you not know, sir, that the United States, by its several treaties gave you this land in trust, with an express proviso that it should be held in common for all the Indians; that is, each member of your tribes should share alike? And is it not also true that you requested such proviso should be made, so that you might live as near as possible, as your fathers did, east of the great river?" His only answer was, "We are guaranteed by the United States that we may run our own nation as we please and that they will not interfere with us." I replied that it was very strange to me they should desire such unjust legislation. He then said, "You common Indians cannot understand the spirit of national matters." I asked him several other questions, to which he gave very evasive answers, finally telling me my foolish questions "made him tired."

The fact is, the Indian territory is nearly as large as the State of Ohio, with climate and soil fully as good. Its white population is about 300,000. Its Indian population, squaw men and half-breeds, about 65,500, who constitute all the citizens upon whom the government rests.

From the above, and many other facts not stated, Pokagon does feel that Congress should take some measures, as soon as possible, to straighten out matters

in that territory, and to secure to the common red man the rights which have been basely stolen by the very lawgivers that should protect them; and also should provide for the white men scattered throughout the territory, who are lawfully and peacefully there, the rights of citizenship, which cannot fail to break up that dangerous land clique of a few hundred squaw men and half-breeds that now control legislatures and courts of law as well. In fact, Pokagon has felt in his heart for several years that it would be more statesmanlike, instead of caviling over the annexation of distant islands in mid-ocean, to at once annex to the United states the Indian territory, which is practically composed of four foreign powers, and then to admit it as a state into the Union as soon as possible under the circumstances of the case.

2. II. AS REGARDS THE INDIAN RESERVATIONS.

It was good economy, no doubt, for the United States to free our people on the great Sioux and other reservations, instead of keeping a standing army to fight them in case they should take to the warpath. And yet the system is a bad one for our people. It kills energy and begets idleness, the mother of vice. It certainly will prove a fatal blow to our people if long continued. The government ought to find something for them to do, although it might pay it but little or nothing. It is too much like fattening animals. It forms a nucleus where unprincipled lazy white men gather whose only aim is to satisfy the greed of appetite and the lowest passions of their nature. Most of them, through marriage, become "squaw men," drawing rations from the tribe to whom their wife belongs. And so it is our people are imposed upon, and becoming mixed with the vilest of white men, who are much worse than savages, as is shown by the devil that is born and developed in the half-breeds. The only way I can see out of the present muddle is for steps to be at once taken whereby each family shall have allotted to them a certain number of acres of good farming land which cannot be sold by them for a term of years, and help them out of the Indian funds, as occasion requires, and only have families of near kin, or those socially connected, have allotments together, thereby avoiding outlaws and white vagabonds who swarm at the present time like hungry bees about our agencies to rob and steal at payment times.

Break up as soon as possible the last vestige of tribal relations. Teach them to know that they owe allegiance to no man on earth except the great chief of the United States. Make each one a present of a beautiful United States flag. They take easily to object lessons, and will soon learn to love the Stars and Stripes, and take great pride in feeling its image in their hearts. They must be taught that they cannot longer live as their fathers did, but must live as white men do, or else lie down and die before the cruel march of civilization. I have sent many children to the government Indian industrial schools, among whom were my own and grandchildren, and have carefully watched the workings of these schools, and was indeed proud to visit them as they met on the World's Fair grounds and exhibited the works which astonished the teachers of white schools. Hence I believe those government schools were conceived by the Great Spirit, and born in the hearts of noble men and women, and fully believe when a great majority of the 28,000 children between six and sixteen who are still unprovided for shall be gathered into the school, and when the reservations are broken up and the people scattered in houses of their own, that then and not until then will the great Indian problem be solved.