Chapter VII: The Winnebagoes (2)

In 1876 the Winnebagoes are reported again as "fast emerging from a condition of dependence upon their annual appropriations. *** Each head of a family has a patent for eighty acres of land. Many have fine farms, and are wholly supporting themselves and families by their own industry. *** The issue of rations has been discontinued, except to the Wisconsin branch of the tribe and to the sick-list."

In what does this report differ from the report which would be rendered from any small farming village in the United States? The large majority "wholly supporting themselves and their families by their own industry;" a small minority of worthless or disabled people being fed by charity—_i.e._, being fed on food bought, at least in part, by interest money due on capital made by sales of land in which they had a certain reckonable share of ownership. Every one of the United States has in nearly every county an almshouse, in which just such a class of worthless and disabled persons will be found; and so crowded are these almshouses, and so appreciable a burden is their support on the tax-payers of State and county, that there are perpetual disputes going on between the authorities of neighboring districts as to the ownership and responsibility of individual paupers: for the paupers in civilized almshouses are never persons who have had proceeds of land sales "invested" for their benefit, the interest to be paid to them "annually forever." It is for nobody's interest to keep them paupers, or to take care of them as such.

We now find the Winnebagoes once more quietly established in comfortable homes—as they were, in their own primitive fashion, in 1822, when Dr. Morse visited them on the shores of their beautiful lake; as they were, after our civilized fashion, in 1862, on the healthful and fertile up-lands of Minnesota. In their present home they seem to have reason, at last, to feel secure, to anticipate permanence, safety, and success. Their lands have been allotted to them in severalty: each head of a family has his patent for eighty acres. They are, in the main, self-supporting.

How does the United States Government welcome this success, this heroic triumph of a patient people over disheartening obstacles and sufferings?

In the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior for 1876 the Secretary says: "As a matter of economy, the greatest saving could be made by uniting all the Indians upon a few reservations; the fewer, the better." He says that there is land enough in the Indian Territory to give every Indian—man, woman, and child—in the country seventy-five acres apiece. He says, "The arguments are all in favor of the consolidation." He then goes on to enumerate those arguments: "Expensive agencies would be abolished; the Indians themselves can be more easily watched over and controlled; evil-designing men be the better kept away from them, and illicit trade and barter in arms and ammunition and whiskey prevented. Goods could be supplied at a greater saving; the military service relieved; the Indians better taught, and friendly rivalry established among them—those most civilized hastening the progress of those below them; and _most of the land now occupied as reserves reverting to the General Government, would be open to entry and sale_."

Here are nine reasons given for removing all Indians to Indian Territory. Five of these reasons ostensibly point to benefits likely to accrue from this removal to the Indians. The other four point to benefits likely to accrue to the Government; the first three of these last are, simply, "saving;" the fourth is the significant one, "gain"—"most of the land reverting to the General Government would be open to entry and sale."

It was before this necessity of opening Indian lands "to entry and sale" that the Winnebagoes had been fleeing, from 1815 to 1863. It seems they are no safer now. There is evidently as much reason for moving them out of Nebraska as there was for moving them out of Wisconsin and Minnesota.

The Secretary goes on to say: "As soon as the Indian is taught to toil for his daily bread, and realize the sense of proprietorship in the results of his labor, it cannot but be further to his advantage to be able to appreciate that his labor is expended upon his individual possessions and for his personal benefit. *** The Indian must be made to see the practical advantage to himself of his work, and feel that he reaps the full benefit of it. Everything should teach him that he has a home; *** a hearth-stone of his own, around which he can gather his family, and in its possession be entirely secure and independent."

The logical relation of these paragraphs to the preceding one is striking, and the bearing of the two together on the case of the Winnebagoes is still more striking.

In the same report the Commissioner for Indian Affairs says: "If legislation were secured giving the President authority to remove any tribe or band, or any portion of a tribe or band, whenever in his judgment it was practicable, to any one of the reservations named, and if Congress would appropriate from year to year a sum sufficient to enable him to take advantage of every favorable opportunity to make such removals, I am confident that a few years' trial would conclusively demonstrate the entire feasibility of the plan. I believe that all the Indians in Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota, and a part at least of those in Wyoming and Montana, could be induced to remove to the Indian Territory."

He adds "that the Indian sentiment is opposed to such removal is true," but he thinks that, "with a fair degree of persistence," the removal "can be secured." No doubt it can.

