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Show REPORT OF THE BOARD OF INDIAN COMMISSIONERS. 113 The Indians seem to be intelligent and disposed to do right, but they have had much to discourage them, in the character and conduct of those who were set over them. Some of them are carrying on a logging camp, selling the logs to or. e of the mills on the sound, and dividing the proceeds as pay for their work. They hire a white man to drive the ox- team, and seem to conduct their business generally, through two of their number, with ability. Their object is to make some money with which to improve farms. The reservation is in charge of Mr. Edwin Eels, who had but lately been appointed on nomination of the American Home Missionary Society, and who seemed to have an appre-ciation of his duty to the Government, and his responsibilities in regard to the Indians. I have seen no place where the Christian policy can be adopted with better promise of success. The school has been heretofore a failure, as nearly all day- schools for Indians have been. There were seven pupils only, but they showed good progress. The agent and teacher are preparing to make it an industrial boarding- school for both girls and boys, and if the building can be enlarged, and a sufficient sum appropriated to subsist and clothe the children, it must be a success. The Indians are anxious to have it so, and to send their children. Upon this reservation, as upon all I visited in Washington Territory, the Indians are anxious to have their boundaries definitely settled, and to have their farms allotted to them in severally, ( see Appendix .) I returned to Olympia on the 6th of September, regretting that, for lack of time, I was unable to visit other reservations. Several delegations of Indians met me at Olympia, and their urgent solicitations, added to my own conviction of the importance of such visits, both to the Indians and to the service, increased greatly my regrets. When at Port Townsend, Colonel Drew, the collector of the district, and Captain McClel-land, the commander of the United States revenue cutter, very kindly offered the vessel to take me to the Neah Bay reservation, but for the reason above named I was obliged reluct-antly to decline going. The reservation is at the entrance of the Straits of Juan del Fuca, and the Makah Indians inhabiting it are said to be in some regards the most interesting of any in the Territory. They were under the care of H. A. Webster for seven years. Colonel Samuel Ross, superintendent, in his report of 1869, said, " What has become of the large amount of money appropriated to beneficial objects at this agency since 1S61, I am totally unable to state." The following from the report of Webster's successor, in 186?, seems to account for it : " The former agent had taken possession of a section of country six miles square; nearly all the buildings belonging to the agency are on this land, and not on the reservation proper." He also states that there are but two or three acres of tillable land on the reservation, and urges that the land upon which the buildings are located be taken for the use of the Indians. If these statements are correct the subject should receive immediate attention, and for this reason it is here referred to. At Olympia a paper was placed in my hands which preferred serious charges against Superintendent McKenney, and was accompanied with a request for an investigation. I had an interview with the witness who was principally relied upon to substantiate the allegations, and with such other persons cognizant of the subject as I could reach in the short time allowed, and also examined the accounts of General McKenney and the papers connected with the subject- matter charged. I regret that the original charges, with my memoranda of evidences and statements, and the rebutting affidavits furnished by General McKenney, were burned in the Chicago fire. I can only express the opinion derived from them, that General McKenney is not guilty of the acts charged, and is a good officer, who is conscientiously endeavoring to do his duty to the Government and the Indians. GKNEKAL REMARKS AND SUGGESTIONS. The condition of the Indians on Puget Sound is vastly better than individual statements and common rumor led me to anticipate. Many of them are industrious, and labor upon their reservations and in the saw- mills, and in other ways for the whites, and are com-mended by their agents and their employers. On the other hand, there is a dark side to the picture. Many gain their subsistence by fishing or lounging about the white settlements, and are the most degraded human beings possible. Their women are corrupt, and disease is universally prevalent. There are white people who have grown comparatively rich from the process of Indian demoralization, and others who have reached the level of the most degraded of the Indians. Near Seattle is a den of infamy known as " the mad- house," where fifteen or twenty Indian women are kept to join in the drunken carousals of its patrons, and it is said there are or have been similar establishments near every town. This case was adduced by a person in proof of the hopelessness of " doing anything for Indians." He did not see that its existence involved the fact of a larger number of still more degraded white men who H: C its patrons. The greatest obstacle to the elevation of the Indians and the most potent agent in their degradation and destruction is their passion for intoxicating drinks, and they are more 6xp< < cl to its iniluence here than anywhere else. The United States laws against selling Si C |