Here ends the article I prepared for the “Christian Union,” but which, proving too long for a newspaper, you have advised me to print in a pamphlet; and I conclude to make it an appeal to the UNOFFICIAL people of the United States, instead of to the Government, as I first thought of doing.
For, notwithstanding the good intentions of the new administration, I see it is effectually hindered (how, it does not itself realize) from doing justice to the Indian, as its first act with respect to the Crow Creek tribe promised would be its policy.
I mentioned that the satisfactory testimony respecting the character of Sarah Winnemucca’s school, with which I closed the above report of it, was extracted from “voluminous letters,” overflowing with details of the innumerable difficulties Sarah had to contend with, of which some idea may be obtained from the following extract of a letter which my correspondent addressed at the same date to an Indianapolis newspaper:—
“Natches wanted land of his own; and for a wonder, he got it. Senator Stanford gave him one hundred and sixty acres. Where cattle range, land must be fenced. Lumber is very high, as it comes from a distance. Miss Peabody sent him $200 to fence it. Water comes next. Nevada is a desert without irrigation. By agreeing to pay them out of his crop, Natches furnished thirteen men (Indians and himself) one month, to work on the dam and ditches, to pay for his water, but gets no paper to show how long. Eastern people help him to a wagon, plough, spade, hoe, and axe. He already has horses, and he gets in sixty-eight acres of nice wheat. As the wheat grows and tempts the cattle, the water-power people tell him he must leave the gate open so they can get to their ditches, some of which they put on his land without permission. The white men on each side of him have gates, and keep them shut, although their land is used only for grazing. I go to town, find they have no right to say anything about it, and the gate is put up, and the old uncle who has camped by it to keep out the cows and save the wheat can do something else. The wheat gets ripe; he can hire a machine to cut it at $1.75 per acre, cash. He has no cash; he must hire Indian women at $5 per acre, and pay in wheat.
“The next time I go to town, I am told that the water company has decided not to let Natches have any more water, because ‘Indians are so lazy, they don’t want them around,’ and, for illustration, point to that old man who sat all day by the hole in Natches fence. I tried to explain; but it is not permitted to explain things here.
“At all the railway stations along the road, one sees Indians sitting on the shady side of the house or walking along the track, sometimes begging. I talked with one of them of the loafing and card-playing that is so common. She admitted and regretted it, and added: ‘Let me disguise you as an Indian, and go to the reservation where all these Indians have been trained. Stay a few weeks as an Indian, and learn to enjoy work as we have to do it, and see if you think our young men can see any good in it, or have any motive for doing it. You know children,—see what you think the same training would do for a white child.’”
It is plain that jealousy and opposition were excited to madness by the very success of Sarah’s unexampled enterprise, which has also aroused the attention of Agent Gibson, whose intrigues form the subjects of other letters.
The week before she arrived, an official from Washington, who was an intimate friend of Gibson, had appeared, and told Sarah that unless Natches would surrender his independent possession of the land, and she the direction of her school, to the authorized agent of Pyramid Lake, no aid would be given to the boarding-school from the reserved fund for Indian Education. Sarah, however, had indignantly refused to accept any aid on such destructive conditions.
I must confess I was not surprised or very sorry for this final demonstration that the only effectual thing to be done to help the Indian to come up from himself (to use a happy expression of Mr. Dawes’, that exactly describes what Sarah is intent upon doing), is to ABOLISH THE PRESENT AGENCY SYSTEM ALTOGETHER, as I am glad to see was proposed by Mr. Painter, at the late Mohunk Conference; for it is the most effectual instrumentality of a formidable Ring, composed of the still unreformed civil service on the frontiers, and of the majority of the frontier population, who deprecate Indian civilization, and work against it with an immense mercantile interest scattered all over the Union, that fattens on the CONTRACTS FOR SUPPLIES, which is the breath of life to this well-named “Hidden Power.”