Later in the same report, under the head of "Allotments in Severalty," he says: "It is doubtful whether any high degree of civilization is possible without individual ownership of land. The records of the past, and the experience of the present, testify that the soil should be made secure to the individual by all the guarantees which law can devise, and that nothing less will induce men to put forth their best exertions. It is essential that each individual should feel that his home is his own; *** that he has a direct personal interest in the soil on which he lives, and that that interest will be faithfully protected for him and for his children by the Government."

The commissioner and the secretary who wrote these clear statements of evident truths, and these eloquent pleas for the Indians' rights, both knew perfectly well that hundreds of Indians had had lands "allotted to them" in precisely this way, and had gone to work on the lands so allotted, trusting "that that interest would be faithfully protected by the Government;" and that these "allotments," and the "certificates" of them, had proved to be good for nothing as soon as the citizens of a State united in a "demand" that the Indians should be moved. The commissioner and the secretary knew perfectly well, at the time they wrote these paragraphs, that in this one Winnebago tribe in Nebraska, for instance, "every head of a family owned eighty acres of land," and was hard at work on it—industrious, self-supporting, trying to establish that "hearth-stone" around which, as the secretary says, he must "gather his family, and in its possession be entirely secure and independent." And yet the secretary and the commissioner advise the moving of this Winnebago tribe to Indian Territory with the rest: "all the Indians in Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota" could probably be "induced to move," they say.

These quotations from this report of the Interior Department are but a fair specimen of the velvet glove of high-sounding phrase of philanthropic and humane care for the Indian, by which has been most effectually hid from the sight of the American people the iron hand of injustice and cruelty which has held him for a hundred years helpless in its grasp.

In this same year an agent on one of the Nebraska agencies writes feelingly and sensibly:

"Nothing has tended to retard the progress of this tribe in the line of opening farms for themselves so much as the unsettlement occasioned by a continued agitation of the subject of selling their reservation and the removal of the tribe. *** The improvement that has been made at this agency during the past three years in the direction of developing among the Indians the means of self-support, seems to have caused an uneasiness that has been prolific of a great deal of annoyance, inasmuch as it has alarmed this speculative element around us with the fear that the same (continued) will eventually plant the Indians on their present fertile land so firmly that they cannot be removed, and thus they be deprived of the benefits of manipulating the sale of their reservation."

Nevertheless, the Winnebagoes keep on in their work—building houses, school-buildings, many of them of brick made on the ground.

In this year (1876) they experienced a great injustice in the passing of an Act of Congress fixing the total amount to be expended for pay of employés at any one agency at not more than $10,000. This necessitated the closing of the fine building they had built at a cost of $20,000 for the purpose of an industrial boarding-school.

In this year's report their agent gives a resumé of the financial condition of the tribe: "By treaty proclaimed June 16th, 1838, the Winnebagoes ceded to the United States all their land east of the Mississippi, in consideration of which they were to receive $1,100,000. The balance of this, after making certain payments, was to be invested for their benefit, on which the United States guaranteed to pay them an annual interest of not less than five per cent.

"The Winnebagoes receive no support from the Government, other than from the interest appropriated annually on what remains of these funds. This in 1870 amounted to over $50,000. Since then the half-breeds, numbering one hundred and sixty persons, members of the tribe remaining in Minnesota at the time of the removal of the Indians from that State in 1863, have, in accordance with the provisions of the act making appropriations for the Indian service, approved March 3d, 1871, been paid their proportion of the principal of all Winnebago funds, as shown on the books of the Treasury at that time, including the proportion of $85,000, on which but five more instalments of interest were to be paid, per fourth Article treaty October 13th, 1846. In computing this proportion, the whole number of the tribe considered as being entitled to participate in the benefits of the tribal funds was 1531; which number included only those located on the Winnebago reservation in Nebraska at that time, in addition to the one hundred and sixty already spoken of. By this Act of Congress the Nebraska Winnebagoes, who comprise only that portion of the tribe which has complied with treaty stipulations, and quietly acquiesced in the demands of the Government, were deprived of nearly one-eighth part of their accustomed support.

