THE MILLE LAC CHIPPEWA, MINNESOTA

Commissioner SCOTT

The Mille Lac Chippewa living on the shores of Mille Lac, about 100 miles north of St. Paul, Minn., were visited by General Scott in August of 1928. The Indian population in this vicinity amounts to 240, at the villages of Vineland, Wigwam Bay, and Isle. There are 176 allotments of land, averaging 5 acres each. There are about 40 families here, all living in permanent homes, of which 30 are one-room houses, mostly in a very dilapidated condition and covered with tar paper; there are a very few comfortable wooden houses.

These Indians have scratched out a few small gardens, but their land is rocky and covered mainly with brush and timber. They have no cattle, no pigs, and only two families have chickens. About 13 adults can read, and 7 families buy and read newspapers. Eleven of the old people are given rations occasionally.

The medical attention which these Chippewa receive is provided by a visiting physician living 125 miles away, who comes here once a month. A dentist visits the place once a year. At present there is a field nurse provided by the State of Minnesota for three months. Everybody about this place is anxious to have the position made permanent.

Some of these Indians engage in carpenter work at good wages and others perform miscellaneous mechanical work. Indians of this region harvest a quantity of wild rice, both for sale and for their own consumption, as well as a quantity of maple sugar from trees on their allotments. They also gather a considerable amount of berries. The annual wild rice harvest is reported to be worth about $3,000 and the maple sugar yield about $500.

The local officials are said to cooperate well with the Indian Service and the Indian gets equal protection with the white man before the courts, and friction between the races is gradually lessening.

The day school operated among this group of Indians is under the supervision of the Consolidated Chippewa Agency at Cass Lake, the superintendency to which the Mille Lac Chippewa are assigned. The Indian agent at Cass Lake has under his jurisdiction some 12,000 Chippewa in the State, scattered in communities wide apart, at Leech Lake, Red Lake, White Earth, and other places, formerly under five different agencies. For the sake of economy all of these except Red Lake have been consolidated and now little more than the Indian property can be looked after. The efforts for the uplift of these people have, necessarily, been practically abandoned by the Indian Bureau.

Mille Lac was for a long time the home of the Sioux, who were first visited by Radisson and Groseilliers in 1634. The relics of their occupancy are still visible. From here the Sioux spread westward into the buffalo country. They were noted west of the Missouri River by La Verendrye in 1743. The Oglala assert that their band was the first to cross the Missouri and the crossing occurred at the mouth of the White River in present South Dakota.

The Sioux and Chippewa were at war for several hundred years. The latter tribe began to obtain guns from the French first and by 1750 were able by their use to drive the Sioux west of the Mississippi River and take possession of the country between the Mississippi and Lake Superior which they still occupy with the whites.

INDIAN SCHOOLS IN MICHIGAN

Commissioner SULLIVAN

During August, 1928, Commissioner Sullivan visited the Mount Pleasant nonreservation boarding school and other educational institutions conducted for the benefit of the Indians in the State of Michigan.

The Mount Pleasant school, the only one operated by the Indian Service in Michigan, is located in Isabella County toward the center of the lower peninsula. The listed capacity is 375 students, but actual attendance has been exceeding this number. It is planned to cut down the enrollment so that it will not exceed 375. The Indian pupils are drawn from various parts of the State, including the northern peninsula. In addition to his duties as head of this boarding school the superintendent has limited jurisdiction over some of the Indians in respect to certain lands which are held for them. However,

these lands are not of very great value and the transactions concerning them are few.

Upon the whole the buildings at this plant are well designed and in good condition. There are 42 in all and they are well arranged on a high, desirable site. If funds should be available, it would seem advisable to add three new buildings to the plant. There should be a large club house to provide quarters and a dining room for unmarried employees who are now located here and there about the establishment. A new structure for the storage of ice and a hospital to replace the one now in use are needed.

As an important part of the instruct on given the students concerns farm work, a well conducted farm is useful for this reason as well as for providing food at a low cost. The extensive acreage which is under cultivation here seems to be fertile and well tilled. Large quantities of potatoes, beans, and other vegetables are produced every year, besides corn and hay for the stock, in all, over 150 acres are under cult vation. A considerable part of the work is done by the pupils, some of whom remain in the school even in the summer time when classes are not being held. Even the small children can help in such work as weeding and gathering vegetables. The dairy supplies large quantities of milk and there is an excellent orchard. The farm buildings are well arranged and in good condition.

