BANCROFT 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
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 A VISIT 
 
 To the Mission Indians of 
 Southern California, 
 
 AND OTHER 
 
 Western Tribes. 
 
 BY 
 
 PROF. C. C. PAINTER. 
 
 Published by Order of Executive Board. 
 
 Office of 
 
 The Indian Rights Association, 
 
 1316 Filbert St., Phila. 
 
 1886. 
 
 PRESS OF GRANT & FAIRES, 420 LIBRARY STREET, PHILADELPHI 
 
A VISIT 
 
 TO 
 
 THE MISSION INDIANS 
 
 OF 
 
 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, 
 
 AND OTHER 
 
 WESTERN TRIBES. 
 
 BY 
 
 PROF. C. C. PAINTER. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 
 
 OFFICE OF THE 
 
 INDIAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION, 
 
 No. 1316 FILBERT STREET, 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 1886. 
 
u. c. 
 
 ACADEMY OF 
 C COAST 
 'DRY 
 
 OFFICE OF THE INDIAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION, 
 No. 1316 Filbert Street, Philadelphia. 
 
 INDIAN TERRITORY. 
 
 Leaving home on the 25th of May last for an extended visit 
 as Agent of the Indian Rights Association to various Indian 
 tribes, my first stop was at Vinita in the Indian Territory. 
 Reaching this place on Saturday in time to attend a general 
 caucus, it was of interest to see how largely its conduct was 
 in the hands of white men with citizen's rights, and of half- 
 breeds. Whether correct or not, the impression produced on 
 the mind of one visiting the Territory, observing and hearing 
 what he can from those with whom he meets, is that affairs are 
 very largely managed and controlled by the white blood, 
 which in one way or another has found its way into the veins 
 of the people, or into positions of influence among them. One 
 who has spent a few years in this town, as Principal of its most 
 important school, asserts, what my own observation so far as 
 it went confirmed, that the business enterprise and thrift of the 
 people is due largely to this white element That a painted 
 house, and a farm well stocked and managed is almost certain 
 proof of a white man or woman on the premises. 
 
 One would suppose in looking at the classes in Worcester 
 Academy that perhaps one in ten of the pupils had some 
 Indian blood, and is greatly surprised to know that there is 
 not more than one in ten who has not enough of it to be 
 classed as Indian, and draw public money. 
 
 During the next week at Muscogee, I had the pleasure of 
 attending the closing exercises of the Indian University, which 
 had just dedicated its new, beautiful and commodious building 
 at this place, and come down from Talequah to occupy it for 
 its anniversary exercises. 
 
 3 
 
4 
 
 There were gathered under its evidently excellent managc- 
 men 109 pupils, 8 1 of whom were Cherokees ; 5 Choctaws ; 4 
 Creeks; I Ottawa; I Chickasaw ; I Miami; and 16 whites. 
 Forgetting where he was, one could easily have imagined 
 himself in attendance upon similar exercises in connection 
 with one of our Eastern academies or high schools. Referring to 
 the catalogue, which was given me along with the programme, 
 I was able to discover, what in many cases I would not other 
 wise have suspected, that such and such a one was an Indian, 
 and not a white. My landlady at Vinita, a most excellent 
 Christian woman, who with her husband, an employee either 
 of the railroad company or of the telegraph company, has re 
 sided for several years in this town, both of them prominent in 
 Sunday-school and mission work, told me that the Cherokee 
 girls, many of them educated, refined and beautiful, much pre 
 ferred white husbands, and did not look favorably upon lovers 
 of their own nation, but this caused no ill-feeling on the part 
 of the young men who had the same preference for white girls. 
 My observation was that in many cases it would take an 
 expert in color to decide the question as to race, and that so 
 far as these people are concerned, the Indian problem would 
 be wiped out in blood within a few generations. 
 
 It is the boast of those who extol the wonderful civilization 
 of these people that they pay no taxes and have no paupers. 
 Everybody is rich, happy, and free from the burdens which 
 oppress other civilized peoples. Unfortunately for me there 
 had been heavy rainfalls, and the streams were, many of them, 
 unfordable, and I was therefore unable to make the personal 
 observations on which decided and conclusive opinions ought 
 to be based ; but this fact of itself is warrant for some definite 
 conclusions. 
 
 The country of which I speak, especially in the northeast 
 portion of it, is one of the loveliest regions of the Southwest, 
 and the people who occupy it one of the richest. Their civil 
 ization is by many extolled as most wonderful, wrought out 
 under a tribal and communistic system, a model to which 
 
other Indians ought to conform. Honorable senators, some 
 of whom a few months ago said there was not a single case 
 known of an Indian who had made a white man of himself, as 
 they come back from a recent visit are enthusiastic over what 
 they have found, and desirous that other and remote tribes 
 shall be induced, or forced to come in and partake of its 
 benefits. 
 
 I could not get over the country to see it fully, neither could 
 these senators. The roads of this wonderfully rich, prosper 
 ous, untaxed people were good as untraveled prairie roads are 
 under varying conditions of the weather, and the streams cross- 
 able, where Nature had not filled them too full, nor fenced 
 them in with banks too high. There are no paupers and no 
 taxes, but it would not require many fingers on which to count 
 the appliances of a high civilization, for which such a civilization 
 necessarily imposes taxes. Outside the Mission schools and a 
 few National schools in the more important places, used chiefly 
 by children whose Indian blood has been drowned out by an 
 infusion of white, the schoolhouses are miserable pens, and the 
 schools of the poorest quality. Much is said of their wealth, 
 intelligence, self-government, and most hopeful progress, and 
 all this by those who would use it as an argument in favor of 
 keeping the Indian under the system which has been the effi 
 cient cause of their civil and social development. 
 
 Let us make a comparison: In 1830 the Cherokees in 
 Northern Georgia had a government of their own, indicative 
 of considerable growth in civilization. They owned 2,943 
 plows, or one to each family of five persons ; 1 72 wagons ; 
 25,000 sheep ; 7,600 horses ; 22,000 cattle ; 46,000 swine ; eight 
 cotton machines ; 762 looms ; 2,488 spinning wheels ; ten saw 
 mills ; thirty-one grist mills ; sixty-two blacksmith shops, etc., 
 etc. They lived, almost without exception, in good log houses 
 with floors, doors, windows, and chimneys, equal to those occu 
 pied by the whites who surrounded them. They tilled the soil 
 and drew from it their support, hunting and fishing only for 
 diversion. This was fifty-six years ago, and what they had 
 
was the creation of their own toil, the outcome of a healthful 
 and natural growth. They indeed still held their lands by a 
 National and not by an individual title, but were making such 
 use of them as would soon have compelled a personal title in 
 form as it already was in effect. 
 
