Page:A History of the Pacific Northwest.djvu/144

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many good men to do something for the improvement of the Indians. There was nothing new in this any more than in the fur trade; but in the one case as in the other the period we have now reached witnesses a great expansion of effort and a marked improvement in organization.

A new interest in Indian missions. The government of the United States at first had taken Httle interest in direct plans for the elevation of the red race. But after the close of the War of 1812 which had caused a violent disturbance and dislocation in the condition of great numbers of Indians alike in the Northwest and in the Southwest, some changes were wrought in the government's policy. Missionaries had long urged the expenditure of money by the United States for the civilizing of the Indians. A bill for that purpose finally was passed which appropriated $10,000, and it was provided that the expenditure of these funds should be made through the several missionary societies that were maintaining workers among the Indians.

Morse's report on Indians. The sum was a small one, but it placed the work of the missions on a new basis, and it stimulated powerfully the missionary activity. Reverend Jedediah Morse, sent out on a missionary survey of the western tribes in 1820, prepared an elaborate report, printed by the government, in which he proposed the establishment of ** Education Families "among the more promising tribes. By this he meant that several workers should co-operate in