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The 47 children in the boarding-school received no annuities, and they are not included in the above enumeration.

About three-fourths of the Indians cultivated gardens or farms during the year. The Lummis subsist from the product of their farms, but the others still support themselves by fishing, by the sale of logs cut in the clearing of their farms, and by their earnings at the hop-fields and lumbering-mills.

The majority of the agency buildings and Indian houses are in bad condition but their exteriors have been neatly whitewashed, so that they now present a creditable appearance from a distance. The papering and other improvements made on the agent's office has created a strong desire on the part of the Indians to possess neat, well-appearing houses. No people were ever civilized on horseback or in canoes, and one of the most powerful means of advancing civilization among these Indians, in their present condition, is to make their homes more attractive, and to encumber them with so much furniture that they can no longer move the whole family and all the household effects in a canoe. I have therefore estimated for the new fiscal year for a comparatively large quantity of wall-paper, flooring, bedsteads, chairs, tables, &c., in place of the usual estimate for tea, rice, flour, &c., which the Indians may easily procure for themselves. About twenty new houses are needed to enable the agent's preventing the Indians from erecting mat-houses and shanties on the beach. A new wharf is needed at Tulalip, as the old one is worm-eaten and in a dangerous condition.

The health of the Indians has greatly improved during the year. A hospital building, containing a dispensary, office, and ward, has just been erected, and considerable attention has been given to the sanitary condition of the Indian houses.

The Port Madison reservation was threatened with small-pox from a neighboring settlement, but it is believed that the precautionary measures taken, consisting of the destruction of the old fish and oil houses, the sweeping of the beach along the entire front of the village, the burning of all the rubbish, the liberal use of disinfectants, the establishment of a quarantine, and the vaccination of the Indians, prevented the epidemic from gaining a foot-hold in the Indian country.

The agency farm has not been successful during the year, from the fact that the oxen, the only farm animals, proved worthless at plowing-time. The farmer was therefore obliged to turu his farm into a mere vegetable garden.

The blacksmith's shop has been but little needed during the year, and after the necessary repairs to the tools and implements of the agency and Indians, I hired an employé who is both a millwright and blacksmith. The saw-mill is now undergoing extensive repairs, and in the future a larger quantity of timber will be produced than heretofore.

The employés provided for in the treaty were evidently intended to be teachers of their respective trades to the Indians, but as no provisions are made for the support of apprentices, none are employed. The positions of the employés is therefore that of mere workmen in their respective occupations. Nevertheless, several Indians have become fair house carpenters and farmers during the past year.

The great civilizing element here is the school. The boys' school, under the management

Women.

Children.

Total.

of the Order of Oblates, is an agricultural and industrial and boarding-school. It is well conducted, and the boys who remain in it a few years become practical farmers and industrious workers. The girls' school, under the management of the Sisters of Providence, is an indus. trial and boarding establishment, and certainly as good an Indian school as there is in the country. At least $2,000 more should be appropriated for these schools. The appropriations made by Congress are evidently based on the theory that day-schools were promised in the treaty, whereas boarding-schools were actually promised, since they are for all the Indian youth of the district of Puget Sound, instead of a single reservation, and since the parents of a majority of the pupils do not reside at Tulalip.

The mission, under the charge of Rev. E. C. Chirouse, O. M. I, Roman Catholic Church, is doing an incalculable amount of good. The Indians on the reservations are well instructed in the doctrines of the Christian religion, and their morals will compare favorably with those of the white people of any settlement on this coast.

The agent at this agency is overworked and underpaid. The management of the 3,000 Indians, scattered over an extent of country equal in size to a medium-sized State, and surrounded by a different race of people; the superintendence of farms, shops, and schools; the answering of frequent appeals made by citizens to remove obnoxious Indians from the vicinity of their settlements; the protection extended to Indians injured in their persons or property by whites; the expenditure of large sums of money, which have to be accounted for according to a most cumbersome sy: tem of accountability, imposes duties of an overwhelming character on an agent who knows his duty and is well disposed to perform it. The clerical duties alone at is agency are as great as those imposed on an ordinary clerk in the Executive Departments at Washington, and yet the agent's writing is considered as a mere incident of that officer's regular duties, and no clerical assistance is allowed him. This condition of affairs is very trying and most discouraging to the agent, and it gives color of probability to the complaint of the Indians that the government and its agents have generally been neglectful of them. It is my conviction that this complaint will be valid until the government pays its agent a salary in keeping with the importance of the office he exercises and the labor he performs, gives him a clerk to assist him in his writing, and allows him a subagent to aid him in his general duties on reservations far removed from the agency headquarters.