 Take from them to-day the wealth they have not earned, but 
 which is at once the evidence and the means of their demorali 
 zation, as unearned wealth almost universally and inevitably is ; 
 discount all the evidence of thrift and growth which is due to 
 the activity of the eagles attracted to this fat carcass ; strip from 
 them so much of their civilization as is but a thin veneer, glued 
 or nailed on from without, not developed from within, and in 
 my judgment the showing is not so good, certainly not so full 
 of promise as it was fifty-six years ago. 
 
 The convention at Vinita and the anniversary of the Indian 
 University at Muscogee, brought together many of the leading 
 men of the Territory, and as it was just at the time when a 
 committee of the United States Senate was on a visit of inquiry 
 touching certain questions of most vital interest to the people, 
 I was able to gather something of their views from the discus 
 sions going on among them. 
 
 Many were saying, what I was told it would not have been 
 safe for them to have said a few years since, that the time is near 
 and even here, when their civilization must have for its basis 
 the individual and the family, not the tribe. Complications grow 
 ing out of the use of vacant lands ; the ease with which, under 
 pretense of Indian blood, white men 'were getting a quasi claim 
 to lands from which they cannot dislodge them except with 
 the consent of the United States Court, thus enlarging the 
 divisor and minimizing the quotient when a final division shall 
 be made, these and other causes are precipitating the conclu 
 sion that it must be made soon. One fear " gives pause " to 
 this conclusion, that is, that Congress may limit them to an 
 allotment of one hundred and sixty acres each. There are 
 difficulties in the way and grave questions to settle, but who 
 ever accepts the declarations of those who are chiefly benefited 
 
by the present condition of things as containing the whole 
 truth, either as to the advisability of continuing it, or the unan 
 imous desire that it should be, is greatly mistaken. There is 
 great ferment, and things are hastening to a crisis, and a much 
 provoking cause is the lease of grazing lands, and the questions 
 growing out of it 
 
 I made a visit to the several tribes gathered about the Qua- 
 paw Agency, occupying a well-watered, well-timbered, very 
 fertile and most beautiful portion of the Territory. There are 
 nearly eleven hundred of these Indians of various tribes on 
 separate reservations aggregating more than 200,000 acres of 
 land, more than 9,000 of which are under cultivation, or about 
 nine acres to each man, woman and child. 
 
 The Modocs, Peorias, Miamas, and Wyandotts especially 
 seem to be well along on the road toward civilization and self- 
 support, and, with a personal, protected title to their home 
 steads, which they much desire, and the rights, opportunities, 
 and protection of men under a free government, they would 
 soon be fitted for the duties of full citizenship. 
 
 It would not be fair to adduce the case of the Modocs as 
 illustrating what has been, or can be done, by and through the 
 agency of the Indian Department, and under the agency and 
 reservation system, acting upon the Indians as so many pup 
 pets, with none of the powers of rational men, amenable to 
 none of the motives by which men are usually moved. Their 
 progress has been indeed marvellous, and is conclusive that the 
 Indian, even the most desperate and savage, as these were re 
 garded when they came fresh from the Lava beds, makes a 
 ready response to appeals to his manhood, and readily rises up 
 to the level of a man's chances when and so far as they are 
 accorded him. 
 
 One cannot spend a few days with John Watson, the Quaker 
 missionary, and make himself acquainted with his work and 
 'that of his noble wife and daughters, without discovering the 
 secret of this success ; a secret which the machinery of the 
 Bureau does not contain : a secret so simple that it has been 
 
8 
 
 missed and despised when hinted at ; it is simply a recognition 
 of manhood, and giving to it its opportunities, and appealing 
 to its inherent qualities. This Mr. Watson, and those who, 
 with and before him, have dealt with the Modocs for the past 
 twelve years have done. His good work is limited and ham 
 pered by the inevitable procrusteanism of the system under 
 which the Indian is placed, but in spite of it has made great 
 progress. 
 
 The prairie about the Agency saw mill was covered with 
 logs, cut and hauled by the Modocs, who hoped during this 
 fall and winter to add good barns to their comfortable farm 
 houses, but as Congress made no allowances for a machinist to 
 run the saw, it stands idle, and the enthusiastic hopes of the 
 people have opportunity to decay along with their unhoused 
 crops, one of many striking illustrations which every visitor to 
 Indian reservations sees of the difficulty of civilizing a people 
 by a machine invented, with wonderful complication, for the 
 purpose of protecting the Treasury against possible rascalities, 
 its several parts presided over and adjusted by machinists, all 
 of whom have independent and conflicting ends to gain, and 
 diverse interests to subserve. 
 
 High waters, and the very unsettled condition of affairs mak 
 ing it dangerous to do so without an escort, prevented my vis 
 iting the Oklahoma District, and the Indians in the western 
 part of the Territory, as it was the wish of the Association, 
 and my plan to do. 
 
 APACHES. 
 
 The utter ignorance of the soldiers as to the whereabouts of 
 the hostile Apaches ; the terror of the settlers and miners, 
 some of whom I met at El Paso, having fled from the mines ; 
 the advice of all whom I consulted, together with a failure to 
 find at Wilcox a response to my letter to the Agent asking if 
 I should attempt it, forced me to give up my proposed visit to 
 the San Carlos Reservation. 
 
9 
 
 The wonderful ubiquity of these hostiles, some forty to sixty 
 in number, forced the question whether or not white desperadoes 
 were not responsible for much of the terror, and many of the 
 atrocities attributed to this little band of Geronimo : a question 
 answered affirmatively, I understood, by the military authori 
 ties. Such has been the case at other times undoubtedly. A 
 double purpose is thus accomplished; the acquisition of booty 
 with slight risk of punishment, and a more intense and seem 
 ingly justifiable demand for the removal, if not the extermina 
 tion, of all the Apaches, since it must be evident that others 
 than this small band are on the war-path, and these others must 
 be the so-called peaceable Indians from the reservations. 
 
