Part 3

As if here were not enough obstacles to meet, there comes in the opposition begotten of the selfishness and dissoluteness of unprincipled white men. For years the fur trade was almost as much the enemy of missions as was the slave trade. The agents of this great enterprise were bound to keep the Indians hunters and trappers in order that their warehouses might be filled with furs. The fur trade also controlled the government, and even to-day its power is felt through laws made then for its benefit and that yet remain on the statute book. Hence in its day the fur trade was a foe to be dreaded, for it could exert its power in a thousand secret ways. It could break up schools, scare people away from religious meetings, and put a ban on the Christian teacher, if content to leave him alive.

After thirty years of patient labor the reward seemed about to come. Christianity was proving its power to disintegrate heathenism, break down prejudice and survive the enmity of unprincipled white men.

Then the outbreak and massacres of 1862 occurred, seemingly sweeping everything away. It was the death-struggle of heathenism, alarmed at the steady advance of Christianity. Other political causes and conditions merely made this outbreak possible. And yet what seemed annihilation was only multiplication and dissemination. Again was fulfilled the Scripture: “They that were scattered abroad went preaching the word.” And the conversion in the military prisons of hundreds as it were in a day, is one of the notable instances of the power of God’s spirit.

Twenty years ago the field of Christian missions among the Dakotas was confined to a small section of the nation then dwelling in a corner of Minnesota. But now the field extends over the great Missouri valley and on northward toward the Saskatchawan in the British Possessions.

The work whose beginnings we have noted, originally one under the American Board, has since been divided. In 1871, at the time of the general division of the missions of the American Board, that part of the Dakota Mission immediately under the charge of the venerable Dr. Williamson and his son, Rev. John P. Williamson, was transferred to the care of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions. But the larger portion remained with the other veteran of the mission, Rev. Stephen B. Riggs, under the care of the American Board. And now with the year 1883 another transfer is made to the American Missionary Association. But the five native churches, with a membership of 340, that had meanwhile grown up about Sisseton Agency are graduated from foreign missions into a home mission connection, and so naturally pass under the care of the Presbyterian Home Mission Board. It is not within the scope of this short article to speak of the work accomplished by the Episcopal Mission in the same field, which had its beginning about thirty years later than the original Dakota Mission, and in recent years has had very considerable success. Nor can we speak particularly of the portion of our great field lying across the British line, for though we have furnished the native laborers it is not organically connected with us. But as for the rest of the original mission, even though divided, it works as one. It has one General Conference, and in all its publications and matters of common concern acts as one mission still.

The statistics of the Dakota Mission, as thus defined, show 7 stations, 6 ordained missionaries, 26 assistant missionaries, 13 churches, 12 native pastors and preachers, 9 native teachers, and 847 church members, contributing during the past year $779.83 for their own missions among the heathen Indians, and $1,080.58 for pastoral support and church expenses.

Of this there now passes directly to the care of the American Missionary Association 5 stations, with also an interest in the Native Missionary field at Devil’s Lake, 4 ordained missionaries, 21 assistant missionaries, 2 churches, Pilgrim Church at Santee and Shiloh Church at the Sully Station, with 8 native preachers, 5 native teachers, and a church membership of 194.

As has been noticed, the organization of the work from the first has been on the Presbyterian model, and thus the fruits of the mission have mostly gone into the Presbyterian connection. The church at the Fort Sully Station was an exception. It was organized as a Congregational church. Nevertheless, this Presbyterian cast, this whole native force, is to be considered as one, and will be used by whichever denomination is ready to prosecute the work most vigorously, for the denominationalism of these churches is not of a radical type, as is instanced by the recent change of ecclesiastical relations on the part of the Pilgrim Church at Santee. This is the original mother church, but in order to come into closer and more sympathetic relations with the churches that support the Santee Training School, it voted cheerfully and almost unanimously to leave Presbytery and become Congregational. Indeed this is not hard for them to do, for Indians are naturally very democratic.

In the work that may now be done for this people, SANTEE NORMAL TRAINING SCHOOL must be an important factor. It has vital relation to all these native churches, and it has a name among the heathen communities. Its growth has been slow, for it has taken time and work to instil the idea of a higher education into the minds of the people. Henceforth its growth might be rapid. It now has one hundred and one pupils in attendance, with seventeen instructors, including those in charge of the industrial and boarding departments. This winter a number of pupils have been turned away for lack of room. If accommodations could be provided, the number of pupils might soon be doubled.

While giving great attention to industrial training, it affords unparalleled advantages for that training which is needed to make teachers suited to Indian schools.