Having tendered my resignation, and being on the eve of separating my connection with the department, I may be permitted to give expression to the sentiment of gratitude I experience toward my official superiors for the prompt and generous manner in which they have acted upon my every representation and request, toward my associates for their loyal services and kind encouragement, and toward all the Indians, who have been uniformly courteous and respectful to me personally, and obedient and submissive to the laws and regulations I have imposed upon them. After a year of service in the department, I am more than ever convinced of the ignorance or bad faith of those who speak disparagingly of the Indian service and its officers, and who assert that the civilization of the Indian is an unsuccessful and futile experiment.

Very respectfully,

EDMOND MALLET,

Special Agent for the Indians of the Tulalip Special Agency in Washington Territory. The COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS.

OFFICE YAKAMA INDIAN AGENCY,

Fort Simcoe, Washington Territory, August 8, 1877. SIR: In submitting my annual report, it affords me pleasure to state that the Indians be longing to this treaty, those living on the reservation and those who have never made the reservation their home, are peaceable and well-disposed, not only toward the whites and gov ernment, but among themselves. I have now lived among them fifteen years with my family, and we feel a growing attachment to them.

Their progress toward Christianization and civilization has within said time been constant, and many of the good results are apparent in their personal cleanliness, their dress, houses, furniture, farms and farming implements, horses and wagons, harness, schools and churches. Of their improved condition they are themselves sensible, and often speak of it with deep feeling. This class of Indians are exerting a salutary influence upon the Yakama Nation, and teaching them in language they cannot misunderstand the advantages they have gained in abandoning their roaming habits, making themselves farms and homes, euriching themselves with stock and the products of the soil. I am pursuaded no man can visit this agency, shops, farms, houses, mills, schools, and churches, without being impressed with the wonderful improvement of the Indians. They are marching along with rapid strides to civilization.

Less crimes have been committed by them the past year than by the same number of whites. I have not known a drunken Indian upon the agency during the year. Very few have been put into the guard-house for correction.

The proposition to turn over the Indian Bureau to the War Department, which has a

different times been before Congress, has been watched with deep solicitude by all who de sire and who have faith in the amelioration of the condition of the Indians. If it be said the present system is faulty, is expensive, it becomes a question worthy of careful consid. eration whether or not, in the hands of the War Department, the service would be less faulty, less expensive, or more effectual of the results sought. The present policy, in my opinion, as it enlists the sympathy, prayers, and support of the good of all denominations in helping the fallen, gives stronger assurances of improvement, physical, mental, moral, and financial, to the Indians of the nation, than any other system that can be adopted. The object of the department should be, and now is, to keep good men among the Indians. Let the laws be vigorously enforced against the lawless, who are prowling around reservations like greedy wolves or hungry dogs, and peace and prosperity will attend the Indian service. A little organized police force of Indian men at an agency, who would require pay only when services were performed, would do more to keep order and to arrest the lawless and bring them to justice than four times that number of soldiers. I have for years pursued this course, and have never found it necessary to call on the military for help.

FARMING.

The Indians are opening new farms, and depending upon the cultivation of their land for subsistence. Formerly the women were the only burden-bearers-now the work is honorably divided between the men and women, each doing their part.

SHOPS.

In all the shops of the agency we have apprentice boys learning the different trades; we can turn out carpenters, plow and wagon makers, blacksmiths, millers, and sawyers, gunsmiths, and harness-makers, that are becoming thrifty workmen with or without an in

structor.

MILLS.

During the year we have not pressed our saw-mills in making lumber as in the past; we had a good deal of unexpended lumber on hand, and were disappointed in not having snow last winter to stock the mills. I have purchased and attached a planer to the steam mill, where we have been planing a large quantity of our old lumber and getting it ready for building.

The wheat, corn, vegetables, and beef raised, with the salmon caught, has given them an abundance to subsist upon during the year, and they have exchanged wheat and oats for merchandise at the neighboring towns.

EDUCATION

The education of the youth and children of the agency has progressed slowly. I could organize schools in many parts of the reservation, taught by native teachers who have been educated here, if the great object of instruction could be obtained in such schools by such teachers. The children living at home with their people would be unsteady in their attendance, and would fall back nights and mornings about as much as they could be advanced during the day. In our boarding-schools we practice what we preach: that a girl or boy, however well educated in books, if not educated to work, is not half educated.

