Part 8

If, as would appear, Mr. Justice McLean by this intends that a State may exercise such discretion so long as the United States continue to recognize the tribal organization, however feeble or corrupt it may in fact be, the doctrine is flatly contradicted by that of the Supreme Court in the Kansas Indians.--5 Wallace, 737.

We are aware that this is a heavy charge; but it is justified by the facts. The recital is incomplete. The decision in the United States vs. Rogers is not referred to. This case is, as it was treated by the Supreme Court in the Cherokee Tobacco, of the highest importance.

The recital is inaccurate. An opinion is given at length as that of Kent in Jackson vs. Goodell, 20 Johnson, 193. This is a case in the Supreme Court of New York, Chief-Justice Spencer delivering the opinion, Kent having been previously appointed chancellor. The expressions quoted by the Committee are to be found in Goodell vs. Jackson, in error to the Court of Appeals, 20 Johnson, 693. The recital is inconsequential, as will appear by what is said further in the text.

"We think it too firmly and clearly established to admit of dispute, that the Indian tribes residing within the territorial limits of the United States are subject to their authority; and where the country occupied by them is not within the limit of one of the States, Congress may by law punish any offence committed there, whether the offender be a white man or an Indian."--Taney, Chief-Justice.

In the Cherokee Tobacco, the court, quoting from Chief-Justice Taney the sentence just preceding, and a similar utterance of Chief-Justice Marshall, remarks, "Both these propositions are so well settled in our jurisprudence, that it would be a waste of time to discuss them, or to refer to further authorities in their support."

Throughout the whole course of this discussion on the constitutional relations of the Indians, we should indicate as subject to possible exception the tribes found upon soil ceded by Mexico. It is claimed, that, as Mexico never treated the Indians within its jurisdiction other than as a peculiar class of citizens, all the members of those tribes became citizens of the United States by virtue of the provisions of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848.

"Although the Committee have not regarded the questions proposed for their consideration by this resolution as at all difficult to answer, yet respect for the Senate, which ordered the investigation, and the existence of some loose popular notions of modern date in regard to the power of the President and Senate to exercise the treaty-making power in dealing with the Indian tribes, have induced your Committee to examine the questions thus at length, and present extracts from treaties, laws, and judicial decisions; and your Committee indulge the hope that a reference to these sources of information may tend to fix more clearly in the minds of Congress and the people the true theory of our relations to these unfortunate tribes."--Report, p. 11. It would, perhaps, have been fortunate had the Committee found the questions difficult.

See Annual Report, Board of Indian Commissioners, 1872, p. 12.

Constant efforts are made to break the force of such comparisons as these, by asserting that the progress of the Indian Territory in industry and the arts of life is due to white men incorporated with the Creeks, Cherokees, and Choctaws. If this be true, it would seem that white men, when brought under Indian laws, and adopted into Indian families, exhibit qualities superior to those which they develop when controlling themselves, and organizing their own forms of industry and of government. This suggests the inquiry, whether it might not be well to turn over two or three Territories that might be named, to the Indians, with liberty to pick out white men for adoption and for instruction, in the hope that these communities might in time be brought up to the condition of that of which the Indians have had sole control for forty years.

AN ACCOUNT

OF THE NUMBERS, LOCATION, AND SOCIAL, AND INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF EACH IMPORTANT TRIBE AND BAND OF INDIANS WITHIN THE UNITED STATES.

The Indians within the limits of the United States, exclusive of those in Alaska, number, approximately, 300,000.

(a) They may be divided, according to their geographical location or range, into five grand divisions, as follows: in Minnesota, and States east of the Mississippi River, about 32,500; in Nebraska, Kansas, and the Indian Territory, 70,650; in the Territories of Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, 65,000; in Nevada, and the Territories of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona, 84,000; and on the Pacific slope, 48,000.

(b) In respect to the three lines of railroads--built or projected--between the States and the Pacific Ocean, viz., the northern, central, and southern routes, they may be divided, excluding those residing east of Minnesota and of the Missouri River south of Dakota, as follows: between the proposed northern route and the British Possessions, about 36,000; between the northern and central routes, 92,000; between the central and the proposed southern routes, 61,000; and between the southern route and Mexico, 85,000: making a total of 274,000.

(c) As regards their means of support and methods of subsistence, they may be divided as follows: those who support themselves upon their own reservations, receiving nothing from the government except interest on their own moneys, or annuities granted them in consideration of the cession of their lands to the United States, number about 130,000; those who are entirely subsisted by the government, about 31,000; those in part subsisted, 84,000,--together about 115,000; those who subsist by hunting and fishing, upon roots, nuts, berries, &c., or by begging and stealing, about 55,000.

(d) They may be divided again, with respect to their connection with the government, as follows: there are about 150,000 who may be said to remain constantly upon their reservations, and are under the complete control of agents appointed by the government; 95,000 who at times visit their agencies either for food or for gossip, or for both, but are generally roaming either on or off their reservations, engaged in hunting or fishing; and 55,000 who never visit an agency, and over whom the government as yet exercises practically no control, but most of whom are inoffensive, and commit no acts of hostility against the government.

