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Show REPORT OF. THE COXXISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 87 I placed at the service of the Office and reached the village on October 27. The next morning all the male Indians were assembled at the .schoolhouse to. hear what Washington had to say and to accept or reject the proposals offered. As far as thehostiles were concerned, the result confirmed the wisdom of having troops at hand. Although Mr. Perry patiently and laboriously set before them the benevolent purposes of the Government and the absence of any intention on its part to interfere with the religion of the Indians or their customs except where these came into collision with the law of the land, they remained, to a man, stubbornly resistant,. Yu ke o ma and Ta wa hong ni wa, indeed, renewed and persisted in R demand, which they had made from the beginning of the troubles, that . the friendly chief should be beheaded and they and their followers - returned by force to Oraibi. I t mas obvious, as I had foreseen in making up my programme, that no impression could be made upon the great mass of their followers as long as they remained where their advice could be heard and heeded. They were therefore publicly deposed from their usurped authority and at once arrested, together with 27 of the most conspicuous mischief-makers-including 12 Shirnopovis-placed under guard, and taken to Keams Canon. There their cases were individually considered, and, according to the flagrancy of their respective misconduct, they received, with 12 exceptions, sentences to confinement at hard labor for terms ranging from one to three years. The exceptions were 1 aged man, who was regarded as too illfirm for such punishment, and 11 at the other extreme of life who were, on account of their youth and apparently to their own great relief, ordered to go to school instead of to prison. They expressed a preference for Carlisle, and were accordingly sent there, in care of Lieutenant Lewis, as soon as the necessary arrangements could be made. After Yu ke o ma and Ta wa hong ni wa had had a brief taste of the punishment decreed for their colleagues, they were set free with a warning not to return to their old haunts. I am in hope that before the others--who have since been transferred to Fort Huachuca-am released and return, the tribe as a whole will have so far advanced in appreciation of the authority of the Government, if not of its good purposes toward them, that ignorant agitation and blind subservience to senseless leadership will have become less the settled rule among them. Indeed, it was plain, from the hour of the removal of the ring-leaders in disturbance, that a part of the spell they had exercised over the rest had been broken; for at a later meeting, under encour-agement of the supervisor to be more like men and think and act for themselves, 25 hostiles forsook the recalcitrant band and signed an agreement to obey the law of the land, let their children go to school, and live in peace with their neighbors. Thereupon they were sent |