The Government school at Mount Pleasant is well located in relation to the scattered Indian population which it serves. It is in a neighborhood where the Indians can learn something of the civilization which they are expected to assimilate. The climate is healthful and the general environment is good. Excellent work is being accomplished here and proper care seems to be taken of the minds, health, and morals of the Indian children.

A visit was made to the Catholic Indian boarding school at Harbor Springs on Little Traverse Bay, located in the northeastern end of the southern peninsula. There are about 70 boys and 100 girls at this place. Instruction is given in 10 grades and the ages of the pupils range from 7 to 17. Many of the children, mostly of the Ottawa Tribe, come from a distance. The building is a brick structure of three stories and is kept in excellent condition; the rooms are models of cleanliness and order.

Going north from Harbor Springs toward Mackinaw City a stop was made at the Catholic school located at Cross Village, Emmet County, Mich. About 47 Indian families, all Ottawas, live in or about this village, which lies on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. There are from 35 to 40 Indian children attending the school conducted here, and some white pupils are also accommodated. Nine grades are taught, and about 80 children altogether receive instruction here, all being day pupils. As in many other Indian Catholic schools, the children here are encouraged to paint and draw. The young Indians take to this naturally and many of them excel the whites. The Indians who live in or near Cross Village gain their livelihood by fishing, picking berries, cutting wood, and doing odd jobs, such as making articles from birch bark. Very few follow regular trades. The labor of most is unskilled and irregular. It is reported that their morals are a little better than those of the whites. Many of them live to a ripe old age and but a few cases of tuberculosis are found among the adult Indians.

A visit was made to the former site of the L'Anse Indian Reservation in Baraga County on the upper peninsula of the State, located on Keweenah Bay. an arm of Lake Superior. A few miles around the bay from L'Anse is the old Catholic Indian mission school near the town of Baraga. A boarding school is conducted here, and a day school is also operated for the Indian children who live in the immediate neighborhood. The pupils come from various parts of the northern peninsula of Michigan, some from as far east as St. Ignace and some from the Sault. All of these young people are of the Chippewa Tribe.

At the end of the last school season there were 41 Indian pupils in the boarding school. A handsome modern school building was found to be in course of construction here, and pupils were expected to be moved into it in the spring of 1929. Quarters for 50 girls and 50 boys are provided in opposite wings of the school. Eight grades are taught, and practically no money for the operation of this institution is obtained from the parents of the Indian children. During the last school year 39 pupils attended the day school.

Many of the older Indians of this region are indolent and do not prosper as they would if they were to follow regular occupations with vigor. A considerable number of them fish during the summer, but do not save enough to keep them in comfortable circumstances during the winter.

HAYWARD INDIAN SCHOOL, WISCONSIN

Commissioner SULLIVAN

The Hayward nonreservation boarding school and the adjoining Lac Court Oreille Indian Reservation, located in Sawyer County, northwestern Wisconsin, were visited by Commissioner Sullivan in August, 1928. The school has a capacity of 170, and there are nearly 1,400 Chippewa Indians accredited to the reservation.

The buildings at Hayward are of ample size and good construction. The schoolrooms provide only for work up to and including the sixth grade. Four additional classrooms should be provided in order that there may be room for eight grades and also that the academic work may be conducted on the full-day principle as in an ordinary public school. Because of the present shortage of classrooms a number of children are on half-school time, filling in the hours when they ought to be in the classroom by doing various kinds of chores in the buildings and around the campus. It is a good idea to familiarize Indian children with the performance of household and other duties, but this should not be done at the expense of their regular scholastic work. Besides correcting the deficiency in classrooms the construction of a gymnasium should be authorized here. The long period of cold weather in northern Wisconsin makes it necessary that indoor recreation be provided.

It is difficult at best to get Indian children or their parents to take a systematic educational program very seriously. If they get the idea that the governmental authorities are not deeply concerned over their regularly completing an eight-grade course, the morale of the classroom is sure to suffer. While some of the larger children can be set at farming and other tasks outside of the schoolroom, there is little such outside work, useful either to the institution or to the pupils, to which younger children can be assigned.

At Hayward both the school buildings and the teaching force are insufficient to provide a full-time educational schedule for the children, and this is peculiarly destructive of discipline and ambition among the Indians. Moreover, as only six grades are maintained, the Indian is likely to assume that he has acquired all the education necessary for him when he has managed to complete the sixth grade. It is most difficult to persuade him and his parents that he should go on to some other school and there finish the seventh and the eighth grades.

