Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1885 — THE RED MAN. [ARTICLE]

THE RED MAN.

Commissioner Atkins Discusses the Indian Problem in His Annual Report. Gen. J. D. C, Atkins, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, prefaces his report with'the statement that “it requires no seer to foretell or foresee the civilization of the Indian race as a result naturally deducible from a knowledge and practice upon their part of tho art of agriculturo, for tho history of agriculture among all people and in all countries intimately connects it with the highest intellectual and moral development of man." Ho continues: “Tho increased interest in agriculturo manifested sinoe tho opening of last spring and the preparation on Hoveral reservations for a still increased acreage in farming, are among the hopeful signs of Indian progress and development. This brings mo directly to the consideration of tho practical policy which, I believe, should be adopted by Congress and tho Government in the management of the Indians. It should bo Industriously and gravely impressed upon them that they must abandon their tribal relations and tako lauds in severalty as the corner-stone of their complete success In agriculture, which moans solf-sum>ort, personal independence, and material thrift. The Government should, however, in order to protect them, retain the right to their land, in trust, for twentyfive years or longer, but issue trust patents at once to such Indians as have taken individual holdings.

“When the Indians have takon their'lands in severalty in sufficient quantities (and the number of acres in each holding may and should vary in different localities, according to fertility, productiveness, climatic and other advantages), then having due regard to the immediate and future early needs of the Indians, the remaining lands of their reservations should be purchased by tho Government and opened to homestead entry at 50 or 75 cents per acre. The money paid by the Government for their lands should be held in trust in 5 per cent, bonds, to be invested, as Congress may provide, for the education, civilization, and materiul development and advance of the red race, reserving for each tribe its own money. There ore in the United States, exclusive of Alaska, 260,000 Indian souls ; of that number there are in the five civilized tribes in the Indian Territory 64,000. There are in New York. 4,970; in North Carolina, 3,100; and there are some in Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and a few in California and the Northwest who aro civilized, and still others who can lay claim to civilization. Many others on the reservations have cast off the blanket and are adopting the fashions and dress of white people, but among all these, except among the Indians of New York and North Curolina, a few in the Northwestern States, and a part of the five civilized tribes in the Indian Territory, there is a very large number who do not till the soil. Nearly all who are called ‘The Blanket Indians’ have never tilled the soil to anv extent, and fully half of tho Indians of the United States, exclusive of Alaska, as yet have declined to commit themselves to tho life of tho farmer. Exclusive of the lands cultivated by tho five civilized tribes, tho number of acres in cultivation by Indians during the year number 248,241, an incrouse of 18,473 since last year's figures.”