"Other reductions were afterward made for the purchase of a reservation adjoining the old one in this State, and for removing to it the wandering bands of Winnebagoes in Wisconsin. These were supposed to have numbered in all nearly one thousand persons. They had not been in the habit of receiving any attention or acknowledgment from the Government since they, as a tribal organization, had declined to treat with it. Nearly all of them objected to removing from Wisconsin to their new reservation in Nebraska, and, as a natural consequence, soon returned after being compelled to do so. At the present time there are probably less than one hundred of the number remaining here. For the past three years the sum to which the Wisconsin Winnebagoes would have been entitled had they remained on their reservation, amounting in all to $48,521 07, has been set apart, awaiting such act of Congress as will give relief in the premises; thus reducing the total amount received per annum by that portion of the tribe living on the reservation to but little more than one-half of what it was seven years ago. It seems needless to say that they are very much dissatisfied at this, and that when they refer to the subject I have some difficulty in satisfying them as to the justice of the governmental policy in setting apart funds (to be expended at some future time) for the benefit of certain individuals who persist in absenting themselves from their reservation, while others, who are absent but a few months, are deprived of all advantages from issues of supplies or payments that may have been made during their absence."

This case is a good illustration of the working of the trustee relation between the United States Government and its wards.

In 1877 we find the Secretary of the Interior still recommending that the Indians be "gradually gathered together on smaller reservations," to the end that "greater facilities be afforded for civilization." He reiterates that "the enjoyment and pride of individual ownership of property is one of the most effective civilizing agencies," and recommends that "allotments of small tracts of land should be made to the heads of families on all reservations, to be held in severalty under proper restrictions, so that they may have fixed homes."

The commissioner also recommends "a steady concentration of the smaller bands of Indians on the larger reservations." He calls attention again to the fact that there are 58,000 square miles in the Indian Territory "set apart for the use of Indians, and that there they can be fed and clothed at a greatly diminished expense; and, better than all, can be kept in obedience, and taught to become civilized and self-supporting."

In 1878 the Commissioner of Indian Affairs reports that a bill has been drawn "providing for the removal and consolidation of certain Indians in the States of Oregon, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and the Territories of Washington and Dakota. *** A reduction of twenty-five reservations and eleven agencies will thus be effected. *** There will be restored to the public domain 17,642,455 acres of land." He says that "further consolidations of like character are not only possible, but expedient and advisable. *** There is a vast area of land in the Indian Territory not yet occupied."

With the same ludicrous, complacent logic as before, he proceeds to give as the reason for uprooting all these Indians from the homes where they are beginning to thrive and take root, and moving them again—for the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh time, as it may be—the fact that, "among the most radical defects of the policy formerly pursued with the Indians, has been the frequent changes in their location which have been made. *** Permanent homes, sufficient aid to enable them to build houses, cultivate the soil, and to subsist them until they have harvested their first crops, will wean them entirely from their old methods of life, and in the course of a few years enable them to become entirely self-supporting. *** Among the more forcible arguments which can be presented in connection with this subject is the fact that the expenses attending the removal and consolidation of the Indians, as herein proposed, _will be more than met from the sale of lands vacated_. *** Much of the land now owned by these Indians is valuable only for its timber, and may be sold at an appraised value for an amount far in excess of the price fixed by law, and yet leave a large margin of profit to the purchaser into whose hands the lands will fall. *** I can see no reason why the Government should not avail itself of these facts, and in effecting the consolidation of the Indians, and the opening of the lands for settlement, sell the same for an amount sufficient to support the Indians in their new locations, without any actual drain on the Treasury in the future. *** The lands belong to the Indians, and they are clearly entitled to receive the full value of the same when sold."

In this sentence we reach the high-water mark of the sophistry and dishonesty of the Department's position. "The lands belong to the Indians," but we will compel them to "restore to the public domain" (_i.e._, to give up to white settlers) 17,642,455 acres of them. The Indians "are clearly entitled to receive the full value of the same when sold," but we will compel them to expend that "full value" in removing to a place where they do not want to go, opening new lands, building new houses, buying new utensils, implements, furniture and stock, and generally establishing themselves, "without any actual drain on the Treasury" of the United States: and the Department of the Interior "can see no reason why the Government should not avail itself of these facts."

All this is proposed with a view to the benefit of the Indians. The report goes on to reiterate the same old story that the Indians must have "a perfect title to their lands;" that they have come to feel that they are at any time liable to be moved, "whenever the pressure of white settlers upon them may create a demand for their lands," and that they "decline to make any improvements on their lands, even after an allotment in severalty has been made, until they have received their patents for the same," and that even "after the issue of patents the difficulties surrounding them do not cease." Evidently not, since, as we have seen, it is now several years since every head of a family among these Winnebagoes, whose "removal" the commissioner now recommends, secured his "patent" for eighty acres of land.