(e) Again: it may be said, that, of the 300,000 Indians of the country, about 180,000 have treaties with the government; 40,000 have no treaties with the United States, but have reservations set apart by executive order or otherwise for their occupancy, and are in charge of agents appointed by the government; 25,000 have no reservations, but are more or less under the control of agents appointed for them, and receive more or less assistance from the government; the remainder consisting of the same 55,000 already twice described, over whom the government exercises, practically, no control, and for whom there are no treaty or other provisions.

(f) As to civilization, they may, though with no great degree of assurance, be divided, according to a standard taken with reasonable reference to what might fairly be expected of a race with such antecedents and traditions, as follows: civilized, 97,000; semi-civilized, 125,000; wholly barbarous, 78,000.

MINNESOTA, AND EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.

NEW YORK.

The Indians of New York, remnants of the once powerful "Six Nations," number five thousand and seventy. They occupy six reservations in the State, containing in the aggregate 68,668 acres. Two of these reservations, viz., the Alleghany and Cattaraugus, belonged originally to the Colony of Massachusetts, but by sale and assignment passed into the hands of a company, the Indians holding a perpetual right of occupancy, and the company referred to, or the individual members thereof, owning the ultimate fee. The same state of facts formerly existed in regard to the Tonawanda reserve; but the Indians who occupy it have purchased the ultimate fee of a portion of the reserve, which is now held in trust for them by the Secretary of the Interior. The State of New York exercises sovereignty over these reservations. The reservations occupied by the Oneidas, Onondagas, and Tuscaroras, have been provided for by treaty stipulations between the Indians and the State of New York. All six reserves are held and occupied by the Indians in common. While the Indian tribes of the continent, with few exceptions, have been steadily decreasing in numbers, those of New York have of late more than held their own, as is shown by an increase of one hundred in the present reports over the reported number in 1871, and of thirteen hundred over the number embraced in the United-States census of 1860. On the New-York reservations are twenty-eight schools; the attendance during some portions of the past year exceeding eleven hundred, the daily average attendance being six hundred and eight. Of the teachers employed, fifteen are Indians, as fully competent for this position as their white associates. An indication of what is to be accomplished in the future, in an educational point of view, is found in the successful effort made in August last to establish a teacher's institute on the Cattaraugus reservation for the education of teachers specially for Indian schools. Thirty-eight applicants attended; and twenty-six are now under training. The statistics of individual wealth and of the aggregate product of agricultural and other industry are, in general, favorable; and a considerable increase in these regards is observed from year to year. Twenty thousand acres are under cultivation: the cereal crops are good; while noticeable success has been achieved in the raising of fruit.

MICHIGAN.

The bands or tribes residing in Michigan are the Chippewas of Saginaw, Swan Creek, and Black River; the Ottawas and Chippewas; the Pottawatomies of Huron; and the L'Anse band of Chippewas.

The Chippewas of Saginaw, Swan Creek, and Black River, numbering sixteen hundred and thirty, and the Ottawas and Chippewas, six thousand and thirty-nine, are indigenous to the country. They are well advanced in civilization; have, with few exceptions, been allotted lands under treaty provisions, for which they have received patents; and are now entitled to all the privileges and benefits of citizens of the United States. Those to whom no allotments have been made can secure homesteads under the provisions of the act of June 10, 1872. All treaty stipulations with these Indians have expired. They now have no money or other annuities paid to them by the United States Government. The three tribes first named have in all four schools, with one hundred and fifteen scholars; and the last, two schools, with one hundred and fifty-two scholars.

The Pottawatomies of Huron number about fifty.

The L'Anse band of Chippewas, numbering eleven hundred and ninety-five, belong with the other bands of the Chippewas of Lake Superior. They occupy a reservation of about forty-eight thousand three hundred acres, situated on Lake Superior, in the extreme northern part of the State. But few of them are engaged in agriculture, most of them depending for their subsistence on hunting and fishing. They have two schools, with an attendance of fifty-six scholars.

The progress of the Indians of Michigan in civilization and industry has been greatly hindered in the past by a feeling of uncertainty in regard to their permanent possession and enjoyment of their homes. Since the allotment of land, and the distribution of either patents or homestead certificates to these Indians (the L'Anse or Lake Superior Chippewas, a people of hunting and fishing habits, excepted), a marked improvement has been manifested on their part in regard to breaking land and building houses. The aggregate quantity of land cultivated by the several tribes is eleven thousand six hundred and twenty acres; corn, oats, and wheat being the chief products. The dwellings occupied consist of two hundred and forty-four frame and eight hundred and thirty-five log houses. The aggregate population of the several tribes named (including the confederated "Chippewas, Ottawas, and Pottawatomies," about two hundred and fifty souls, with whom the government made a final settlement in 1866 of its treaty obligations) is, by the report of their agent for the current year, nine thousand one hundred and seventeen,--an increase over the number reported for 1871 of four hundred and two, due, however, perhaps as much to the return of absent Indians as to the excess of births over deaths. In educational matters these Indians have, of late, most unfortunately, fallen short of the results of former years; for the reason mainly that, their treaties expiring, the provisions previously existing for educational uses failed.

WISCONSIN.