It has been suggested that the preliminary step to such abolition must be to make public the history of this Ring, whose action from its beginning has been for the general removal of the tribes from their several original localities; revealing the secret of the Florida War, and other operations,—among its most subtle ones being its apparently friendly co-operation and hypocritical flatteries of the various organizations for educating and christianizing Indians. Such a history would explain their motives in making Sarah Winnemucca “a suspect” in the eyes of just those who should have received in generous faith this champion of her people’s right and opportunity freely to select the best things in civilization,—the principal one being, as she intuitively saw and everybody is at length convinced, the individual versus communal tenure of land,—while they are also free to retain whatever of the inherited tribal customs she also sees intuitively are necessary to preserve their social life heart-whole, though open to inspiration for individual self-development.
In her “Life among the Piutes,” which every one should make it a matter of conscience to read before making up his mind upon the character and aims of this most remarkable woman, it will be seen how naturally and inevitably she incurred the enmity of the several agents to whom has been traced directly every slander, especially that of Rinehart.
The sixth chapter of that book gives an appreciative account of the only agent among seventeen that had been sent out to the Piutes since they were known to the whites, who was not a calamity to them. This man, Samuel Parish by name, by his disinterestedness, honesty, and the simple humanity of his arrangements, demonstrated that there need be no difficulty with the Indians if they are treated fairly, and that with the same chances the Piutes at least can become as prosperous and rich as the white settlers, instead of being the burden that all Indians have seemed to be during the “Century of Dishonor,” so faithfully represented by “H. H.” in the book of that name, and later in the wonderful story of “Ramona,” which is gradually doing for the Indian what “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” did for the negro. But it would take a volume even larger than Mr. Tibbles’ book upon the “Hidden Power” to give in detail even the history of this persecution of Sarah, which has been traced out in all its subtleties by many of her friends, who consist, I may truly say, of all the hundreds of audiences whom her artless addresses took captive, between her arrival at Boston in the spring of 1883 and her departure to the West from Baltimore in the August of 1884. I have never seen or heard of one person of all those who themselves heard her speak in public (after the first lecture that she gave in Boston),[2] who was in the slightest degree affected by accusations that answered themselves in every person’s mind who had been under the spell of the simple statement of facts that she made with names and dates, and defied the world to prove one of them false. I myself heard her speak in public in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania as many as thirty times, in which she never repeated or contradicted herself once, though it was obvious that except in the choice of some particular subject to be made her theme, she took no previous thought as to what she should say, but trusted that the right words would be given her by the “Spirit Father,” whose special messenger she believed herself to be, and impressed her audiences to believe that she was.
She got thousands of signatures to her petitions, made friends for herself, and interested the most excellent members of Congress to present her petitions, and the Senate did, on July 6, 1884, pass a bill which by implication abolished the agency of Pyramid Lake,—for it proposed to give the reservation to Winnemucca’s and Leggins’ bands in severalty of lands. And so I content myself with what will give to any person of common sense and candid heart the above hints by which they may estimate the intrinsic worth, or rather worthlessness, of the slanderous rumors which Gibson has lately succeeded in impressing upon the minds of a few persons who ought to be her coadjutors, and whom she could aid in her turn in carrying out their own good intentions to the Indians, if it were not for the unhappy misconception of her which prevented their making acquaintance with herself personally. “There is nothing so sad in the records of experience as that the children of light should misunderstand each other;” nor is anything so disastrous as a mistake made by the good-intentioned, because their impressions are not questioned but swallowed incontinently, without investigation. Could I have had a personal interview with those persons, I feel sure they never would have given publicity to their mistake, for which I hold only Gibson morally responsible; but this