The boys work in the shops, in the garden, sawing wood, on the farm, and at everything that is useful for white boys to learn-in this we are systematic-in their going to bed, getting up, preparing for and having their meals, in washing themselves and their school and sleeping rooms. These habits formed when they are young remain with them when they are old. That these habits may be correctly formed and engraved into them, so as to become part and parcel of them, they need to be instructed only as they can be at a boarding-school and away from their people.

Since we first organized our boarding-schools we have been enlarging our quarters, so we now accommodate fifty-six children, and still we lack room. We are now taking off the roof from our boarding-house, which is one story, and which must be newly shingled, and are putting on another story, making a sleeping-room for the girls 24 by 50 feet. We are lengthening our dining-room and making improvements in the kitchen. When the improvement is completed we shall fill up the rooms to their utmost capacity with children.

The girls of the schools are instructed to knit, sew, wash, and iron, make their own dresses and the clothing for the boys. Mrs. Headley directs the girls in cooking, making and meuding all the children's clothes, with a thousand little things that are to be seen to and done in a family of fifty-six children, with efficiency, patience, and tact.

The superintendent, H. L. Powell, with his long experience with the children, and his entire devotedness to their physical, mental, and moral state, is doing good work in and out of the schools.

abolished and a boarding-school established at Keshena. Temporary changes were made in the house occupied by the farmer for the accommodation of the children, and the experiment tried with W. W. Wheeler, former farmer, principal; Mrs. W. W. Wheeler, matron; and Miss S. B. Dresser, of Massachusetts, assistant principal. At first it met the determined opposition of the Romish priest located here, and only two boarders remained through the term. The priest was assured that so long as he confined his labors to his legitimate church duties and did not interfere with the Government school he might remain upon the reserve, but if he continued to persecute and to excommunicate from his church parents who sent their children to the school, he would not be al owed to labor among the people. In this your agent has the hearty approval of the tribe, as they know the school to be strictly unsectarian, and the increasing numbers who seek its benefits prove their sympathy and interest, for we have enrolled the past term 102 names, mostly Roman Catholics. The average attendance the last month of the term was 76. Again, the unanimity with which the tribe voted, in April last, an appropriation of $5,000 for the new school-building, proposals for the erection of which are now being received, confirms the statement that the Indians are in full accord with the agent in educational work.

A need long felt has been supplied this year. The services of Dr. Samuel J. Marshall, graduate of Charity Medical College, of Cleveland, Ohio, has been secured for this tribe. His appointment was made April 1, and his labors thus far have been very successful, and although opposed by the "medicine-men," he is often called to prescribe for their families. It is to be regretted that no direct labor is put forth by any of our religious societies to reach the pagan portion of this tribe, numbering as they do nearly one-half of their membership. We are glad to note, from year to year, a steady upward advance. The progress is slow; the nation cannot throw off old habits in a day; but it is clearly evident that the Christian policy of our Government is being rewarded. Confidence is inspired, they are growing more industrious, respond more readily to efforts made to rouse them from their natural indolence, and seem grateful for kindly advice and suggestions, and the practical assistance which it is the aim of your agent to give.

With the statistics of each of the three tribes under my charge, and a report from the Government farmer, miller, and blacksmith laboring among the Menomonees, herewith inclosed, I am, yours, very respectfully,

The COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS.

JOS. C. BRIDGMAN,
United States Indian Agent.

OFFICE UNITED STATES INDIAN AGENT,
Red Cliff Reserve, Wis., September 3, 1877.

SIR: In reply to your circular-letter of July 10, 1877, I have the honor to submit the following annual report:

Owing to the late day (August 15, 1876) on which Congress made the appropriation for support of the Indian Office for the year just past, much delay and many annoyances were experienced at Indian agencies where no treaty stipulations exist for the support of employés. July 1, 1876, found this agency in the midst of many embarrassing circumstances growing out of this condition of affairs. The investigations, newspaper articles, and general discussions of Indian matters had so worked upon the minds and hearts of those engaged in Indian civilization that, to a degree at least, all spirit of enthusiasm had lapsed, dwindled away, or entirely lost its effects upon their sympathies-employés asking the question, "Will I b retained?" Some were seeking other means of obtaining a livelihood, yet hoping that they might be permitted to remain in a work that seemed so full of golden opportunities. The Indians who had nobly struck out for a higher plane, by asking allotments of land in sev eralty, and had in many instances made (to them) valuable improvements, seemed depressed and worn out with long waiting for the "kingdom coming," or that happy day when Indians would be acknowledged as equal citizens with the rest of the human kind.

ANNUITY PAYMENT.

