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Show 114 REPORT OF THE BOARD OF INDIAN COMMISSIONERS. or giving them spirits or wine is evaded by men who make cider or beer the medium bj which to convey the poison. The territorial law which included these does not admit Indian testimony. These defects, added to a general unwillingness to do justice to the Indian as against a white man, render it exceedingly difficult to procure the conviction of even the most pronounced offender. The defects in the law may be remedied by changing it. The difficulty arising from prejudice will in time be overcome by the increase of a higher degree of civilization among the whites. An immediate improvement could be made in some quarters by a change in the manner of selecting jurors. When the jurors are selected by the county sheriffs, the same panel being used by the United States courts, the sheriffs, dependent upon the popular vote for their office, often select the merest ruffians and persons themselves offenders against the laws. If the United States marshal were required to select the jurors, not being dependent on the popular vote for his office, the best class of men in the community would be empaneled, instead of the worst, as is too often the case under the present law. Another and most serious obstacle in the way of Indian civilization, and especially dam-aging to the advancement of those who have made some progress toward it, is the fact that they are left entirely without civilized law in regard to the commission of crimes against each other. An Indian may murder his wife, his daughter, or his neighbor, and no punish-ment can legally be inflicted. If, by any chance, he should be arrested and imprisoned for the crime, the courts would necessarily order his discharge. At the Tulalip reservation there were two men wearing ball and chain and undergoing the sentence of one year's labor for the crime of murder. They appealed to me against the injustice of the superintendent with great earnestness. They wore the white man's costume and were intelligent- looking Indians. I said, " Well, for what reason does he make you carry this, arid work for a year?" " For killing two men," was the reply. " Did you kill them ? " " Yes ; but they killed my friend before, and I had a right to kill them." They also urged that they had " settled it." Such settlements are usually made by the payment to surviving friends of a horse or a few blankets. During the year ending September, 1869, there were no less than nine murders committed by the Indians connected with the Tulalip agency. Eight of the murderers were arrested by the agent and punished by a short conrinemeut in the block- house. Most of these crimes have for their immediate cause, intoxicating liquor. When an Indian drinks, his mind be-comes inflamed with the remembrance of real or supposed injury, and he proceeds to take the revenge which the savage customs of his tribe, and the decisions of the United States courts teach him is his right. It is believed that one or two hangings under sentence, after trial, would entirely put an end to the crime of murder among them. They rarely or never of late years venture to kill a white man. This monstrous anomaly, for such it seems to be, where the Indians are partially civilized, has arisen from the recognition of the sovereignty of Indian tribes. It should have been provided against by naming in every treaty, a period at which the Indians, a party to it, should become subject to the white man's laws. Its existence in a country of our boasted enlightenment is, to say the least, disgraceful. While it continues to exist, we can hardly wonder that the Indians should lightly value human life, or that whites of a lower degree of intelligence should think the murder of Indians a venal offense. To attempt the enforcement of our common or statute law, in a tribe of wild Indians, as soon as they are brought into peaceful relations with the Government, is not expedient or even practicable, for the reason that the savages are unable yet to distinguish between such enforcement and acts of war. Such illegal attempts by neighboring white settlers have too often been made, as in the late Camp Grant case, with the inevitable result of a renewal of war. But when Indians have adopted civilized dress, are acquiring civilized habits and modes of subsistence, we owe it to them and to ourselves to teach them the majesty of civilized law and to extend to them its protection. The superintendents and agents should be required to use every effort of persuasion and argument to induce such Indians to abandon their tribal relations and adopt the white man's law. An act of Congress should be passed extending the jurisdiction of the courts to crimes committed by Indians against each other upon the reservations or elsewhere. * At all the reservations I visited in Washington Territory and Oregon, the Indians expressed an ardent desire for schools to educate their children. In some cases they com-plained bitterly of the failure of the Government to establish such schools as had been promised to them. The only successful schools to be found are the industrial boarding-schools at Tulalip and at Yakama. The former has been sustained by the appropriation of $ 5,000 per annum; the latter has received a much smaller sum, the deficiency being made up from other resources, and from the labor of the pupils in raising food for themselves. It was suspended for a year, and has been again started by means of the fund thus accu mulated. It should certainly receive a larger appropriation in the future. Tulalip is in charge of the Catholics, Yakama of the Methodists. Only such schools as these can be successful among the Indians. Day- schools, even when managed by capable and consci- * These remarks are not applicable to the civilized tribes of the so called ludiau territory \ rho have a code of laws similar to our own. |