On the Lac Court Oreille Reservation, as on many reservations, it has been found that the Indian, to whom land has been allotted in fee simple, is likely to dispose of it at the earliest possible moment and for far less than its real value. Then the proceeds of the sale are wasted and the Indian is worse off than before. It is to be hoped that the long and pa.nful experience which has been gained in cases of this kind will prevent the Federal authorities from repeating the same mistake of giving patents in fee to unprepared Indians in the future. Some of the Indians here are beginning to utilize their lands. The agency superintendent very wisely plans to induce them to start in a small way, rather than to attempt to cultivate a large area, which would be likely to end disastrously. A number of the Indians have promising gardens and truck patches. One has become on expert in growing strawberries and has met with a large measure of success in this field.

Many of the Indians on the reservation have little regard for definite marital relations. Some of them believe that they are still free to set aside the obligations of marriage vows in accordance with the old Indian divorce custom. Unquestionably, this loose way of regarding marriage leads to diseases which sap the health of some of the Indians.

The sale of illicit liquor on the reserve is difficult to prevent. Many of the Indians operate their own stills; others buy liquor from bootleggers. The beautiful lakes on the reservation have become resorts for white people from the large cities of Wisconsin and the adjoining States, and the facilities for transporting liquor make it difficult to cope with this problem. The authorities do what they can to repress the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquor, but this is most difficult in a sparsely settled country where it is easy to operate a still in the wooded marshland near one or other of the lakes.

The kind of life led by many of the older Indians tends to demoralize them. In summer they have a chance to earn "easy" money acting as guides for sportsmen who catch muscallonge and other fish in the charming lakes which abound in this part of Wisconsin. Moreover, the white people who throng this part of the State during the summer patronize the Indian dances. All this

BOARD OF INDIAN COMMISSIONERS

suits the Indian's idea of life but does not prepare him for the lean months of winter or fit him to become a useful citizen.

However, many of the Indians are good, industrious people. Some of the homes are quite clean and comfortable and the owners appear to be intelligent and fairly industrious. A number of new houses have been constructed by a water-power company which has overflowed certain lands on the reservation and which has supplied the Indians, whose former homes were within the inundated region, with better dwellings than they had before.

The religions welfare of the Indians at Lac Court Oreille is looked after by a Catholic priest and a Presbyterian missionary. Catholic sisters conduct a day school which is attended by about 40 children who live in the neighborhood.

NEW YORK INDIANS

Commissioner MOOREHEAD

In the latter part of October, 1928, Commissioner Moorehead attended a meeting at Buffalo of the Society for the Propagation of Indian Welfare in New York State. Groups of Indians from various reservations of the State were represented at the meeting and a number of subjects of interest to the Indians present were discussed, including the question of land tenure and the religious differences between the progressive and conservative elements in the population of the Six Nations.

Commissioner Moorehead reported that he hoped the Indians will remain in the future as they have in the past, a unique and interesting body of people, located in the northern part of the Empire State, still cherishing their old traditions and leaders-of which they may well be proud-but as citizens and in company with our other citizens continue a part of the country and subject to the same laws but vouchsafed to live their own lives in their own way, without further let or hindrance from us. He is of the opinion that all of the conflicting interests of this group can be harmonized if the missionary and social service elements will assume a d'fferent attitude from that of super.ority to those who kept the reservations intact up to the present time, and that what the New York Indian situation needs above everything else is a stop to further investigating," an end to immorality charges, and more of the human touch and encouragement.

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SEMINOLE INDIANS OF FLORIDA

Commissioner UCKER

The Seminole Indians of Florida, who are scattered over a large territory, chiefly in the section from the northern shores of Lake Okeechobee to the southern end of the State, were visited by Commissioner Ucker in March, 1929. The Florida Seminoles, who are believed to number nearly 500 individuals, have been one of the most wild and difficult tribes to deal with in the United States. Those now resident in the State are descendants of refugees who secreted themselves in the fastnesses of the Everglades and evaded capture by the troops who were seeking their removal to country west of the Mississippi prior to the Civil War.

