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Show Secretary~2 and. in fact the Agent places scarcely any reliance on them for this purpose.. I am now in receipt of a report on the schools of this reservation made by United States Supervisor of Indian Schools A. 0. Wright. He says that the general conditions on the agency seriously affect the schools and they cannot fairly bo judged without understanding such conditions; that the Ute Indians are the most backward in the United States; that it is only twenty years ago, or in the memory of many of them, when the V/hite River Utes (now the most troublesome at the agency) killed their agent and other white persons and made concubines of his daughters; that they were never thoroughly whipped for this but the Government compromised with them in the usual way, hesitating between philanthropy and revenge; that they ware forced out of Colorado into Utah, Which was then a territory, and were paid a large sum for their lands; that they new receive rations and annuities and lease money, so that they are altogether too rich for their own good; that he has no doubt one reason for their objecting to send their children to school is because the children's rations arc given to the school4 and it is evident that the reason they have concealed the deaths of children during the recent epidemic is In order that they may continue to draw annuities for the dead. The Supervisor says they are the first full blood Indians he has seen who will lie about, plain matters of fact; that, after having had two meetings with their chiefs two different years, at the request of the Agent, he is satisfied they have a regular system of falsifying for the purpose of deceiving the white men; that this is kept up by the power of the chiefs and medl- |
