Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1881 — Female Slavery, [ARTICLE]

Female Slavery,

Buffalo Courier. .■> . Paul Boyton, in his trip down the Missouri, has run across a curious matrimonial custom that the Government should look into. One night he. was entertained by a rancher named George Mince. A comely squaw presided over his household, and three pretty halfbreed children called him father. To his guest W con fessed the fact that he had boughWthis woman at Sliding Rock Agency for a horse. He purchased her as a substitute for bis Indian wife, whom he had bought several years agp, mMffed, overworked, and maltreated until she ran away. *The squaw is kept harth at work, and the husband or master does not allow her to sit at the same table with him, and beats her whenever he pleases. What Mince has done* is a commop ,thing amonghis-neighbors. ‘"nils system of< female slavery /’says Boyton, “is much more extensive than the public generally suppose. Scores of white men are accumulating wealth from the physical iaboij of these poor women and their children.” Captain Boytcn says that a few days ago a white woodcutter bought a 12-year-old Indian girl for

$l5O at the Berthold Agency, and it is regarded as an ordinary business transaction. * ‘ As all half-breed Indian children are entitled to rations and clothing from the foulian Agencies, the importance of this immoral slavery question as a mere matter of governmental economy, is self-evident. This is a E base of the Indian question which is ept in the background, but it is a fruitful source of evil and misery which needs immediate attention.