 I would not class myself with those who, in pleading the 
 cause of the Indian, assume that he is always faultless, and 
 the whites are necessarily the aggressors ; neither will I go 
 back and rehearse the wrongs suffered by these people in the 
 past, wrongs sufficient to make desperate a more saintly race 
 than the Apaches ; but there are a few facts which the public 
 do not know, pertinent to this case of outbreak, which should 
 have their full weight in shaping our judgment of it. These 
 Indians were under a double-headed and not harmonious 
 management. The Agent, Mr, Ford, was instructed to include 
 this band of Chiracahuas in his issue of annuity goods. He 
 informed the military officer in charge that he had the goods 
 and wished to arrange to distribute them. This officer sent a 
 pack team to receive them in bulk. The Agent said, truly, 
 that under the law he must issue to the individual Indian, taking 
 his receipt, and could not issue them to the officer in bulk. 
 The latter would receive them in no other way, and so during 
 the winter of 1875, one of unusual severity, these poor fellows 
 were coralled in a sort of Andersonville, on short rations, and 
 almost absolutely naked. As Agent of the Indian Rights 
 Association, I called these facts to the attention, both of the 
 Secretary of the Interior and of the Secretary of War, urging 
 the danger of outbreak, and asking that instructions should be 
 given which would relieve the Indians. What was finally done 
 
10 
 
 in regard to an issue of these goods I am unable to say, further 
 than that correspondence between the two Departments re 
 sulted, I was told, in the removal of the officer in charge. 
 This was after the protracted sufferings of the whole winter, 
 and these men had the experience of these terrible months 
 back of them when they resolved to cut their way out. 
 
 PAPAGOES AND PIMAS. 
 
 The limit- on my transportation forbade my stopping longer 
 at Tucson, near which place are the Papagoes and Pimas, 
 through whose reservations the railroad passes, than to 
 gather that these people are on executive Reservations ; that 
 again and again the whites have intruded upon them, and have 
 been put off by the Agent, whose removal in turn is much de 
 sired by the whites. There are some 12,000 Indians in all on 
 the reservation under care of this Agent. Much trouble has 
 been experienced from the sale of whiskey to them. They 
 are good workers, and as laborers are much needed and de 
 sired by the whites, but as land owners their presence would 
 be much deprecated. It should be borne in mind that their 
 tenure to this land is very frail the mere will of an executive 
 who is elected by the votes of those who want land ; and that 
 to maintain the interest of the Indian he must desert those 
 who can give votes to his party, and stand by those who can 
 not. It should also be borne in mind that the celebrated 
 Dawes-Coke Bill, while it would give a title by act of Congress 
 to Indians on treaty and Congressional reservations to their 
 land for twenty-five years, does not so protect those on Execu 
 tive reservations, and this omission is not an oversight, but 
 because to do so would, it is said by way of explanation, 
 endanger the bill. 
 
 The public mind ought to be informed, and stirred up in 
 view of this danger, and some protection given before it is too 
 late. 
 
II 
 
 THE MISSION INDIANS. 
 
 The Century for December, 1885, contains the "Last Poems 
 of Helen Jackson." One of these, " Acquainted with Grief," 
 is dated July 1st, and by this I am satisfied that it was the 
 one I saw lying unfinished, by her side, during one of the in 
 terviews I had with her during the latter part of June. Those 
 who were privileged to see her during these days, her face 
 radiant as the face of an angel with the glow of earth's sunset, 
 and the ruddy flush of heaven's sunrise, can bear testimony to 
 the completeness of her victory over her enemy Grief. Her 
 triumph had not the slightest trace of revenge or defiance, but 
 of sweet peace alone, as she sang : 
 
 " . . . ; yet stands she, slave, 
 
 Helpless before our one behest ; 
 The gods, that we be shamed not, gave 
 And locked the secret in our breast. 
 
 " She to the gazing world must bear 
 
 Our crowns of triumph, if we bid : 
 Loyal and mute, our colors wear, 
 Sign of her own forever hid. 
 
 " Smile to our smile, song to our song, 
 
 With songs and smiles our roses fling 
 Till men turn round In every throng, 
 To note such joyous pleasuring, 
 
 "And ask next morn, with eyes that lend 
 
 A fervor to the words they say, 
 ' What is her name, that radiant friend, 
 Who walked beside you yesterday? ' " 
 
 It is not claiming too much to say, that among the comforts 
 of her closing days, not the least to her, was the fact that the 
 Indian Rights Association had sent its Agent out to investigate 
 the condition of those people whose sad story she has told in 
 Ramona with such moving pathos, and whose wretched and 
 hopeless condition weighed so heavily upon her heart. She 
 was familiar with our work knew what had been done for the 
 
12 
 
 Sioux at large, and for those at Crow Creek ; for the starving 
 Piegans and other cases, in which we had succeeded in righting 
 wrongs and correcting abuses ; and where I feared a, to her, 
 tedious explanation of myself and object in coming to see her, 
 she interposed a joyous exclamation of, " Oh, is this you ! 
 there is no one in the United States whom I so much wanted 
 to see." 
 
 When, at her earnest request, I concluded to pay the Mis 
 sion Indians a second visit (I had visited a number of their 
 villages before seeing her), she wrote Don Antonio F. Coronel, 
 of Los Angeles, who, with his good wife, are the best friends 
 these Indians have in California, that I was going to visit the 
 Indians, and that no one else could do for them what I could do. 
 
 I know this was said, of me only as the representative of the 
 Indian Rights Association, and I know, also, that it helped to 
 sweeten the bitterness of death to that sainted woman, when 
 she could commit, as she did, her unfinished work to our hands. 
 I feel she has done this with the confidence that we would take 
 it up strongly, and urge it persistently, until it shall be accom 
 plished, and I write thus hoping and believing that the Indian 
 Rights Association will feel the pressure of a most solemn 
 obligation, and believing also the American people can now, 
 that her voice comes back from the heavenly land, be stirred, 
 as never before, in view of the wrongs of these poor people. 
 
 Let the people know in brief this story, and that we have 
 taken up this work where she left it, and I am confident they 
 will sustain us in it, and push it to its completion. 
 
 The Los Angeles Herald of June gth, 1885, tells their story 
 in brief, as follows : " These aborigines, though alive, are 
 good Indians. For the most part they are moral and relig 
 ious, and have earned their own living by cultivating the soil 
 on which they were born, and which was the exclusive 
 property of their ancestors. Day by day they find themselves 
 crowded to the wall. Their lands are jumped, their hunting 
 grounds have been curtailed, and they find their means of 
 making a livelihood restricted. Not being marauders and 
 
13 
 
 murderers the government of the United States will do nothing 
 for them." 
 
 Their pitiful story was told by themselves in a petition 
 drawn up by them, dated Feb. 7th, 1878, addressed to the Sec 
 retary of the Interior. I give it as translated for me from the 
 Spanish, as written by the Indians themselves, by a Mexican 
 lady, Mrs. Coronel, of Los Angeles. 
 
 PETITION TO THE MINISTER AT WASHINGTON : 
 
 We, the undersigned Indians Christian of San Louis Rey, Cal., hum 
 bly and respectfully beg, in view of all the troubles continual that con 
 stantly we have all the time between ourselves and the whites, on all 
 sides and manners ; they mistreat and abuse us, taking away our lands 
 possessed from our grandfathers, which, since we can remember, have 
 been ours alone. In view of all the dangers and difficulties in which we 
 find ourselves from the white people, we request, Mr. Minister at Wash 
 ington, that you separate and point out to us some land where we can 
 keep our cattle, and be able to cultivate the land to maintain our fami 
 lies. 
 
