Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1879.djvu/7

Rh force and only one without it. At this moment a band of less than eight hundred Utes, and another of about one hundred and fifty Indian marauders in New Mexico, in all less than one thousand of an Indian population of a quarter of a million, are causing serious trouble. In fact, the number of white desperadoes who were within the last twelve months banded togetherin New Mexico for murder and rapine was larger than that of the Indians recently on the war-path near the southern part of the Territory. While I am by no means disposed to belittle the deplorable nature of Indian disturbances or the great value of a military force in suppressing them, it is but just to the Indians to point out the important fact that disturbance and hostility is the exception and peaceable conduct the rule; that a very large majority of Indian reservations are in a condition of uninterrupted quiet without the presence of a coercing force, and the equally significant experience that the more civilized an Indian tribe becomes, the more certainly can its peaceable and orderly conduct be depended upon. The progress of civilization and the maintenance of peace among the Indians have always gone hand in hand.

It is frequently said that we have no Indian policy. This is a mistake, at least as far as this department is concerned.

If a policy consists in keeping a certain object in view and in employing all proper means at command to attain that object, then this department has one. The ends steadily pursued by it are the following:

1. To set the Indians to work as agriculturists or herders, thus to break up their habits of savage life and to make them self-supporting.

2. To educate their youth of both sexes, so as to introduce to the growing generation civilized ideas, wants, and aspirations.

3. To allot parcels of land to Indians in severalty and to give them individual title to their farms in fee, inalienable for a certain period, thus to foster the pride of individual ownership of property instead of their former dependence upon the tribe, with its territory held in common.

4. When settlement in severalty with individual title is accomplished, to dispose, with their consent, of those lands on their reservations which are not settled and used by them, the proceeds to form a fund for their benefit, which will gradually relieve the government of the expenses at present provided for by annual appropriations.

5. When this is accomplished, to treat the Indians like other inhabitants of the United States, under the laws of the land.

This policy, if adopted and supported by Congress and carried out with wisdom and firmness, will in my opinion gradually bring about a solution of the Indian problem without injustice to the Indians and also without obstructing the development of the country. It will raise them to a level of civilization at least equal to that of the civilized tribes in the Indian Territory and probably to a higher one, considering the stimulus of individual ownership in land. It will not take away from them by force what in justice and equity belongs to them, but induce them to