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Show 98 Nuwuvi: A Southern Paiute History tion. Barnes reported that on his arrival agency affairs were in a mess. There was a large deficiency in funds, creditors were demanding payment, the agency no longer had any local credit, and the agent was looked upon with suspicion. Barnes began an attempt at organization, but the situation deteriorated to the point that the school established in 1872 soon was discontinued for lack of funds.1 s One result of Indian association with the whites was the occasional outbreak of disease. In 1873 "malarious diseases" spread among the Muddy Valley Indians.19 In 1874 Barnes reported that the process of removing the remaining settlers from the valley should be speeded up because "Already the influence of the whites among these Indians is manifesting itself, by diseases that have been contracted." :0 These epidemics continued to break out periodically during the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth. The diseases varied but were all reflections of the expanding contacts with whites. The more common ones were measles, tuberculosis, and influenza. They were all diseases of whites to which the Nuwuvi had not built up immunity. They played a considerable part in shrinking the Nuwuvi population. Late in 1875 A. J. Barnes was appointed Nevada Indian Agent, and the Southeast Nevada Agency at Moapa was added to that agency. Barnes recommended that the resident physician at Moapa be transferred to the Nevada Agency headquarters at Pyramid Lake.21 The government seemed to be slowly removing itself from its responsibility for the Moapa reserve. In fact, the reservation was entering a period which was to last into the early twentieth century, a period of government policy of ignoring Moapa specifically and all of the Nuwuvi generally. With the reduction of the reservation, the concept of gathering all the Nuwuvi at Moapa already seems to have been abandoned. Those living outside of southeast Nevada were neglected completely by the government. They were forced to depend largely on local white communities. The reservation itself sank into a morass of corruption from which it would not escape until the early 1900's. By 1877 Barnes seems to have realized that he could not supervise effectively the reservations in northern Nevada and Moapa also. Transportation was too primitive. Consequently, supervision of Moapa had become almost nonexistent. Barnes proposed removing |