 We do not ask, Mr. Minister, for the Government to give us money, 
 nor blankets, nor seeds ; only some lands for us to cultivate for the sup 
 port of our families, and to raise our animals to work our lands, and that 
 this land shall be protected against the whites, and that you hold a pro 
 tection over us so that it cannot be taken from us. And, very much, we 
 wish, Mr. Minister, to establish some schools among us for our boys and 
 girls so they can learn like whites, so they will be good to our God, 
 and to our fellow-man, and to Government ; so that they will be good 
 citizens. 
 
 To the present we have asked, nor received no assistance, moral, 
 physical nor material no pay from government. Now we only ask 
 for land and for protection on it, so we may support our families with 
 our labor. This favor we ask, and expect of you, Mr. Minister, we who 
 sign this paper. 
 
 That nothing has been done, is not because Congress has 
 been ignorant of the situation. Attention has been called 
 again and again, many times, and most urgently to their sad 
 plight, during the past thirty-three years, both by the Agents 
 in charge, and by special commissions sent out to investigate 
 and report. Elaborate reports of facts with recommendations 
 
were made by Mr. Jno. G. Ames in 1873 ; by Mr. C. A. Wet- 
 more in 1874, and by Mrs. Jackson and Mr. Kinney in 1882. 
 A Committee from the United States Senate with Mr. Dawes 
 as chairman have also since this last date visited them. 
 
 There is no dispute as to the fact that these Indians, Chris 
 tian, civilized, self-supporting, have been crowded, and are 
 being crowded those of San Fernando within the past few 
 weeks from the lands on which they have always lived, and 
 to which they have, in the estimation of good lawyers, a valid 
 legal, as well as a just and equitable title; and yet, Congress, 
 knowing the facts, has contented itself with expending money 
 on special commissions and committees, and elaborate reports, 
 giving comfortable jobs to white men, and then suffering the 
 cry of these poor people to die out amid the din of white in 
 terests, and the reported facts to lie buried out of sight. 
 
 With other Indians we have made treaties by which, in 
 most cases, we have extinguished their title to the lands taken 
 from them, but as regards these Mission Indians a Committee 
 of the United States Senate to whom this matter was referred 
 reported that no such treaty was necessary : 
 
 "That the United States acquiring possession of the territory from 
 Mexico, succeeded to its right in the soil ; and as that government re 
 garded itself as the absolute and unqualified owner of it, and held that 
 the Indian had no usufructuary or other rights therein which were to be 
 in any manner respected, they, the United States, were under no obliga 
 tions to treat with the Indians occupying the same for the extinguishment 
 of their title." 
 
 This Honorable Senatorial Committee seems not to have 
 read the elaborate report of its own Commissioner, Wm. Carey 
 Jones, who had carefully investigated the nature of the Indians' 
 title to land under Spanish and Mexican rule, who says : 
 
 " It is a principle constantly laid down in the Spanish Colonial laws, 
 that the Indians shall have a right to as much land as they need for their 
 habitations, for tillage, and for the pasturage of their flocks. When they 
 were already partially settled in communities, sufficient of the land which 
 they occupied was secured to them for those purposes." 
 
15 
 Again he says : 
 
 "The early laws were so tender of these rights of the Indians that they 
 forbade the allotment of lands to the Spaniards, and especially the rear 
 ing of stock where it might interfere with the tillage of the Indians. 
 
 ' ' The lands set apart to them were inalienable except by the advice 
 and consent of officers of the Government, whose duty it was to protect 
 the natives as minors or pupils. Agreeably to the theory and spirit of 
 these laws, the Indians of California were always supposed to have a 
 certain property or interest in the Missions. The instructions of 1773 
 authorized the commandant of the province to make grants to the Mis 
 sion Indians of lands of the Missions either in community or individually. 
 The law always intended the Indians of the Missions all of them who ' 
 remained there to have homes upon the Mission grounds. The same, 
 I think, may be said of the large ranchos most of them were formerly 
 Mission ranchos and of the Indian settlements or rancherias upon them. 
 I understand the law to be, that whenever Indian settlements are estab 
 lished, and they till the ground, they have a right of occupancy in the 
 land which they need and use, and whenever a grant is made which 
 includes such settlements the grant is subject to such occupancy." 
 
 It is evident that this Honorable Committee did not make 
 itself acquainted with the regulations for the secularization of 
 Missions, and the instructions given the Commissioner en 
 trusted with the duty of making an inventory of the Mission 
 property. Article IV., of these regulations, says : 
 
 "Before taking an inventory of articles belonging to the field, the 
 Commissioner will inform the natives, explaining to them with mildness 
 and patience, that the Missions are to be changed into villages, which 
 will only be under the priests so far as relates to spiritual matters ; that 
 the lands and property for which each one labors are to belong to him 
 self, and are to be maintained and controlled by himself without depend 
 ing on any one else." 
 
 It seems almost cruel to quote the language of Manuel Pena 
 y Pena, President of the Supreme Court of Justice in Mexico, 
 taken from his " Discourses on Mexican practice at the bar," 
 in contrast with this report of the Senate Committee quoted 
 above. After speaking of the fact that in the earlier days the 
 natives were regarded as minors, and were put under restric 
 tions as to the alienation of property, &c., he says : 
 
i6 
 
 "But when a free government was adopted, Indians were regarded 
 as equal with Spanish subjects, and much more were they so regarded 
 with all Mexican citizens, inasmuch as our independence being estab 
 lished and ratified, IT WAS FOUNDED ON THE BASIS OF EQUALITY OF 
 
 CIVIL RIGHTS AMONG ALL THE FREE INHABITANTS OF OUR COUNTRY 
 WHAT EVER MIGHT HAVE BEEN THEIR ORIGIN IN THE FOUR QUARTERS 
 
 OF THE WORLD, insomuch that the King of Spain, in presence of the 
 council of state, declared that being equal under the Spanish Constitu 
 tion, ALL BEING FREEMEN AND CITIZENS in the Spanish territory with 
 out any distinction, THE INDIANS HAD ESCAPED FROM THE STATE OF 
 MINORITY to which they were previously subject, and should be looked 
 
 Upon as EQUAL IN ALL RESPECTS TO THE SPANIARDS OF BOTH HEMI 
 SPHERES." 
 