Finally, the commissioner says: "Every means that human ingenuity can devise, legal or illegal, has been resorted to for the purpose of obtaining possession of Indian lands." Of this there would seem to be left no doubt in the mind of any intelligent person, after reading the above quotations.

It is not to be wondered that when the news of such schemes as these reaches the Indians on their reservations great alarm and discontent are the result. We find in the reports from the Nebraska agencies for this year unmistakable indications of disheartenment and anxiety. The Winnebagoes are reported to be very anxious to be made citizens. A majority are in favor of it, "provided the Government will adopt certain measures which they consider necessary for the care and protection of their property."

They have had a striking illustration of the disadvantage of not being citizens, in an instance of the unpunished murder of one of their number by a white man. The story is related by the agent tersely and well, and is one of the notable incidents in the history of the relation between the United States Government and its wards.

"Henry Harris, a Winnebago in good standing, an industrious man and a successful farmer, was employed by Joseph Smith, a white man, to cut wood on his land in Dakota County, a short distance north of the reservation. While alone and thus engaged, on the 29th of last January, Harris was shot through the heart with a rifle-ball. I had his dead body taken before the coroner of the county, and at the inquest held before that officer it was shown, to the satisfaction of the jury that rendered a verdict in accordance therewith, that the Indian came to his death at the hands of one D. Balinska, who had been for many years leading a hermit's life on a tract of land that he owned adjoining the reservation, and who had threatened Harris's life a few months before, when they quarrelled about damages for corn destroyed by Balinska's horse. There being snow on the ground at the time of the murder, Balinska was tracked from his home to the place where, under cover, he did the shooting; and his shot-pouch, containing a moulded ball of the same weight as the one cut from the body of the Indian, was found near by and identified. Notwithstanding this direct evidence, which was laid before the Grand-jury of Dakota County, that honorable body was unwilling to find a 'true bill;' for the reason, as I understand, that it was only an Indian that was killed, and it would not be popular to incur the expense of bringing the case to trial. This is but another illustration of the difficulty of punishing a white man for a wrong committed against an Indian. I need hardly say that the Indians, when comparing this murder with that of a white man, committed eight years ago by five of their young men—who, upon less direct evidence, were sentenced to imprisonment in the State Penitentiary for life—are struck with the wonderful difference in the application of the same law to whites and Indians."

The report from the Winnebago Agency for 1879 tells the story of the sequel to this unpunished murder of Henry Harris. The agent says: "In my last report I referred to the murder of one of our best Indian farmers by a white man, who was afterward arrested and discharged without trial, though there was no question as to his guilt. As a sequel to this, one white man is known to have been killed last May by Holly Scott, a nephew of the murdered Indian; and another white man is supposed to have been killed by Eddy Priest and Thomas Walker, two young Indians who have left for Wisconsin. The murdered white men had temporarily stopped with the Indians. Their antecedents are unknown, and they are supposed to have belonged to the fraternity of tramps. Holly Scott was arrested by the Indian police, and turned over to the authorities of Dakota County for trial, the State Legislature having at its last session extended the jurisdiction of that county over this reservation, by what authority I am unable to say.

"The effect of these murders was to unsettle the Indians, nearly all industry being suspended for several weeks. They feared that the white people would do as they did in Minnesota in 1862, after the Sioux massacre, when the Winnebagoes were driven from their homes in Minnesota. *** A number of our most quiet and industrious men became alarmed, and moved their families to Wisconsin, encouraged in so doing by the hope of receiving from the Government a share of the funds which have been set apart from the annual appropriations during the past four years for the benefit of the Wisconsin Winnebagoes, and which they suppose aggregate a large amount which will soon be paid in cash."

This brings the story of the Winnebagoes down to the present time. What its next chapter may be is saddening to think. It is said by those familiar with the Nebraska Indians that, civilized though they be, they will all make war to the knife if the attempt is made by the Government to rob them of their present lands on the plea again of offering them a "permanent home." That specious pretence has done its last duty in the United States service. No Indian is left now so imbecile as to believe it once more.

Whether the Winnebagoes' "patents" in Nebraska would, in such a case, prove any stronger than did their "certificates" in Minnesota, and whether the Winnebagoes themselves, peaceable and civilized though they be, would side with the United States Government, or with their wronged and desperate brethren, in such an uprising, it would be hard to predict.