interview they did not seek, having jumped to the conclusion that I was passively deluded. They did not know that I had been a student of Indian history for more than seventy years, having, as early as seven years old, taken my first impression from my own mother’s enthusiasm for another “Indian princess” whom a great-uncle of mine, one of the generals in our Revolutionary War, married in Northern Michigan, where he went to settle after the war, and whose half-breed descendants, by the name of Hunt, are valuable citizens of that State. It was the first impression of the noble domestic education this Indian princess gave her children, followed up by hearing my father read to my mother, before I was ten years old, the Moravian Heckerwelder’s “History of the North American Indians,” which goes into the details of the tribal mode of training the children to habits of reverence for elders, truthfulness with each other, and a majestic self-respect, that gave me a key to the characteristic Indian virtues, and enabled me to read “Hubbard’s Indian Wars,” with open eyes to see that the white race was more responsible than the Indians for the cruelties which transpired on both sides. Ever after I was an omnivorous reader of everything I could find about Indians, whether from ethnologists or travellers or residents, among them,—like Catlin, for instance; so that H. H.’s “Century of Dishonor” told me nothing that I did not know before. Besides this, I learned from William B. Ogden[3] the history of the origin and action of the Indian Ring from its beginning with the fur-traders; and studied the secret history of the Florida war, with officers of the army engaged in it, who revealed to me its persistence in the interests of the civil service under Governor Duval. All this, and acquaintance with the half-breed Chippewa missionary Tanner, who thirty years ago made in Boston precisely the same explanatory criticism on the vicious principle of all the missionary work for Indians that Sarah Winnemucca does,[4] prepared me to appreciate and understand the first lecture I heard from her, which she addressed “exclusively to women,” in which she unfolded the domestic education given by the grandmothers of the Piute tribe to the youth of both sexes, with respect to their relations with each other both before and after marriage,—a lecture which never failed to excite the moral enthusiasm of every woman that heard it, and seal their confidence in her own purity of character and purpose.
The faith that she then inspired in me has grown by everything else I have known her to say and do in a more than three years’ intimacy in which my life has been bound up in hers; yet my faith and confidence in her do not rest exclusively on her own eloquent ipse dixit and practical consistency with it, far less on my own subjective impressions, which I am fully aware can be no evidence to other people, but on collateral evidence that has been continually pouring in upon me, that I am ready to give viva voce to other people, but much of which cannot, with propriety, be put into public print, as it involves a story of private trials of her own that are sacred to those who know them in all their particulars. This collateral evidence consisted, in addition to what is published in the Appendix to “Life among the Piutes” (see the “Letter of Roger Sherman Day, unsolicited”), of the testimony of persons unknown to Sarah Winnemucca, who unexpectedly arose in her audiences to confirm what she said and declare it was not exaggerated,—such persons as the Rev. Edwin Brown of the first Church in Providence, Professor Brewer of New Haven, Father Hughes of St. Jerome Convent in New York, and a French priest for whom he spoke, and who he said was in Yakima when she was, all of whom gave personal indorsement to her statements; also correspondents of mine in Nevada and California, one of whom furnished the following slips from the California newspapers of 1879, confirming her statements about Rinehart and Scott.
“In addition to what Princess Sarah Winnemucca said during her lecture the other evening about one Rinehart (the Indian agent at the Malheur Reservation), to the effect that not an Indian remains on the reservation at that place, additional statements come by way of Walla Walla. These reports say that there has not been a single Indian at that agency for over a year, and yet supplies are being constantly sent thither by the Government. The agent (Rinehart) himself has tried, and sent his emissaries all over the country, even unto Nevada, to bribe the Piutes to return. But in vain. Those poor Indians have had a taste of his brutality, and they want no more of it. So it seems that Sarah knew what she was talking about, and knew the facts. She said that this pet of the Indian Ring had promised pay to the Indians for working; and when they applied for their wages, his course toward them was such that they declined further peonage of that kind.
