The American Missionary — Volume 32, No. 11, November, 1878Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 32, No. 11, November, 1878
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
The other day an Indian applied to me for lumber and nails to
finish his barn, that he might have a floor to thresh his grain
upon. The lumber and nails were furnished him, and, on inquiry, I
learned that he had stripped a sufficient number of cedar trees
of bark to cover his barn; and not having horses or cattle, had
transported it in a small boat, upon the lake, to the nearest point
toward his house, and then packed it upon his back one and a half
miles. Do you say such zealous and fatiguing labor does not deserve
its reward?
Smart Surveying.
The Lac Courte D’Oreille reservation is located in the north-west
corner of Chippewa county, near the intersection of Ashland and
Burnett counties. It was selected, undoubtedly, for the timber,
although some very fine farming-land has been found. The Indians
made choice of this region of country on account of the very fine
groves of sugar-maple and the large number of inland lakes; but
the white man, who defines the boundaries, took occasion to so run
the lines that the most of the maple-groves and many of the lakes
are left out, and the Indians have a reservation running from
south-west to north-west about thirty miles, and from north-west
to south-east but about three or four miles. Upon this reservation
we have made 160 allotments of eighty acres to individuals, and
many good farms have been opened without very much encouragement
from the Department, as the Indians long for their patents, as in
the case of Red Cliff and Bad River. In passing up the Lac Courte
D’Oreille River, I found five new log-houses, and, in one case,
about ten acres cleared, and all planted. There are perhaps twenty
or twenty-five other houses, that have been built by Indians
without any individual aid from Government. They have improved the
roads across the reservation. They have some stock, but are sadly
in need of more.
No Civilizing Measures.
Belonging to the Lac du Flambeau reserve are 542 Indians, who live
almost entirely by trapping, hunting and fishing. They are rovers
in every sense of the word, having no houses or permanent homes,
save the starry-decked heavens. They are visited each year by the
Agent; and such goods and supplies as the Department furnishes are
distributed to them as presents. The appropriations are not large
enough to supply employés; therefore, no civilizing measures have
been introduced here. Five thousand dollars a year, judiciously
expended for labor, in building houses, clearing land, and
supplying cattle to these Indians, would, in a very short period,
place them beyond want; while the present policy—of leaving them
to their own inclinations—will make a class of miserable paupers,
without knowledge or disposition to be anything else; and the State
will sooner or later be called upon to step in between the Indians
and the general Government, and exercise some of its Christian
charities. These Indians must be aided, or they are lost beyond
redemption.
A Farmer on a Rock.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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