Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1872.djvu/11

Rh There is but little in the past to encourage the belief that the adult Indian of to-day can be very thoroughly civilized. We can hope for little more than to hold him in restraint, confine him to smaller reservations, and induce him to remain at peace, while we devote the energies of the Department to the improvement of the rising generation.

The policy of reducing the area of present reservations, and consolidating friendly tribes or bands, may be regarded as the first step toward the establishment of the Indians upon farms. We have now under control of the Indian-Office tribes in every stage of civilization, from the partially civilized nations in the Indian Territory, with their schools, churches, and written language, to the hostile tribes of Arizona, which know nothing of the habits of civilization. The former are, no doubt, as well fitted as they will ever become in their present mode of life for settlement upon farms of proper size. The latter can only be brought gradually to that condition, the first step toward which, as has been said, is confining them to smaller reservations than they at present occupy. This subject has been presented to the various delegations which have visited the East, and by the several commissions to the Indian tribes at their homes. It has been received with interest by all, and while the most of them are not yet sufficiently convinced of the advantage and necessity of an agricultural life to appreciate the importance of removal, those who have made some progress in farming have expressed a willingness to adopt the suggestion, if some of their leading chiefs can be allowed to visit the new Territory and examine their proposed new homes. Judicious management will, in a few years, secure the removal of a large portion of the tribes east of the Rocky Mountains to the Indian Territory.

I cannot regard the rapid disappearance of the game from its former haunts as a matter prejudicial to our management of the Indians. On the contrary, as they become convinced that they can no longer rely upon the supply of game for their support, will they turn to the more reliable source of subsistence furnished at the agencies, and endeavor to so live that that supply will be regularly dispensed. A few years of cessation from the chase will tend to unfit them for their former mode of life, and they will be the more readily led into new directions, toward industrial pursuits and peaceful habits.

In the present imperfect system of detailed reports from agents, as to the condition of the tribes in regard to their progress in industry, it is difficult to furnish any statement in figures as to the condition of all the tribes. The following statement, however, will show the progress made by twenty tribes in the southern superintendency, during the past four years, in the work of farming and stock-raising. They do not include the larger and more civilized nations, Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, occupying the Indian Territory: