compliance with the rules of the Department in regard to homesteads. As they are in capacity only to be regarded as children, the Government should exercise a proper parental guardianship, protecting their rights when unjustly infringed upon, making laws to punish the selling or giving them alcoholic drinks by the severest penalties of both fine and impris onment, and fostering education among them; and I think the day is not distant when we might hope to see them an intelligent and industrious, as they are now a peaceful, portion of the people of this great commonwealth. In my last report I suggested that the practice which had been heretofore adopted of giving each Indian $5 per acre who cleared and raised a crop upon five acres of new land be continued. I have had several applications for payment of these bounties, but of course I could not pay them, as I had no funds at my command which, without express instructions, I could. use for such purposes. This is one case where the Indians feel the promise of the agent has not been made good; of course it was not my promise, yet they regard all agents as speaking for the Great Father. There are other matters which might be of interest here, but I have already spun this out longer than I intended. I will reserve them for special reports, so that they may receive such attention as whatever of importance they may have may demand. I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, The COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. GEO. W. LEE, United States Indian Agent. UNITED STATES CHIPPEWA AGENCY, SIR: I have the honor herewith to submit my second annual report of the general condi. tion of this agency. By census of last year the Pillager Indians number about 1,500, of whom 750 are on the Leech Lake reservation, 500 on that at Winnebagoshish, and 250 on that at Cass Lake. The former is situated about 25 miles northeast and the latter 25 miles northwest of Leech Lake. It should be observed that these are all Pillagers. The term "Pillager and Lake Winnebagoshish funds," continually used at Washington, implies a misunderstanding of the facts. Reports in years past speak of the Pillagers as "restive, turbulent, and difficult to manage. This is doubtless true of a portion of them, while it is also true that the largest portion are quiet and loyal, never disposed to make trouble. On this point the testimony of our teacher, Rev. S. G. Wright, who for almost thirty years has labored in this country as a missionary, is, that while it is true that troubles have often occurred among this people, he scarce ever knew a case which could not be traced to the influence of some unprincipled half-breed, or some wicked white man on the frontier who planned to create a disturbance to secure some selfish end. If the law providing that all white men and mixed bloods living on a reservation, who exert an immoral influence, may be ejected from it, should be enforced, and also the law prohibiting all private parleying and business transactions by white men with Indians be rigidly enforced, then troubles and disturbances would cease. He states that no year since his acquaintance with this people has passed during which reports have not been put in circulation by these characters directly tending to arouse a spirit of revolt, and war on the agent and the Government. For the past year quiet has prevailed beyond any previous year since 1855. During the past few weeks a turbulent-toned Indian of this place returned from a visit to a neighboring reservation with his head full of false, mischievous statements, which he industriously circulated among the people. But his effort to create a disturbance was put down by the Indians themselves. We are sure that the great majority of the people who come under the influence of the agency are beginning to understand and appreciate a Christian agency, and are learning to respect it as such. A much larger number of the men have taken hold of the hoe and assisted their women in cultivating the ground than at any time past. Many are asking for coats and pants instead of blankets and leggings. Most of the good-land crops are promising; the rain-fall has, however, been surprisingly distributed. At Cass Lake it has been so excessive as to be damaging to crops, while gar dens at Winnebagoshish and portions about Leech Lake have suffered from drought. Grasshoppers have never been troublesome here. The estimate of potatoes raised by Indians this year is 3,000 bushels, and of corn 2,500 bushels. The yield of both would have been larger had the rains been more timely. The material prosperity is not as good as last year in several respects. The season for sugar-making was very unpropitious, last year's product by them having been 50,000 pounds, while this year it is scarcely more than 10,000 pounds. The bountiful supply of blueberries gathered last year, by sale, brought them $1,000 of valuable supplies. This year, extended wood-fires destroyed nearly all of this wholesome and valuable fruit Lastly, their harvest of wild rice is very meager in most localities; probably on the whole not half a crop will be gathered. In the largest rice-growing sections, high water has either drawn the roots of the plant quite out of their bed, or the head of the plant is so little above the water that, by their method of harvesting, the crop cannot be gathered, but must fall into the water and be lost. A falling off of 15,000 or 20,000 pounds in their wild rice is a serious loss, in addition to the items above named. These are acts of Providence, and in no case the result of present shiftlessness of the Indians. One fact in the history of the year may be mentioned here. All annuity payments must have been distressingly late, owing to such tardy action by Congress. Our payment did not occur till December 2, and then the goods payment was only about two-thirds the usual amount. Here was a chance to test the loyalty of these Indians, whose reputation in all the years gone by has been so bad. I confess that I entered upon the work with no little misgiving. We had determined to make the payment without the presence of the military; a thing done but twice before in all the history of the Pillagers. No more need be said to make it evident, if the people bore themselves patiently under such circumstances, that it would be greatly to their credit. To their praise be it said that they did behave admirably, "accepting the situation" not only, but at our suggestion a sort of Indian jury was called. The chiefs selected six of their most candid men, of true moral courage. Questions of claims and disputes between Indians were, by the agent, referred to them for adjudication. It did one good to see the fairness and promptness with which they did their work. witnessing it were impressed that it was a valuable step in the direction of self-government. corn. IMPROVEMENTS. All Last spring our saw-mill was finished, and to it was attached a portable grist-mill for About 9,000 feet of lumber have been sawed. With this the agency buildings have been repaired in part, a new blacksmith-shop built, and also a large addition to our barn. Besides this, 160 rods of valuable permanent fence have been built, and more than this amount of fence of a less substantial character. The balance of the lumber is being rapidly used up by the Indians in erecting small dwellings, the work of which they perform almost entirely themselves. Fifteen such houses will be built this year. The quantity of corn brought for grinding, even as late as June, no less surprised than gratified me. Their happy faces abundantly showed their appreciation of these greatly-needed improvements. Had not our steamboat utterly failed, we intended to have carried the grist-mill around to different localities, as the most effective stimulus to corn-planting. EDUCATION. The boarding and industrial school has been maintained during the year with good success, having been in session over ten months. The average attendance has been 25, of which 16 have been regular members of the school-family, boarded and clothed entirely, while others have been assisted more or less. With the reduced fund for educational purposes only a limited number can be entirely provided for, but great pains are taken with those who are in the school-family to train them to good habits in all regards. Just upon the expiration of the treaty providing a blacksmith, a carpenter, and a physician, for Congress to have taken from us $500 of our regular treaty school-fund is to us almost unaccountable. It weakens our power for good in a most vital point. Christian educational work is surely worth maintaining, if anything can be. I make a most strenuous plea for our treaty rights. Our steady purpose is to raise up substantial Christian citizens. The success of this effort, with the faithful preaching of the Gospel by the teacher, in the language of the people, is seen in the marked change in the moral and religious tone of those gathered about the agency. During the past year a Union church has been organized, which numbers 20 natives, the agent and wife and all employés having also joined it. Drunkenness has nearly disappeared from the reservation. The Indians on the two reservations nearest the agency have done far more for their own improvement without Government assistance than those at Leech Lake. They are a quiet people, strongly desirous of having schools established for their children. There are probably few more promising unoccupied fields among Indians anywhere. They are on good land. WHITE OAK POINT MISSISSIPPI CHIPPEWAS. Of these bands, numbering last year 750, little can be said. Their annuity in goods expired last year. Their reservation, 20 miles up the Mississippi from Pokegoma Falls, is small and of little value to them, under the circumstances, except for hay-making. They have only a single working-team, and, scattered, as they are, from Grand Rapids down to the Northern Pacific Railroad, this can be worth very little to them in farming. It will be remembered that these sixteen bands are the remnant of the Mississippis, formerly located at Sandy Lake and Pokegoma, who did not consent to be removed to White Earth, or, becoming dissatisfied there, have straggled back to their old quarters. Manifestly, if the Govern ment is to appropriate money for the removal of any Indians to White Earth, or near there, these Mississippis should receive first attention of all under my charge. Whisky and the contaminating influence of vicious whites are doing fearful work among them. SANITARY. Of the Pillagers, under this head it should be said, while we have no regular physician, we need and should have one. Repeatedly during the past year the lives of employés have been in great peril. For the Indians, Teacher Wright has kindly taken on him the burden of acting physician, dispensing such medicines as a non-professional employé can. For this service and their medical supplies the Indians show more gratitude than for almost anything else. It is worthy of remark that their "medicine men," with their "pow-wows" and "juggleries," are fast losing their hold upon the people. Their old men complain that no young men are in training to perpetuate this form of superstitious heathenism-for such it really is. Outsiders little realize the bondage in which the masses have been held through this feature of their religion. The general health of the people has been better than last year. Small-pox, to which we were exposed, we have been mercifully saved from. The vaccine virus is all that the Government has been taxed for. The labor and trouble of its use has been done within ourselves, either by the acting physician or the Government interpreter. THE STEAMBOAT has been a standing item in agency reports for several years past. Our poor old craft has finally given out entirely. Our hay is, in consequence, to-day stacked, some of it, 25 miles away from the agency. To at all meet our wants a steamboat should be built this very fall. When the lake is open we can only reach the houses of the Indians with our teams to plow, or take lumber to assist them in building, by the use of the boat. We must have it, or not do half what we might and ought to do for them. In conclusion I may be allowed to say, it is the dictate of sound sense to effect the removal of the Pillagers and settle them on good farming-lands as soon as this can wisely be done. But the experiments hitherto made seem to prove that a wholesale transfer of so numerous a people, where they are still within easy reach of their favorite haunts, is practically not a success. An honest effort to prepare their minds for such a removal has been my constant aim. The destruction of crops on these better lands by grasshoppers for two years past has quite disinclined them toward such a removal, since at this agency they have not been troubled in this way. The attention of the Government has heretofore been urged to the just claim of the Pillagers to have some good lands cleared and broken for them here. By treaty of 1855 the Government stipulated that 200 acres of new land should be thus made ready for them. It is a well-known fact that a gross fraud was practiced on them. Not more than half of what was stipulated was cleared and broken. To make up the 200 acres, old, worn-out lands were measured in. Now, if Congress would make an appropriation such as in equity is due them for unfulfilled stipulation of treaty of 1855, say $2,000, this would open up for cultivation new rich land. They could then abandon their worn-out gardens and hopefully set about farming in earnest. This should by all means be done. It would not interfere with nor essentially delay their ultimate removal and settlement on the lands adjoining White Earth reservation on the north, selected by my predecessor, and which some time ago, with this in view, I requested might be withdrawn from market. Inasmuch as I am credibly informed that one of our visionary Indians, with the evident intent to make himself a great man, gravely told some prominent public men at White Earth recently that there were 50 families here ready and desirous to be removed to that reservation, it is my duty to say that a more foolish and baseless story could hardly have been told. I really do not know a single family thus disposed. But with generous appropriations and an earnest effort some could be induced to go, and their success would be a strong incentive to others. I will not say half that might and perhaps ought to be said, lest I should be suspected of not being, after all, in sympathy with the scheme of removal. RECAPITULATION. On the score of debt, we ask of Congress $2,000 for clearing and breaking land and for "general agricultural purposes." We ask $1,000 for an agency physician; we ask $700 for a new steamboat, using old machinery; we ask $300 to get logs to stock our saw-mill; and lastly, in the name of all that is good, we ask the restoration of the $500 taken out of our fund for educational purposes; and that all may be available for current fiscal year. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, The COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. HENRY J. KING, United States Special Indian Agent. *Dr. A. Barnard, of valuable experience and service among this people, was with us a little while last year, but funds would not allow his continuance. OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES INDIAN AGENT, SIR: I herewith submit my fifth annual report of the affairs at this agency. LOCATION AND POPULATION. This reservation is about 95 miles wide by 115 long, having for its northern boundary Rainy Lake River and Lake of the Woods; its only shipping-point being Detroit on the Northern Pacific Railroad, 100 miles south. The population at last enrollment was 1,191, besides about 18 whites belonging to the families of the employés. AGRICULTURE. This reservation contains about 3,200,000 acres, of which 1,000,000 are tillable, the remaining portion being grazing, wooded, and worthless. The timber is pine with considerable bodies of hard wood. From this hard wood the Indians obtain their sugar; the soil likewise is of a superior quality wherever the hard wood grows. The crops which were reported one year ago were of decided utility, not only here but to several other and distant points and agencies, especially at White Earth, where, owing to loss of crop, our hardy and really excellent quality of corn was of the greatest benefit, both for food and for seed. In that respect this agency is peculiarly favored; a failure of crops was never known here. The crops raised by the Indians are about as follows: Corn, owing to an extremely unfavorable season, only 5,000 bushels; wheat, 175 bushels; potatoes, 2,500 bushels; other vegetables, 450 bushels; hay, 250 tons; maple-sugar, 40,000 pounds; berries, 300 bushels. They have caught 650 barrels of fish, $6,600 worth of furs, and woven 750 yards of rush matting. EDUCATION. I am happy to be able to report so good a degree of progress in this important field of work. Owing to the enlightened and philanthropic views entertained by the Indian Department, and the assistance rendered by it, I was enabled to keep in operation for six months in the last year a boarding-school, at least in part. Some ten girls were taken into the boarding-house, where they were quickly changed from dirty, ragged little savages, uncouth, wild, and verminous, to clean, neatly-clad young misses, free from vermin, attending diligently to their studies and recitations in the school-room, and just as diligently and neatly doing housework, and knitting or sewing. The change was indeed wonderful. Unable to board and keep the boys, as yet, they were given a dinner each day they attended school. I deem myself fortunate in having secured the services of Miss Mary C. Warren as teacher. She has had several years' experience in such schools, and is master of both languages, which gives her very decided advantages for the position she fills. The results have been very gratifying under the circumstances, and when the new boarding-house is opened-of which more particular mention will be made under the head of "progress "-all the signs indicate a full and successful school. MORALITY. There is little to say under this head, no great change being perceptible during the year. While the Indians are far from perfection; are addicted to polygamy, licentiousness, gambling, loafing, and some pilfering, yet they are superior to many white settlements in thishere there is no burglary, highway-robbery, murder, riots, or strikes. They are much more peaceable, having very little quarreling, being very kind to the sick, and fond of their children. MISSIONARY WORK. This continued as last year, under the care of Rev. F. Spees, until last January, when by mutual agreement between the American Missionary Association and the Protestant Episcopal Mission, the former society withdrew, relinquishing the field to the latter; whereupon Mr. Spees left, and his place was taken by two young Indian clergymen, Revs. F. Smith and Samuel Madison, who continue to labor here, although the latter is quite low with pulmonary disease, which has confined him to the house for two months past. The work consists in a combined Chippewa and English service, and Sabbath-school, besides one or more evening services during the week. Also a general visitation and instruction in religious matters at their homes. Since the change mentioned above there have been of Indians baptized 13, and 8 confirmed. Others are expecting to receive baptism soon. That tried friend of the Indian, Bishop Whipple, visited this agency recently, and expects to build here next season a church and parsonage. The Mission have already expended here this year about $1,000, in the way of clothing, seed, hoes, and salaries of missionaries. With few exceptions the Indians desire the missionary work to go forward. CIVILIZATION AND PROGRESS Among evidences of progress here may be mentioned the increasing willingness on the part of the chiefs, braves, and others to engage in manual labor, which is traditionally degrading to a man. Nearly all seem anxious to get employment, and will work well for prompt pay, but, living "from hand to mouth," they dare not do much for themselves in the way