These Indians are a tribe of Muskhogean stock who originally were made up of immigrants from the Creek Indian settlements in Georgia. They were later joined by remnants of the Yamasee and Yuchi Indians and a large negro element of runaway slaves. For many years the relations of the Florida Indian with the whites had been such that a decided aversion for civilized life developed in the tribe. troops, his chiefs made prisoners under flags of truce, his women and children The Seminole had been hunted down ruthlessly by captured and sent to the West, his best country taken from him, and his livestock and crops confiscated. The Indian naturally was not interested in the white man's ways and wanted to be left alone to pursue his own aboriginal mode of life. For years he repelled all friendly advances because of his great distrust of the Government and all its representatives.

To insure the Indians of the ownership of some land, Congress, by several acts between 1894 and 1910, enabled the Indian Service to purchase over 23.000 acres in a district about 25 miles south of Lake Okeechobee, within the borders of present Hendry County. The Executive order of President Taft of June 28, 1911, withdrew for the benefit of the Indians 3,600 acres of public-domain land

located in the present counties of Martin, Broward, and Collier. In 1917 the Florida Legislature was prevailed upon to set aside approximately 100,000 acres in Monroe County for the use of the Indians and to be held in trust by the board of commissioners of State institutions. This State-controlled land, in the swampy area in the southwestern tip of the peninsula and bordering the Gulf, is regarded as useless for Indian occupancy and the Seminoles will not move upon it.

About 10 years ago plans were made for the development of a stock-raising industry for the benefit of the Indians, using 22,400 acres of the lands located in Hendry County. Part of this area was fenced and some buildings erected, but after a course of years the plan was abandoned. The money released from the maintenance needs of this project enabled the Seminole Agency to erect some small cottages, an infirmary, schoolhouse, and administration buildings on the 360-acre Indian tract near Hollywood in Broward County.

The colony established in Broward County was primarily for sick and indigent Indians. Contrary to expectations, the 10 cottages erected on this land were occupied as soon as completed. The area has 'been subdivided into 5-acre tracts, and all the Indians who will clear and cultivate the lots are issued permits which give them the right of occupancy during their life, if the terms of the permit are complied with. Here children of some of the neighboring Indians are receiving a primary education and health conditions are looked after by local physicians.

The rapid changes which have been taking place in southern Florida in recent years have had a pronounced influence on Indian life. The drainage of the Everglades, the large increase in white population, the opening up of new lands, the growth of the numbers of winter residents, all have had a bearing on the situation. The Seminole families following the old life of hunting and fishing back in the swamps have not encountered much of this modernizing spirit and should be left alone to carry on their peaceful and independent habits. Those near the towns have often been exploited for show purposes and much of their contact with the ways of the white man has been demoralizing. As in many parts of the country some of these Indians have learned much of the vices of the whites and few of their virtues. The strict ideas of morality of the tribe are breaking down as the old leaders pass away, and the younger men, either through lack of desire or the necessary personal influence, do not carry them out. This decline of the old Seminole rules of conduct has not been met with an increase in respect for the laws of the whites, and as a consequence, in the opinion of Commissioner Ucker, many of the Indians settled in camps near the towns are declining very fast.

The colony plan which has been developed on the lands in Broward County seems to be the best means for the salvation of most of the Seminoles who have left the back country to reside permanently in close contact with civilized life. The Florida Indian has ability and intelligence and with proper guidance from interested people the difficult period of adjustment to new conditions should be passed through successfully and the Seminole will prove to be a respectable and self-supporting member of the community.

PUEBLO INDIANS, NEW MEXICO

Commissioner MCDOWELL

During April and May, 1929, Commissioner McDowell visited the northern and southern Pueblos Indian agencies, New Mexico. The Indians of these two agencies have a reported population of 8,876. In the course of the survey every pueblo was visited and the operations and plans of the Pueblo Lands Board and the Middle Rio Grande conservancy district were studied. Conferences were held with the governors and councils of 13 of the pueblos.

This group of Indians is made up of 17 different communities which are in the nature of tribes. Each is a tribal entity; each presents its own problem for solution. This is contrary to the public's idea that the Pueblos form one tribe, that they are a homogeneous people with a common tongue, held together by some sort of an offensive and defensive alliance, or confederacy. A search for a union of the Pueblos will be futile. Instead each Indian village stands up for itself first and shows scant interest in the affairs of the others.

Ethnologists have grouped these Indians into two linguistic stocks or language families the Keresan and Tanoan-and the latter has been roughly divided into the Tewa, Tigua, and Jemez families. The common language of these