| OCR Text |
Show 10 RICPORT OF THE COMMI88IONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. tions of the United States. It was a matter of segregating and confin-ing them, for political and commercial reasons, upon limited areas, where they could either be under definite surveillance or exterminated as a rke. There appeared to be no middle ground between surveil-lance and extermination, and the former was adopted as a fixed policy, which has continued until the present time. The vicious ration and annuity system was its logical corollary. However wise such a policy may have been during the past century, the condition of the Indian and his surrounding white neighbors at the beginning of a new century demand a change. Then the West was sparsely settled; the hardy pioneer went to his work, w did his earlier prototype from Europe, with ax and gun in hand; the rail-road and telegraph were in their infancy, and this vast domain gave little promise of its present greatness. Now the busy wheels of com-merce, the hum of industry, and the lowing of countless millions of cattle upon the broad prairies, supplanting the buffalo, can be heard; bustling cities, with teeming thousands, have sprung up on the sites of old Indian homes and battlefields. Conditions have changed, and policies must be changed to suit them. The past two generations have witnessed the sowing of the seeds of education and civilization by both the Government and the missionaries. These seeds have not always fallen on barren ground, but have produced some good resulh. Advancing white civilization has unconsciously aided the development of the Indian, until there remain few reservations upon which at pres-ent the educational interests are not paramount to all others. During the past four years the endeavor of this office has been to crystallize the newer policy of abandoning the reservation system of Indian government wherever practicable. Constant tutelage is not conducive to the evolution of a manly character. Responsibilities must be assumed, met, and appreciated. Under the old agency sys-tem this idea could not be fostered, but as schools have multiplied and students have returned from distant schools to quicken the entire mass of Indian thought, the change may now profitably be made, not only I for the Indian, but for the surrounding whites. The principle above outlined was advanced early in the last decade, when Congress, in the appropriation act for the fiscal year 1893, de-clared t h a t The superintendent of the Indian Training School at Cherokee, N. C., shall, in addition to his duties as superintendent,perform the duties heretofore required of the agent at said Cherokee Agency, and reeelve in addition to his salary as superintend- I ent, $200 per annum, which sum is hereby appropriated for, the purpose, and shall give bond as other Indian agenta, and that the o5ce of agent be, and the aame ia hereby, abolished at that place. I In the appropriation act for the succeeding year a clause was inserted giving the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, with the approval of the |
