Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1873.djvu/55

Rh are stipulated to be paid in cash annuities. Facts show that ordinarily the Indians who have received the most money in this form are in the most unfavorable condition for civilization. The bounty of the Government has pauperized them, and in some cases has tended to brutalize more than to civilize. There are instances where for many years tribes have been receiving from $300 to $500 cash annually to each family of four or five persons, and in all such cases the Indians have made no use of the soil which they possess, and are annually reduced to extreme want within a short time after receiving annuities. These Indians would probably have been far better off to have had only their lands, out of which they might have dug a living, if compelled by hunger, than to have received this bounty in a form that tends to perpetuate idleness and poverty. I recommend that hereafter the appropriations to fulfill these promises for annuities of cash in hand be made for the same amounts to be expended, in each case, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, for purposes of civilization of the tribe, reserving to the discretion of the Secretary the power to pay cash annuities whenever, in his judgment, it is found expedient.

If the objection should be made that this is a violation of a treaty stipulation, the answer is, that the Government is bound to consider the best interests of its wards. And if, in previous years, wrong methods have been adopted, or if the present condition and exigencies require a different method of dealing with the Indians in order to secure their improvement and greatest good, then both justice and humanity require that the change he made.

A satisfactory experiment of this method has been made under a treaty with the Sisseton and Wahpeton Sioux, in accordance with which the moneys paid to these tribes, in payment for tbeir lands sold to the Government, have been expended in goods and provisions, which have been issued to Indians only in return for labor on their part, the labor being, in most cases, for themselves; and thus a threefold benefit has been procured. They have actually received the value of the money; they have received the products of their own labor, and, best of all, they have learned to labor. If a similar use can he made of sums of money now paid to vagrant Indians, and practically squandered by them within a few days, a large incentive to industry will be gained.

The third hinderance is found in the want of individual property-rights among Indians. A fundamental difference between barbarians and a civilized people is the difference between a. herd and an individual. All barbarous customs tend to destroy individuality. Where everything is held in common, thrift and enterprise have no stimulus of reward, and thus individual progress is rendered very improbable, if not impossible. The starting-point of individualism for an Indian is the personal possession of his portion of the reservation. Give him a house within a tract of land, whose corner-stakes are plainly recognized by himself and his neighbors, and let whatever can be produced out of this lauded estate be considered property in his own name, and the first principle of industry and thrift is recognized. In order to this first step, the survey and allotment in severalty of the land belonging to the Indians must be provided for by congressional legislation.

The fourth hinderance is the absence of law for Indians. The first condition of civilization is protection of life and property through the