of clearing up and cultivating new land and wait for their wages till a crop is raised. This is one of the most serious obstacles to rapid progress. About three-fourths of them wear citizens' dress, and all would if they had the means. They desire stock and are getting a moderate amount. They now have about 150 ponies, 22 swine, and 20 head of cattle. They have cleared up considerable land, about 50 acres of new land having been broken for them by Government teams this season. During the winter the miller, with his help, cut and skidded over 100,000 feet of logs near our former lumber-camp, when, owing to a total lack of snow suitable for moving logs, he went some ten miles up Mud Creek-large enough to drive logs down-and cut 150,000 feet of logs, expecting to drive them down to the lake as soon as the ice left, but owing to said lack of snow there was a resultant lack of water, and it was not until heavy rains in May and June that the logs could be driven to the lake and boomed at our dock. Even then a furious storm broke the boom and scattered the logs. All these unlooked-for and unusual events made our lumber much more expensive than in former years. But persistent, well-directed efforts will ultimately win; so, after meeting all these difficul ties, I am happy to report the completion in good condition of a boarding-house to accommodate the pupils of our school. It is 28 by 38 feet, two stories high, the upper floor designed for a dormitory for the boys; a wing, 24 by 32 feet, one story high, with a good drying-room for clothes on upper floor; a good cellar. The house is well plastered and has one coat of paint. This building is capable of accommodating 20 pupils-10 of each sex-quite comfortably, and 30 if deemed advisable. In this school the boys will be taught not only how to read, write, and cipher, but to labor at the different kinds of farm and shop work; where the girls will be taught culinary and household work in addition to their books, thus earning a portion of their living. In this way we shall be achieving a grand beginning in the way of civilizing and raising to the plane of self-support this interesting people. We may not hope to wholly civilize the elder portion, who will soon pass off the stage of action, but we may do much toward reclaiming the young, who will in a few years constitute the ruling element. I apprehend that this is one of the most progressive and important achievements gained since the treaty was made. A neat, small frame house has been nearly completed for the farmer, and a similar one for the carpenter. The Indians have built about 640 rods of fairly good fence to protect their crops, thus indirectly fostering their individuality in relation to their homes. Several new houses are in process of building by the Indians." During the year there have been sawed 117,000 feet of lumber, 53,000 shingles, 36,000 feet boards planed, and 8,000 feet jointed. There have been ground 2,400 bushels of corn and 34 bushels of wheat. The mill is now in active operation, cutting out lumber for the use of the Indians. There have been plowed 400 acres of old ground, and 50 acres of new ground broken for the Indians. AGENCY BUILDINGS. There are the following good, comfortable, substantial frame buildings: five dwellinghouses, two schools, one school-house, one boarding-house; one water-power saw and grist mill, supplied with planer, matcher, edger, and circular-saws; one warehouse, one office, one blacksmith's shop and one carpenter's shop, one horse-barn, one common barn, one granary, and one wagon-shed. SANITARY. From the report of Dr. C. P. Allen I glean the following items: Number of cases treated during the year 1,397, with 8 deaths. This does not include putting up such medicines as may be called for. Superstition and clamors of the old medicine-men, whose incomes are threatened, constitute a serious obstacle to the universal use of white man's medication. The physician encounters another almost insurmountable obstacle to the success to which he aspires in the way of interference with his treatment by some old person who opposes his plan, preferring at the least a slight admixture of Indian remedies with his. The diseases are largely scrofulous, syphilitic, cutaneous, rheumatic, and pulmonary. Their habits tend to propagate such diseases. Much of the time their diet is unfit to sustain health. All patients desiring or needing it are visited at their homes. The physician is called in all emergencies, and in severe cases of sickness to at least give an opinion as to the gravity of the disease even where they do not use his medicine. A hospital, in which serious and chronic cases could be under the eye of the physician, where suitable diet and sanitary conditions could be had, would be of great benefit to this people. SUGGESTIONS. Much of the land here will produce good wheat in fair quantities, as has been fully demonstrated, and one of the fondest hopes the Indian cherishes is for flour to eat; and what we now most urgently need, after getting into successful operation the boarding-school, is a |