 Compare this utterance of this Mexican official as to its tone 
 with that of this Senatorial Committee, and of the Register of 
 lands as given by Mr. Ames below ; and the attitude of the 
 Spanish and Mexican Governments toward the Indian with 
 that of our own, and shame must mantle the cheek of every 
 honest and honorable citizen who reads the history of the 
 injustice and heartless cruelty which they have suffered since 
 they came under the protection (?) of our Christian Republic. 
 
 Mr. Ames says : 
 
 ".In accordance with these views the present (1873) l an d register holds 
 that the location of an Indian family or families on land which a white 
 man desires to settle is, in law, no more a bar to such settlement than 
 would be the presence of a stray sheep or cow. And so like sheep or 
 cattle they have been driven from their homes and cultivated fields, the 
 Government, through its officers, refusing to hear their protests as though 
 in equity as well as in law they had no rights in the least deserving 
 attention." 
 
 What Mr. Ames and Mr. Wetmore and Mrs. Jackson found 
 to be true, is/true to-day. The feeble remnant of old men and 
 women surviving at San Fernando has just been thrust out. 
 At San Ysabel the Indians are notified by the recent purchaser 
 of the Wilcox claim to that ranch, that they cannot keep any 
 more stock, and that they must go. At Palma the renters of 
 
Bishop Moro's claim, kill the Indians' stock and are crowding 
 them so they cannot live there. The suit of Mr. Byrnes for 
 the ejectment of the Saboba Indians was decided against the 
 Indians by default, the attorney for the Government (it having 
 undertaken to defend the Indians' title) not appearing when 
 the case was called. 
 
 It has since, on the motion of Mr. Wells, been restored to 
 the calendar, but Mr. Wells has withdrawn from the case, be 
 cause the Government refuses to allow even his necessary ex 
 pense account. At my earnest request the Government has 
 appointed special counsel to take up and defend the rights of 
 these Indians, but appointed him. to serve without compensa 
 tion. It seems evident that this effort must be sustained and 
 pushed by our Association. 
 
 Space will not admit of my presenting the pitiful facts as I 
 learned them at some eight or ten different rancheros, and in a 
 number of conferences with the people. It was the same 
 pathetic and most shameful story at every one of these places. 
 
 These people are able and willing to take care of themselves, 
 and all they ask is the simple right to do so. Either they have 
 rights, or they have not. In my estimation, the first and only 
 thing is to settle that question, and if they have, establish and 
 guarantee those rights, and the Indian will do the rest for him 
 self. To send out agents who have neither power nor author 
 ity to do anything ; to send out committees and commissioners 
 to investigate and report is only to delude the poor Indian with 
 false hopes, and give comfortable positions to white men who 
 want them. 
 
 There is little doubt, I think none at all, but these Indians 
 have a title which can be defended in a court of justice. The 
 position of the Senate committee that the Mexican Govern 
 ment acknowledged n"o title in the Indian to the soil is not ten 
 able. Such titles were recognized, and by the Treaty of Gua- 
 daloupe-Hidalgo no titles to property were to be invalidated 
 by the transfer of territory to our Government. 
 
 But this is the question which should be definitely settled, 
 
18 
 
 and to which I would earnestly urge that the Association should 
 address itself: bring what influence it can rally to bear upon 
 the administration to have this question taken up and pushed 
 to a settlement in the Department of Justice. 
 
 THE PIUTES OF NEVADA AND OREGON. 
 
 One object of my mission was to look into certain disputed 
 facts touching the Pyramid Lake Reserve ; the condition of the 
 Piutes along the line of the U. P. R. R. ; and, at the request 
 of some benevolent and most excellent ladies of Massachusetts, 
 through whom I had transportation over some of the roads 
 traveled, to learn the truth in regard to a protege of theirs, an 
 Indian woman Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins for whom they 
 have done, and are doing much. The facts and proofs in sup 
 port of my conclusions in the latter case I have duly reported 
 to the parties entitled to them, and, as they regard them as 
 their own, and protest against a public disclosure of them, I will 
 not include them in this public report, but only state the conclu 
 sion to which Mr. and Mrs. Davis and myself were reluctantly 
 forced by abundant evidence, carefully gathered and sifted, that 
 nothing which has been done for her by her friends in the East, 
 or elsewhere, has, so far, had any relation whatever to her own 
 or her people's progress ; that the confidence placed in her has 
 been misplaced ; that the claims made for her as the natural 
 leader of her people have no foundation in blood (she is not 
 the daughter of the old chief), character, or confidence and love 
 of the people for her. 
 
 I have put into the hands of these good, but strangely- 
 infatuated ladies, proofs of the unreliable and bad character 
 of this woman which would convince any one who is not 
 ready to take the word of Sarah Winnemucca as a complete 
 answer to, and refutation of, all opposing testimony whatsoever, 
 and even such an one must be staggered by it, for they have 
 the testimony of Sarah against herself. 
 
 While in San Francisco, I called, in company with Mr. and Mrs. 
 
Joshua W. Davis (members of the Boston Branch of the Indian 
 Rights Association, who proposed visiting with me these Indians 
 also, as they had the Mission Indians) on General Pope and his 
 Adjutant, General Kelton, introduced by a letter from the act 
 ing Secretary of War. General Pope presented me with a 
 paper prepared and read by him before the Social Science 
 Association at its meeting in Cincinnati in 1878; a valuable 
 contribution to the discussion of the Indian problem. Gen 
 eral Kelton I found to be interested not alone in the Indian 
 question, but intelligently and appreciatively acquainted with 
 the aims, methods and work of the Indian Rights Associa 
 tion, which he regards as having about the same relation to 
 the Indian problem that the Christian Commission had to the 
 success of our armies ; connected neither with the Government' 
 nor with the Indian, and able to do what the Agents of neither 
 could accomplish, he was therefore ready to give me all the 
 information and assistance within his power. 
 
 He had made for me copies of reports just received by his 
 department from Col. Kautz of the Eighth Infantry, who was 
 then investigating certain murders of Indians, committed by 
 the whites near Fort McDermitt, on the Oregon line, and doing 
 what he could to avert an apprehended outbreak. 
 
 He reports under date of June 29th, 1885 : " I do not appre 
 hend any outbreak on the part of the Indians from what has 
 occurred so far, not that they have not have had sufficient cause, 
 for I find that since September last no less than eleven Indians 
 have been killed or wounded in Southeastern Oregon, but 
 because the Indians are not in condition to go to war, and the 
 whites greatly outnumber them. 
 