The school is the basis of evangelizing the Indian. There will be no large audiences to preach to, except on exceptional occasions, until the school has gathered a company of disciples. Certain persons not understanding the nature of missionary work, or unable to take more than a superficial view, have recently represented our schools as of low grade, and unnecessary to real missionary work. But this is contradicted by the grand progress of the work.

We have spoken of five mission stations as now passing under the care of the A. M. A. But of these Standing Rock is hardly opened, and Berthold and Sully stations are sadly in need of reinforcements. And there are the large Indian Agencies of Spotted Tail’s and Red Cloud’s tribes, numbering about 7,000 each, which we ought to occupy. Then there is the Crow country in Montana, next door to our Berthold Mission. We should have at once six ordained missionaries and their wives, with as many more assistant missionaries, all picked men. This would enable us to manage a yet larger number of native missionary teachers working along with them.

The tribes speaking the Dakota language are the most numerous of any Indian people upon the continent. They are now universally open to Christianity and Christian civilization. They now look to Christian people for their future. Within the last ten or twelve years the whole temper of their mind has changed. The noted chief, Sitting Bull, is an illustration. Only a few years ago he hated the very wind that blew from the direction of the white man’s country. When the wind blew from the east he would send out the town crier to say, “Get you all into your teepees. This is bad air from the white man’s country.” But when it blew from the north his crier would proclaim, “Come out and breathe the healthy air.” And once when a woman of the tribe brought home a “rooster” from a distant trading post to enliven the tedium of her labor, Sitting Bull heard it crow and instantly dispatched his chief soldier to “soldier kill” the woman, that is, cut up her tent and kill her horses, for the crime of having that white man’s bird in the sacred precincts of a Dakota camp. But now the same Sitting Bull is petitioning for Christian teachers, and land, and domestic animals, and undoubtedly would also welcome “the-bird-that-crows-in-the-morning.”

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INDIAN INDUSTRIES AT HAMPTON.

BY GEN. S. C. ARMSTRONG.

Every Indian boy who comes to Hampton is allowed his choice to learn farming or a trade, and to select the trade he prefers, to which he is expected to stick. They often wish to change after some months, for they are a fickle people. While this is by no means done as a matter of course, it has sometimes been found wise to do so. A boy who could do nothing at blacksmithing made remarkable progress in the wheelwright’s shop; one who is poor on the farm may be good in the shoe-shop, and _vice versa_; but it does not do to encourage shifting trades. The girls go through the same routine of housework, cooking, cutting and making and mending clothes.

The boys are assigned to work as follows: carpenters, 15; painters, 1; tinsmiths, 6; shoe-makers, 13; harness-makers, 3; farmers, 13; blacksmiths, 3; wheelwrights, 3; tailors, 1. A generous lady in New York City has recently given $5,000 for an Indian workshop, which will be completed and occupied by the first of April next, and be a most satisfactory change from the shed in which they have for four years uncomfortably worked at their trades.

Considering the past of the Indian, the disposition of our boys and girls to work is remarkable. The general rule is to work from seven to twelve o’clock, A.M., or from one to six o’clock, P.M., Saturday being holiday. Those who work mornings study afternoons, and _vice versa_. All are paid, girls as well as boys, usually at the rate of $2.50 per month, for to expect Indians to take a real interest in their work without some compensation is absurd. It is weak and foolish to reason that the skill they attain is enough compensation. Human nature requires something more. On the other hand they purchase all their underclothing and shoes with their earnings, and are thus taught the use of money and the true value of garments, and become quite skillful in buying. A school uniform is provided for each one, made in our tailoring department.

Their appreciation of work is a direct contradiction to the statement that an Indian hates to labor. Frequently boys who are working a half-day at some trade will ask to be allowed to work the entire day, including Saturday, so as to earn more and be better able to take care of themselves when they go home. Their wages are then increased and they go to night school. Every such application is encouraging.

Especially those who make extra time in the shops are inclined to save. They generally agree to draw but one-half of extra earnings, the other half being saved to buy them tools and other outfit when they shall finally leave school. We allow ten per cent. interest on all such savings; they are quick to see the advantage of laying up money. They seem to have no marked aptitude for special trades, unless it be for work in leather, shoe and harness-making. Their ancestors have dealt in this commodity more than in any other. They take to all handiwork remarkably; while quick to learn, they are slow to execute. They seldom bungle or “botch” a job. The first pair of shoes made by an apprentice is always serviceable. An Indian carpenter will make as good a mortise as a white one, but will take three times as long. Our expert harness-maker says he can do no better work than some of his boys, but they are very slow about it. We are constantly making and selling carts made by Sioux boys. They have made all our school benches, desks, wardrobes and wash-stands, besides window-frames, etc., for the outside market.