“Then he assumed the character of the bully, and with pistol in hand attempted to force them to work for him. Now, allowing the one concession that the Piutes are men, it is perfectly natural that they should have left him and the reservation. Had he been a man of honesty and honor, he would have informed the Government of the exact condition of things, and thus have prevented the Government from still forwarding supplies for that agency. Not an Indian is within two hundred miles of the agency, and not one can be bribed to return. Yet the Government still sends the supplies. What becomes of them? Perhaps Rinehart could tell; and perhaps Commissioner Hoyt could tell—if he would. Under such circumstances, no wonder the question is asked why Rinehart is still kept in office under salary, for performing duties that do not exist. It is suggested that the reservation lands be sold for the benefit of the Indians. The question is asked, says the despatch, for what Indians? There are none within two hundred miles.”
Here is another newspaper slip of this date, headed “A Model Representative of the Indian Bureau:”
“Two or three weeks since, a fellow named J. W. Scott, who pretends to be acting for the Interior Department, arrived here from Oregon. His threats created considerable alarm among the Indians, who congregated here from all parts of the country to hear what he had to say. Natches and Winnemucca say that at the time of the outbreak at the Malheur Reservation, a year ago last summer, this man Scott, who they state had a beef contract at the reservation, had a talk with the Indians at Crowley’s ranch. They told him that if he would state their grievances on paper and send the document to Washington, they would return to the reservation. The chiefs dictated and Natches interpreted what he should write. When they finished, not having very much confidence in his integrity, they took the paper from him and gave it to G. B. Crowley to read. In this way they ascertained that he had not written what they dictated, and instead of stating the fact that they were being starved at the reservation and were driven to desperation by the treatment they received, he painted the Indians as demons and the agent as an angel. This infuriated the savages, and Natches and Winnemucca could hardly restrain the reservation Indians from scalping Scott right then and there. Knowing that he had played the Indians false at that time, Natches and Winnemucca were afraid to trust him at the council held here upon his arrival from Malheur a short time ago, and they asked a few white men—among them the writer—to be present. What occurred at the council was truthfully reported in these columns at the time. Scott, it appears, does not like the truth; so he reported to Natches yesterday that the ‘Silver State’ stated a few days ago that he (Natches) and Jerry Long, the interpreter, were the most notorious liars in the country. What object the fellow could have in telling such a lie to the Indians, the writer cannot surmise, unless it was for the purpose of making them distrustful of those who tell the truth about the Malheur Agency. An acquaintance of many years with many of the Piutes of Humboldt County warrants the writer in saying that so far as his experience extends, they are generally truthful and reliable; while respectable white men who knew Scott in Plumas County, California, before he went to Malheur, say the records of the courts in that county will show that decent men testified that they would not believe him under oath. Surely the Interior Department ought to send a man with a better reputation as its representative to hold councils with the Indians, and keep Mr. Scott at Malheur to take the census of the Indians and make affidavit to the quantity of beef and blankets distributed at a reservation where there has not been an Indian since a year ago last June.”
To these slips I might add most curious letters that I have received from both Democrats and Republicans of Virginia City and Reno, who, supposing me to be sister of the millionnaire banker, wrote to induce me to serve their political interests with money and influence,—some praising and some abusing Sarah, and both enlightening me.
Hoping that I shall be pardoned for the inevitable egotism of making this special plea for my reliability as a witness in this case, I conclude to add to the report of the claims of her school what has transpired even since I began writing this Postscript.
With her last letter acknowledging the last money subscribed for her boarding-school in August, came a notice that the literary exercises of the school were suspended for a month, on account of her need of rest, and in order that the children might assist in harvesting the splendid crop, some of which, as it had been agreed upon beforehand, was to pay the eleven men who had labored with Natches in the winter to buy water from the water company for the year’s irrigation, and some was to pay the fifteen laborers, men and women, who were to help in the reaping, while the rest of the wheat, sold at the current market price of $30 per ton, would provide for the ensuing year’s maintenance, besides affording food and seed corn for another year’s planting.