 " I find the feeling between Indians and whites in Nevada is 
 much more friendly than it is in Southeastern Oregon. I 
 noticed the difference was very marked. Notwithstanding the 
 ranches are on public domain, the occupants do not allow the 
 Indians to come about them, and even forbid their hunting and 
 fishing in the neighborhood. Some of the oldest settlers, who 
 suffered in the Bannock War of '78, still cherish enmity against 
 
20 
 
 the Indians, and this has much to do with the injustice to the 
 Indians. Some of the whites sympathize with the Indians, 
 and strongly condemned the outrages committed, but they are 
 too few to hope that the law can be enforced against a white 
 man for the protection of the Indians in Southeastern Oregon." 
 
 The condition of these Indians is truly pitiable, and dis 
 graceful to our Government and to the whites of Oregon. 
 They belong to Leggin's band which took the part of the 
 whites as against the Bannocks, in the outbreak of '78. Their 
 services were invaluable to our army. After the war was over 
 the Government ordered the removal of the Piutes to Yakama, 
 Washington Territory, and in the dead of winter, with infinite 
 hardship and fearful loss of life, they were carried over the 
 mountains, no distinction being made between this band which 
 had been loyal and helpful to the Government, and those who 
 had not. Secretary Carl Schurz made a partial promise to a 
 delegation who asked that this band might return to Malheur, 
 their old home ; but the protests and threats of the citizens of 
 that vicinity, and the opinion of Gen. Howard that it could not 
 be done with safety, together with the failure of Congress to 
 provide means for their removal, prevented the fulfillment of 
 this promise. Their old home was disposed of. Homesick 
 ness, discontent, and false hopes industriously instilled into 
 their minds caused them individually, or in small groups, to 
 leave Yakama and straggle back toward their old home, which 
 in the meantime had been restored to the public domain and 
 opened up to settlement. They are now scattered about 
 McDermitt, and along the line between Nevada and Oregon, 
 having no home, and refusing utterly to go either to Pyramid 
 Lake or Walker River Reservations, to which places the other 
 Piutes have mostly returned, because of hostilities and jealous- 
 ness of the past, and an unwillingness to put themselves under 
 the power of the Government and its officials. 
 
 Col. Kautz says : 
 
 " In complying with the order to make recommendations, what should 
 
21 
 
 be done is not in the power of the War Department to do, namely, to 
 place Leggin's Band on some suitable Reservation in Southeastern 
 Oregon, and provide the Indians with the means of making a home for 
 themselves." 
 
 Gen. Kelton was desirous that I should go to McDermitt, 
 and form an opinion as to its adaptability, with some additions 
 to it, as such a reservation for these people ; and kindly put a 
 conveyance from Winnemucca to that military reservation at 
 the disposal of myself and Mr. and Mrs. Davis, of which we 
 availed ourselves, being hospitably and most kindly received 
 and entertained by Capt. Winslow and wife, and those associ 
 ated with him in that isolated post. 
 
 On our way we spent some days at Wadsworth, Pyramid 
 Lake, and Winnemucca, making diligent inquiries after the 
 truth, so much obscured by most conflicting reports, as to the 
 quality and capacity of the reservation ; the character of the 
 Agent ; the condition and prospects of the Indians, both on 
 the reservation and scattered along the railroad from Truckee 
 to Winnemucca. 
 
 As to the Agent : We were happily disappointed, and most 
 agreeably surprised to learn that a man chosen, as it was 
 understood, for political services rendered to his party ; taken 
 out of a gambling saloon, which was also a liquor saloon, the 
 ownership and management of which had been his occupation 
 for many years, could make a good Agent. The impossibil 
 ity of this was a foregone conclusion, so settled and sure that 
 it required most indisputable facts to disapprove it ; but these 
 facts we found, and came away from Pyramid Lake, all of us, 
 fully convinced that both Agent Gibson and his wife, with the 
 employees of the Agency had been, and were doing a most 
 excellent work, which they had very much at heart ; doing it 
 with much good sense, and kindly interest. 
 
 Most unequivocally, and earnestly do we condemn the sys 
 tem which allows, and almost demands that Agents shall be 
 appointed primarily for considerations unrelated to their quali 
 fications for their delicate duties, but when, by a happy accident, 
 
22 
 
 a man thus selected is found to be adapted to the work 
 we should support him for what he is doing, and not oppose 
 him for what he has been, or because of the manner of his 
 selection. As to the reservation : It has been much en 
 croached upon, the town of Wadsworth undoubtedly being built 
 upon it, and the valley down the Truckee River for some miles, 
 the best land on it, being occupied by white intruders. There 
 is still room for nearly as many more Indians as now occupy 
 it. Some one hundred families (four hundred and thirty-three 
 individuals), occupying fifty-two little farms of fifteen acres each, 
 are distributed up and down the river from the Agency build 
 ing. About eight hundred acres are under cultivation, all of 
 which can be irrigated from the ditches now used, and about 
 twelve hundred more can be reached from one nearly com 
 pleted. They have recently built some fourteen houses, but 
 most of them live in brush teepes and are less advanced in this 
 respect than many other tribes I have seen. A very large per 
 cent, of them speak English, and, so far as I remember, they 
 were invariably dressed in citizen's clothing, hence the surprise 
 in not finding more houses. The explanation is, want of lum 
 ber and inability to purchase it. There is a fine saw mill, but 
 no logs to saw, excepting cotton wood. This saw mill suited 
 to saw logs which they do not have, should be replaced with a 
 grist mill to grind wheat which they do have now, and would 
 grow in much larger quantities if they had a mill. At present 
 they must haul their wheat fifteen miles to Wadsworth, send 
 it by car to Reno at an expense of twenty-five cents per hun 
 dred each way, and then haul the flour back fifteen miles to 
 their homes, costing them fifty cents per hundred, and two full 
 days with their teams for each load. The saving of time and 
 money (and time is beginning to have value to these people), 
 by the exchange suggested, and the encouragement given, 
 would enable them soon to purchase the much-needed lumber, 
 and house themselves in decent and comfortable homes, such 
 as fourteen of the most advanced ones have already built. 
 If their reservation was rounded out to its rightful limits, its 
 
23 
 
 bounds settled by a much-needed survey, and their fishing 
 rights on the Lake protected, it would be sufficient for at least 
 eight hundred Indians, who would soon be self-supporting. 
 
 At Walker River there is another reservation under care of 
 the same Agent. There are some seven hundred of the best Piutes 
 at this place, with sufficient land for all who are there. They 
 much need irrigating ditches, farming implements, and schools. 
 No attention has been paid them until recently. The wife of 
 the resident farmer has some thirty-five to forty children gath 
 ered in a miserable hut, with none of the appliances of a decent 
 school, but had succeeded in demonstrating the fact that the 
 Indians are ready and anxious to avail themselves of a school 
 if they could have it. The attention of the Superintendent of 
 Schools has been called to their need. 
 