We would be only too glad to make buggy or plow harness, single or double, tin-ware of all kinds and brogan shoes for individuals or institutions in the North or South, solely on the ground of the merit and cheapness of the work done. A neat carriage harness was made last summer for a lady in Newport, R.I. Of the 500 dozen articles of tinware, 75 sets of double plow harness, and 2,000 pairs of men’s shoes made last year by our Indian boys for the use of the Western tribes (ordered by the Indian Department at the lowest contract prices of the previous year) the New York inspectors reported: “They are as well and as strongly made, and for actual service fully equal to any purchased by the Department.”

This year we are making an even larger amount of material for the Indian Department, but at prices which little more than cover cost of material. An outside private trade would be much more desirable. We were paid for men’s brogans “extra” good leather, $1.22½ per pair, boxed and delivered in New York City. Carlisle does even more than Hampton in supplying Indians, and with excellent success.

Owing to bodily ailments, Indian labor is more unsteady than that of Negroes. While in their own life they have endurance, a steady routine of industry is new to them, and they are for our purposes a rather feeble race: they find digging exhausting, but on the hunter’s trail or on the warpath they are tireless when we would soon be weary.

Unless every Indian child is educated to some occupation, teaching is of little account. Hard work rather than the higher studies gives them the best drill. As for all, so for Indians, home influence is a great thing. After the best practical education they are not fit for the loose, idle, dirty life of Indian camps any more than any other children. What is to be done? The best success with the thirty Sioux children who returned in October, 1881, to their agencies (five of them girls) has been with those to whom the agents gave separate rooms near the agencies, having their food cooked and their life led separately. An efficient agent will, by the care he takes, save four-fifths of our Indian graduates to decent lives; a careless, weak agent (and not a third of the sixty U.S. Indian Agents are first-class men) will lose four-fifths of them. We cannot make men of them in three years, but can give them a start in that time that a good agent can keep up, and lead them to true success.

Here, more and more, we find the real trouble; not with the Indian, but in our miserable system of paying so small salaries to Indian agents that a competent one is the exception. The boy or girl who goes home finds no strong, kind friend to advise and help; the current of influence is against a Christian life. Here the missionary is needed; never more than now.

Hampton, Carlisle and the many schools that are educating Indians need to be supplemented by good agents and wise missionaries who will help them to stand against the odds that would make the new life they have chosen nest to impossible. Here is the point of chief anxiety. Public sentiment must be felt at Washington before it shall remove the chief stumbling-block to Indian progress—poor agents. As Secretary Teller says in his last Report, the Indians are chiefly on reservations, and must for the present be treated there; to be gradually pushed upon lands of their own, individually, by the efforts of wise men and the influence of Christian education.

REVIVAL WORK AMONG INDIANS AT HAMPTON.

Miss Isabel B. Eustis, in giving an account of the revival meetings at Hampton, writes as follows of the Indians:

Meanwhile at one end of the chapel there sat a company of one hundred who took no part in the service. The Indian students watched with wondering and wistful eyes the scenes around them. “Pass me not, O Gentle Saviour,” they sang often in their own services during these days, and the Lord heard their cry and turned aside and called them too. Stago, our fiery little Apache boy, heard his voice, and set hard to work to conquer his temper and self-will. The quick-witted, ambitious, head-strong girl, whose influence over the other scholars we dreaded, listened, and her hard expression softened, and the stubborn will yielded, and with gentleness and humility she met the daily requirements which had often roused her rebellious spirit before. Shallow natures grew earnest and proud, and we knew that there was one walking with the Indian students too who could purify and inspire and help.

On Wednesday evening our senior Indian boy, of his own accord, left his class and took his seat with the other Indian scholars. Waiting his opportunity, he rose and called the attention of the school to those who sat behind him. He reminded me of the darkness out of which they had come, and of the dangers to which they must return. He told us that they longed for a share in the blessing God was giving the school, and asked our patience while they prayed to the Father, and spoke of Him in a language we could not understand.

Kamnach rose first. Kamnach came to the school four years ago, directly from his wild Indian life. His hair was uncut; he wore Indian clothes; he had been always familiar with scenes of bloodshed, and placed little value on human life. After three years he went back to his home, a changed man we thought in appearance and heart. But it was hard to stand among his savage comrades. He plead to come back to school. He was a happy boy, when, less than a year ago, he placed his foot again on Hampton soil. Poor boy! he had yet to learn that always his worst temptations would come from his own distorted heart. Some misunderstanding of his position as a returned student, some distrust of those who were over him, and he fell into passionate hatred, and was ready to commit a deliberate and deadly crime. We thought his repentance would be quick and deep, but not so. The first Sunday of the new year, the anniversary of the day on which he confessed Christ, he had no heart to meet the Lord, whose first command was to love and forgive. But the passing Saviour’s voice reached him now. He stood before the crowded school, and with the help of an interpreter acknowledged his sin, and renewed his allegiance to the Saviour, and begged the Indian students to follow the Lord Jesus, though they would find many things in His religion hard to understand and difficult to do.

