“I found the Indians thoughtful, docile, and apparently eager to enter into any project for their good, if they could only believe it would be carried out in good faith, but utterly wanting in confidence in the agent, the government, or the white man. Lethargy, starvation, and disease were leading them to the grave. I found, in fact, that the reservation was a rehash of a negro plantation; the agent an absolute dictator, restrained by no law and no compact known to the Indians. During my stay the superintendent visited the valley. He stayed but a few days. We had drinking and feasting during this time, but no grave attention to Indian affairs; no extended investigation of what had been done or should be done. The _status quo_ was accepted as the _ne plus ultra_ of Indian policy. He, too, appears to think that annihilation is the consummation of Indian management. If the reservation was a plantation, the Indians were the most degraded of slaves. I found them poor, miserable, vicious, degraded, dirty, naked, diseased, and ill-fed. They had no motive to action. Man, woman, and child, without reference to age, sex, or condition, received the same five pounds of flour per week, and almost nothing more. They attended every Monday to get this, making a day’s work of it for most of them. The oldest men, or stout, middle-aged fathers of families, were spoken to just as children or slaves. They know no law but the will of the agent; no effort has been made to teach them any, and, where it does not conflict with this dictation, they follow the old forms of life—polygamy, buying and selling of women, and compounding crime with money _ad libitum_. The tribal system, with all its absurd domination and duty, is still retained. The Indian woman has no charge of her own person or virtue, but her father, brother, chief, or nearest male relative may sell her for a moment or for life. I was impressed that really nothing had been done by any agent, or even attempted, to wean these people from savage life to civilization, but only to subject them to plantation slavery.”