 This reservation, when supplied with irrigating ditches, 
 could support a few more than the seven hundred Indians 
 who are there ; and the Pyramid Lake Reservation would be 
 sufficient for some more, but there are several causes which 
 have so far, and will doubtless continue to prevent the landless 
 ones, scattered from Truckee to Winnemucca along the rail 
 road, and up to, and over the line into Oregon, from coming 
 on either of them ; feuds among themselves ; pride of leader 
 ship on the part of petty headmen who have a small following ; 
 unsatisfactory experience under agents in the past ; restiveness 
 under the tyranny of the reservation system ; and, in not a few 
 cases, confidence in themselves, and proved ability to do better 
 for themselves in free competition in the labor market of the 
 State. 
 
 The testimony of the citizens was uniform that these Indians, 
 scattered out among the whites, were a much-needed reliance 
 on the farms as laborers, and in the kitchen as domestic ser 
 vants. There is no one to take their place if they should be 
 removed, and none would fill it more satisfactorily in the pres 
 ent condition of things. A declared intention on the part of 
 the Government to put them on a reservation would scatter 
 them to the mountains. False reports were sent to Washington 
 
24 
 
 a year ago of the suffering condition of those about Win- 
 nemucca, and the Agent was instructed to take them relief. The 
 Indians were indignant, and refused to receive it, asserting to 
 the Agent, as some whom I met said to me, that they neither 
 needed nor desired anything from the Government ; they were 
 able to support themselves, and would not accept aid, fearing, 
 I think, that to do so would place them again under agency 
 control. There had been some suffering among Leggin's Band 
 at Fort McDermitt, which had been in part relieved by the 
 commanding officer at that point. This was not because sup 
 plies had not been sent, for I saw large bales and boxes of 
 goods at the agency for these people. The Agent has no 
 authority to send the goods to them, and they were unwilling, 
 perhaps unable, to go two hundred miles for them, with the 
 probable result of being forced to remain on the reservation 
 along with bands with whom they were at strife, and under a 
 power which they fear and hate. These people, many of whom 
 are old and blind, need help, and it ought to be afforded in such 
 way that it shall reach them. Winnemucca is the natural point 
 to which the goods should be sent on the railroad, and the 
 officer in command at McDermitt should have the distribution 
 of them until something has been decided in regard to a per 
 manent home for them. It is cruel folly to send their goods 
 where there are insuperable difficulties in the way of getting 
 them, and then say with easy indifference : " If they want them, 
 let them comply with the regulations of the department under 
 the law." 
 
 The able-bodied ones among these scattered Indians are 
 able and willing to do what every such one ought to be com 
 pelled to do take care of one's self. They will not go on to 
 these reservations, where they would be in some sort provided 
 for, and the attempt ought not to be made to force them into 
 this bondage. Their condition gives rise to questions and dif 
 ficulties which must be met and solved, and this ought to be 
 done at once. These men and women are earning their own 
 living as laborers in the towns and counties in which they live, 
 
25 
 
 but no provision is made for the aged, blind, insane, and pauper 
 classes, which, among the whites, find asylum in public insti 
 tutions, and their children find no place in the public schools. 
 What is the solution ? Is it to be found in the ready and easy 
 answer : Force them on to a reservation ? Crowd them com 
 pactly about an agency, and then persuade Congress to enlarge 
 its school appropriations and its food issues, until we can boast 
 that there is not a single one who lacks for a dinner, a blanket, 
 or a chance at school training ? Against this both the whites 
 and the Indians, not to say common sense, protest. They are 
 doing just what they ought to be encouraged to do. The solu 
 tion of the Indian problem is to be found along the lines these 
 people are following, and they should be helped, not hindered ; 
 but they must not be left without teachers and missionaries 
 because they are trying to make self-respecting men of them 
 selves. Conditions favorable must be furnished, and they must 
 not be forced back into those from which they have broken 
 away. Either the State, county, and towns must be encouraged 
 and induced to bring them under the operation of their school 
 and charitable systems and institutions, or they must be helped 
 by the Government where they are. It is difficult to bring 
 anamolies under law and harmonize absurdities with common 
 sense, and it is scarce worth while to continue the effort to do so. 
 If the Indian is a man, and a candidate for full citizenship under 
 our laws, let us seek to adjust our treatment of him to this fact. 
 In a less degree, but still to an embarrassing extent, the dif 
 ficulties of these people are also found on those reserva 
 tions on which the Indians are forsaking their miserable shan 
 ties about the Agency where they have simply waited for their 
 food to be thrown out to them, and are scattering out over the 
 reservation, taking up farms wherever they find the best 
 lands. So far as the school and missionary work is concerned 
 the old concentration afforded more ready access to the peo 
 ple. If they go out to their farms they get away from the 
 teacher; but it should be remembered if the pupil is more 
 difficult to get at, he is more worth the effort, a compensation 
 
26 
 
 in which is our hope of success. The conclusion is driven in 
 upon us from all directions that we cannot solve our problem 
 until we admit its fundamental postulate, which is, that the 
 Indian is a man, and must have exactly, and none other than, 
 the chances, opportunities and rights of a man, and must be 
 appealed to by the motives which move men. 
 
 The condition of things is much more unfavorable over the 
 line in Oregon than in Nevada, as reported by Col. Kautz. 
 The hostility of the whites, and the defenceless condition of 
 the Indians in their courts afford some urgent ground for con 
 sidering his suggestion that a reservation be set aside for them. 
 These crimes against the Indians, committed under the juris 
 diction of the State Courts, are, of course, beyond that of the 
 United States Courts, and are not punished. I give one as a 
 fair sample. Three men, or fiends, agree to visit an Indian 
 camp, knowing there are only two old men and a blind man 
 to defend the women against their lustful assaults, the men 
 being away on a hunt for food. They made the blind man 
 drunk, and then killed one of the old men who stood between 
 his wife and their purpose. They afterwards stole horses and 
 were lodged in the jail of Grant county for trial on charge of 
 this theft. The attention of Attorney-General Garland was 
 called to the crime of murder which they had committed on a 
 ward of the Government, and by his instructions the United 
 States Attorney for that district had correspondence with the 
 sheriff of the county in regard to it. I saw a copy of his let 
 ter, and of the sheriff's reply. He said there were no men in 
 his custody charged with murder on an Indian or Military 
 Reservation, and he would not surrender the men to the 
 United States authority. In mitigation of their crime of 
 horse-stealing these men pleaded the fact that the Indians 
 were after them. This hung the jury, who did not agree on a 
 verdict until the judge berated them for continuing the case as 
 an expense to the county, when without delay they acquitted 
 the prisoners. This seems to be the sentiment that controls 
 and dominates public action in that section. 
 