After Kamnach’s confession a Sioux boy made a prayer. He spoke in another tongue, but more than one felt his heart was lifted to the Father’s heart by the earnestness and pathos of the stranger’s voice. Another tried to speak in broken English. Missing the words he wanted to say, waiting and struggling for confession, he acknowledged Jesus Christ as the Saviour of his soul. Our hearts were knit together in love. We knew that we belonged to one common family and nothing could separate from the love of Christ. Evidently the son of God who came to save the lost finds nothing in the Indian nature he cannot soften and subdue. Evidently the Indian is able to place his confidence in such a Saviour and yield himself in glad obedience to Him.

CHILDREN’S PAGE.

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THE LITTLE INDIAN OF CLEAR LAKE.

ABRIDGED FROM GOSPEL IN ALL LANDS.

Did you ever see an Indian—a real, live Indian—in bead-embroidered buck-skin coat and breeches, girded with a curiously wrought wampum belt, shod with moccasins, his face painted black and red, his hair bristling, like a porcupine’s back, with a gay forest of feathers—as he dashed through the woods or over the prairie, on a wild horse, or strode along proudly on foot, with bow and arrows in his hands, and a large tomahawk and scalping-knife in his girdle?

You have seen him in the pictures, at least, and thought him a fine sight; and perhaps you felt in your heart that it must be fine to live such a wild, daring life, hunting, fishing and roaming in the woods and over the fields.

But all Indians are not like him. Tribes differ very much in their character and habits. Besides, they are never quite so brave and fine in real life as they are in pictures. Most of them are poor miserable creatures; and if you should go into one of their wigwams of sticks and barks, and see their naked bodies, filthy faces and tangled hair, as they squat in the smoke and stench around a little fire, on the bare earth, in the middle of the shanty, snatching at poor food with dirty fingers, like a pack of ravenous wolves. I do not believe you would think it very fine, ever after have the least desire to live like an Indian.

The little boy of our story was born and lived on the shores of Clear Lake, a fine sheet of water among the mountains, thirty or forty miles north of Napo Valley.

Like all his mates, he was so short and thick that he seemed to be about as broad as he was long. His skin was not copper-colored like that of most other Indians, but black. His face was broad and round, his lips thick and pouting, and his nose wide and flat. His long coarse hair, all tangled and matted, dangled around his high cheek-bones and above his naked shoulders, like the shaggy mane of a Canadian pony, and half hid his coarse, brutal features: a pair of small, round, dull eyes, like leaden bullets, made the treacherous expression that slept in every line of his features seem ten-fold more revolting.

His wigwam, or lodge, was nothing but a rude screen of bushes or skins to break the force of the wind. You would not think it very nice or comfortable, but he did, and could sleep just as well there, or on the ground beside a large stone, or behind the stump of a fallen tree as you do on the softest feathers. But he never slept two nights in the same place, for fear of being discovered by an enemy and murdered.

It is a hard and cheerless life which those little Indian children lead, as you can easily see, but the life of this little Indian was especially so; for his father and mother had both been murdered, and he had no friends to care for him any more kindly than they would care for a dog; and even the _Hias Tyee_, or Big Chief of the tribe, whose duty it was to see that this little waif on the stormy sea of Indian life was provided for, thought only to get some advantage out of him; and so, when he saw a white man camping one day on the shores of the lake, he brought down the boy and offered to sell him for ten dollars. It proved to be a kind, good-hearted man, who saw that the little fellow was friendless and forlorn, and so the bargain was soon closed, and he became servant to the “pale-face” till he was twenty-one years old, on condition of receiving his food and clothing.

On reaching home, the first thing, of course, was to clip off his dangling locks, give him a thorough scrubbing with soap and brush, and cover his black nakedness with decent clothing.

That afternoon, when the pigs were fed, he was found with his nose in the trough eating sour milk with the animals as if he had been one of them. At night nothing could persuade him to sleep in a room or on a bed; and after dark, when the family had retired to rest, he stole out of the house as slyly as a cat, and hid himself away in the tall weeds beside the fence. Every night for many weeks he did the same, and was so fearful of being murdered in his sleep that he changed his nest every night, never daring to sleep twice in the same spot.

His tongue was constantly telling lies, and he would steal everything he fancied that came in his way. He seemed to have no idea of right and wrong. He could not comprehend what such words as love and duty and kindness meant. Fear was the only motive which had the least influence in controlling him. Even the difference between cleanliness and dirt was a thought too sublime and profound for his understanding.