I must confess I was rather surprised at her letter’s not containing a pÆan of joy on this impending happy consummation, but only a painfully earnest expression of anxiety that I should now rest from my labors for her, and be content if she only went on in future with the day school. But I ascribed her subdued tone to the exhaustion produced by the long strain she had been under of body and mind. It was, however, explained by her next letter, when she enclosed to me a letter she had received from a mistaken friend of mine telling her that Miss Peabody had sent her all the money that had been provided for her own old age, and had been working for her to get the $100 a month, harder than she (Sarah) had ever worked in her life. I need not say that this was accompanied with a passionate entreaty that I would never send her another cent, and suspend all further care for her work. Of course I replied, instanter, that this letter was false in every point; that the provision for my old age was untouched, and that the work I was doing for her was the greatest pleasure I had ever enjoyed in my life. But before she could get my reply (for it takes six days for a letter to go from Boston to Lovelocks), another short missive came, saying that I must not write to her again till she should send word of her new whereabouts; for, “on account of our ill luck,” Natches and herself were going away to earn some money,—she to get work in some kitchen for at least her board. But not a word of explanation of the “ill luck,” which I could not divine.
I have therefore kept back this paper from the press till I should hear again. And another letter has at last come, after a fortnight of dreadful silence, acknowledging my letters that she had just found, on her return to Lovelocks after a fortnight’s service in the kitchen of a Mrs. Mary Wash, of Rye Beach, where she had earned her board, and had less than a dollar in money; and in this letter she explains the “ill luck.” Some of her inimical white neighbors had told her people, who had agreed to take pay for their work from the wheat, that Miss Peabody was sending her out $100 a month for them, and thus put them up to demanding their pay in money at once! “If we could have borrowed $200 for two months,” she says, “we could have paid them in money, and then sold the rest of the crop for $30 a ton. But it was the game to force us to sell the crop to the store-keepers for $17 a ton, which (thanks to the Spirit Father for so much) paid all our debts, but left nothing over; and I could not feed on love, so could not renew the school; and I was perfectly discouraged and worn out.” Add to this, her dear niece Delia had just died, who had been in a consumption ever since the death of the elder son of Natches, which took place when they were all so sick of pneumonia at Winnemucca just before Mr. Stanford gave them the ranch. She rejoices that “she is safe in heaven;” she hopes the “Spirit Father may soon let me die.” When she has fixed up her winter clothes she says she shall go and seek more work for her board; and adds in closing, “So, darling, do not talk any more on my behalf, but let my name die out and be forgotten; only, don’t you forget me, but write to me sometimes, and I will write to you while I live.” Of course I have replied to this wail, that while I do not wonder at her despair for the moment, I by no means accept it as the finale of our great endeavor,—that it is a natural but temporary reaction of her nerves, and I see that she is still her whole noble self in this energetic action for personal independence, which I shall make known at once to all her friends, sure that it will challenge them to help her through another year until another harvest. Meantime I believe that the entire change of work will prove a recreative rest, and her people will plainly see by it that it is not true that she had been living irrespective of them on the $100 a month, and that her enthusiastic scholars will not fail to bring their parents back to their confidence and gratitude to her.[5] I tell her that I have found at the bookbinder’s two hundred copies of her book, which I shall at once begin to sell for her again, offering to send one, postpaid, to whoever sends me $1.00, and thus make the nest egg of a new fund to enable her to renew her grand enterprise of making a Normal School (for that is what she was doing) of Indian teachers of English, for all the tribes whose languages she knows, and who will, in their turn, give their scholars, together with the civilizing English language, the industrial education that they have at the same time received, while helping in the housekeeping and on the ranch.
And with this implied appeal to the multitudes of individuals in the United States who, I am certain, are earnestly desirous to do something for our Indian brothers, but do not know exactly what to do, I send forth this pamphlet in the faith that has brought millions of dollars, unsolicited except in prayer, to George Muller’s Orphanage in Bristol, old England, and created the Consumptives’ Home and the asylum for incurable cancer patients in New England.
ELIZABETH P. PEABODY.
Jamaica Plain, Mass.