27 
 
 I would therefore acquiesce in, and recommend the sugges 
 tion of Col. Kautz, and agree with Genl. Kelton that the mili 
 tary post of McDermitt, and reservation attached, be enlarged 
 somewhat, and turned over for the use of these Indians. 
 Schools, in case Nevada cannot be induced to provide for 
 them, ought to be opened at Wadsworth, Lovelocks, Winne- 
 mucca and other points off the reservations for the children 
 living there, and those on the reservation ought to be en 
 larged, so as to meet the demands made upon them. The 
 wife of Capt. Winslow of McDermitt, who did excellent work 
 while stationed in California, has been allowed to open a school 
 for those about the Fort, and those excellent and untiring 
 friends of Sarah Winnemucca, Miss Peabody and Mrs. Mann, 
 have furnished money to build a school-house at Lovelocks, 
 and open a school under her care with what success will be 
 seen in the future. There was neither school-house nor 
 school when I was there, but since that time a house has been 
 built and a school opened with -such success, according to the 
 glowing reports given in the papers by Miss Peabody, that 
 appeals are made for funds to enlarge its accommodations. 
 
 All friends of the Indian ought to be glad of this, and it is 
 hoped that the efforts to establish a good school at this point 
 will be wisely supported. Let those who are disposed to give 
 such support first make certain the fact that what they give will 
 be secured to the object for which they give. Sarah, though the 
 angel which she is pictured to be in the appeals that have been 
 made for this school, is yet a mortal angel, and may die the 
 day this new building is dedicated, and as it will stand, with 
 the one already built, on the land given by Mr. Stanford to 
 Natchez and Sarah, it might pass out of the control of those 
 who built it for a school. 
 
 FORT HALL RESERVATION. BANNOCKS AND 
 SHOSHONES. 
 
 A visit to this reservation rounded out the limits of my 
 time on this journey. It was my second visit and gave me 
 
28 
 
 opportunity for a comparison I have not been able to make 
 before. The proofs of progress were most encouraging. 
 
 There are 1432 Indians under the care of Dr. Cook at this 
 agency on Ross Fork, Idaho 472 Bannocks, and 960 Shos- 
 hones. Issues are made to 290 families. There are 252 children 
 between the ages of six and sixteen, with an average attendance 
 at school of thirty-five for nine and one-half months last year. 
 It is unfortunate that these two peoples, so unlike, should be 
 placed on the same reservation. The Shoshones are progress 
 ive and anxious to advance ; the Bannocks are brighter intel 
 lectually, fond of fighting, gambling, thieving, horse-stealing, 
 and averse to labor and civilized pursuits. They cultivated 
 last year 866 acres of land, raised 5,500 bushels potatoes, 5,600 
 wheat; 16,000 oats; 500 barley; of this the Bannocks raised 
 600 bushels wheat, and 1,000 oats. This year their crops are 
 much larger. 
 
 They cut hay and sell it to cattlemen. Last year they put 
 up 950 tons, this year 1,200. They have bought and paid for 
 twenty-one mowing machines within the past three years ; ten 
 of them this summer. They have within two years built sev 
 enty-two houses, fifty-five of them since last spring. 
 
 According to the report of Lieutenant Walker of the Sixth 
 Infantry, who was sent by General McCook to investigate some 
 difficulties, threatening in their character, during the past sum 
 mer, a copy of which General McCook caused to be made for me, 
 and whose courtesies to me personally, and whose intelligent 
 interest in my mission I wish to acknowledge. Dr. Cook takes 
 great interest in his Indians, and shows great tact and force in 
 their management. This was strikingly evident to one who 
 had gone over the reservation once, and after two years makes 
 a second visit. Dr. Cook has evidently learned the secret of 
 managing and inspiring them to a new life, and is one of the 
 men who ought to be retained in the service, if the object is to 
 advance and civilize the Indians, and not simply to furnish 
 positions for men who want place for political or other consid 
 erations. 
 
2 9 
 
 The undoubted good intentions of the present Administra 
 tion so far as the Indians are concerned, will be crippled, if not 
 utterly wrecked, if the spoils system finds recognition in the 
 displacement and appointment of agents. Weak, or otherwise 
 unsuitable, men will work infinite damage, no matter how good 
 may be their intentions. New men, however able or honest, 
 ought not to displace men of experience, unless this experience 
 has proved their incompetency. The school work here, unfor 
 tunately, has been very weak ; while the opportunity for it has 
 been very good. The Agent found it impossible for the salary 
 paid to secure competent teachers. The School Superintend 
 ent has done what I strongly recommended and urged should 
 be done, in detaching the school from the agency, employing 
 a superintendent at an insufficient salary indeed, but with bet 
 ter hopes, and has planned to enlarge its facilities up to the 
 needs of these people. There is urgent call for missionary 
 work among these neglected people, as also among the Piutes 
 of Nevada, who seem to be entirely forgotten by the churches 
 of our land, who listen to the Macedonian cry of other lands 
 and other nations, but recognize no obligations to those for 
 whom we alone as Christians are responsible. 
 
 The easy possibility of solving our problem if we could 
 only be induced to take hold of it in the right way, the 
 almost hopelessness of it so long as we do not, is the over 
 whelming conviction with which this long and most interest 
 ing journey and tour of observation closed. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C, April I4th, 1886. 
 
LIST OF OFFICERS FOR THE YEAR 1886. 
 
 PRESIDENT, 
 
 DR. JAMES E. RHOADS. 
 
 VICE-PRESIDENT, 
 
 CLEMENT M. BIDDLE. 
 
 TREASURER, 
 
 C. STUART PATTERSON. 
 
 CORRESPONDING SECRETARY, 
 
 HERBERT WELSH. 
 
 RECORDING SECRETARY. 
 
 A. B. WEIMAR. 
 
 EXECUTIVE 
 
 CLEMENT M. BIDDLE, 
 WM. O. BUTLER, 
 WILLIAM DRAYTON, 
 ROBERT FRAZER, 
 W. W. FRAZIER, JR., 
 PHILIP C. GARRETT, 
 REV. J. ANDREWS HARRIS, D 
 J. TOPLIFF JOHNSON, 
 WAYNE MACVEAGH, 
 EFFINGHAM B. MORRIS, 
 
 COMMITTEE, 
 
 WISTAR MORRIS, 
 
 A. E. OUTERBRIDGE, JR. 
 
 CHARLES E. PANCOAST, 
 HENRY S. PANCOAST, 
 C. STUART PATTERSON, 
 J. RODMAN PAUL, 
 . D., JAMES E. RHOADS, 
 
 REV. H. L. WAYLAND, 
 A. B. WEIMAR, 
 HERBERT WELSH.