Page:The Indian Dispossessed.pdf/252

 have been checked in great measure since my arrival at this agency, such as the fraudulent methods of employers in paying Indian laborers. Every conceivable trick is resorted to to get labor of this kind as cheap as possible. The following case was brought to my attention some time ago. An Indian having labored at cutting wood for six days, earning, at the wages agreed upon, the sum of $2.50, received in part payment two bottles of wine, for which he was charged $1, and upon demanding the balance of $1.50 in money he was ordered to leave the premises. The Indian refusing to go without his money, the man took down his shot-gun and discharged a load of buck-shot into the Indian's face, destroying the sight of an eye and otherwise disfiguring his face. The next day this employer boasted to an acquaintance how he had settled a bill of $1.50 with an Indian by paying him in buck-shot."

And in the following year:

"A further source of trouble in this connection is that growing out of the fact that even-numbered sections have been reserved for Indians within the limits of 'railroad land grants.' In some instances their villages are found to be on railroad sections; Of, if they happen to be on reserved land, their little fields, cultivated all these years, are claimed as within the limits of the railroad grant, their improvements presenting such temptations as to overcome all