The work of this reservation was that of a frontier. Until the late
nineties, army officers, acting as agents, had administered affairs
from Fort Defiance, distant about eighty-five miles from the First Mesa
of the Hopi. The country between these points is rough, and in winter
often impassable. The commanding officer did not make the two days’
journey frequently, and when he did, entertainment at trading-posts
would occupy most of his time. There were no other local stations.
Until 1887 no official of this Government resided permanently within
the Hopi territory; so that, from Spanish times until that date, these
Indians had received little attention.
In 1886 a petition, signed by twenty Hopi head-men, requested
Washington to give them a school, that their children might “grow up
good of heart and pure of breath.” But one of these men, Honani of
Chimopovi, always a friendly chief, is now alive. Shupula, who signed
as Second Chief of the Moki, died, a benign old man, in 1917.
So in 1887 a school was started in Keams Cañon, at the site of one of
Carson’s old camps, a picturesque alcove of the walls having a group of
springs, and where Tom Keams, a trading Englishman, had long kept a
post. Twelve years later a resident Agent, having authority to act as
one in complete charge, was appointed.
Between the years 1890 and 1916, sub-Agents and the later Agents
accomplished much permanent work for the people. The first school was
succeeded by a modern training school in the lower Cañon. An Agency
radiated orders and the tools of civilization. In the field at the
pueblos were six day-schools to care for the younger children. Five
hundred pupils attended regularly. The Indian youngsters advanced from
the kindergarten and primary day-schools to the training school, where
they received some knowledge of trades, and from thence to the larger
non-reservation schools, patterned after Carlisle, such as are at
Albuquerque, New Mexico; Phœnix, Arizona; Riverside, California.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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