The first thing demanding the attention of the agent, after the annual report is finished and ready for the mail, is the annual payment. These are made upon the several reservations, or as near the reservation as practicable. But one band (Bois Forte) at this agency have treaty stipulations providing for an annual payment; but through our kind friends in Congress the Chippewas of Lake Superior receive a small appropriation annually. This appropriation is used in the purchase of goods, payment of necessary employés, &c. The goods are purchased under contract at the annual lettings in May or June, and shipped under the direction of the Board of Indian Commissioners to the agent, who receives them from the transportation contractors, and gives his personal attention to the proper distribution. For the last several years the Indian appropriation bills have wisely contained a proviso

of the Methodist-have been only fairly attended, owing, as their parents claim, to their extreme poverty. Rev. S. W. Ford, teacher of the Methodist mission, has done a good work the past year in holding an evening school for adults, with marked beneficial results. There has been also a large addition to his church-membership, a serious religious interest pervading the district.

Temperance.

has made striking progress with the tribe the past year. A lodge of Good Templars was established with a membership of about fifty. As with whites, not all remain true to their vows, but many hard drinkers have reformed, and very much good has been accomplished. Your agent is urgent that the next Congress take prompt and decisive steps for the relief of the Oneidas; giving citizenship to a worthy few, and allotting land to others, placing them under a law that can punish petty thieving and drunkenness.

THE STOCKBRIDGE TRIBE

are so nearly civilized that a report of their condition must be similar to that of any community. As among an equal number of whites, there are the honest, intelligent, law-abiding men and women, and the shiftless, indolent, mischief-making, drinking ones They all have their farms, and manage with their interest-money, about $25 a year per capita, to get a good living: a few of them saving a little. It is chronic with this tribe to have internal quarrels, and the current year, in this respect, is no exception to the balf century past. This tribe, like the Oneidas, are already preparing to petition next Congress for a sale of their land and a division of the spoil, asking the right of citizenship. This petition will have the names of nearly or quite four-fifths of the tribe, and as the balance are in every respect ready for the change, but for selfish reasons will oppose the petition, it is to be desired that Congress will act in their behalf.

Their school is sustained but six months of the year, and but a slim attendance at that. Yet Mrs. J. Slingerland, the teacher, is very efficient, as the progress of those who attend will prove. That every child on the reserve, about twenty-five, is not in school, is simply indifference on the part of the parents, impossible to overcome.

The religious teaching of Rev. Jeremiah Slingerland consists of Sabbath service, with lit tle or no interest save on the part of the faithful few. The same can be said of temperance. A lodge of Good Templars is sustained by the better class, the influence of which is not lost; yet it fails to gather in those who need its protecting care. Here, as elsewhere, there are those who resist all appeals and will not be reclaimed. Opium is used to excess by a few of the tribe.

As usual, several cases of trespass have been discovered, where the Indians last winter cut timber on other than their allotted land. Nearly or quite a million feet of Government timber has thus been stolen the past year. These cases were promptly reported, suits entered, and are still in court, having been carried over to the October term.

THE MENOMONEES

during the past year have made perceptible progress toward civilization, as indicated by their habits and mode of living. Wigwams are fast giving place to comfortable log and frame houses; stables are built as shelter for their stock and crops. The rifle and the rod are laid aside for the plow and the hoe, and while they have not as much land under cultivation as could be desired, yet in this they are only partially in fault. They have yet to learn the value of the seed-time, as bearing upon the harvest. Could this tribe have six to ten wideawake farmers to follow them up closely, helping them to prepare and plant their ground in the spring, they thus might be induced to care for their crops till gathered. But owning their cattle in common, with a pair only for perhaps six or eight families, somewhat scattered, sadly neglected by the Indian who has the stock in charge, oftentimes with an unwillingness on his part to allow his neighbor to use them, less land is put under cultivation than otherwise would be. Ten yoke of working-cattle have been added to the stock of the tribe the past year and distributed among them; of these two have already strayed away, two have died, and one so badly lamed as to render him unfit for use; all owing to the carelessness or indifference of those having them in charge. This waste leads me to question the wisdom of trusting tribal property to any individual. Scythes, hoes, wagons, plows are left out exposed to sun and storms, and new ones have been called for almost yearly. A great improvement, however, has been made in this respect, as they are told that un ess the tools are housed and cared for, they cannot be replaced at the expense of the tribe. Again, this having all things in common retards civilization, and they need to be taught personal responsibility, which comes only from individual ownership.

I am enabled to speak hopefully of

The schools.

At the suggestion of Col. E. C. Watkins, United States Indian inspector, while here in the early summer of 1876, the four day-schools held in different parts of the reservation were

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