leave it on war, if not on hunting parties, a policy, if report speaks truly, very frequently adopted, as tending to combine moral welfare (on the part of the Indian), with pecuniary profit (on the part of the agent.
Beyond the agent for each tribe there is a higher official termed a superintendent, whose duty is to exercise a general supervision over, perhaps, three or four agencies, and to be present at each annual payment, and who outranks the agent when the two are together. He, too, like the agent, is appointed for the four years’ term of the presidency, and is popularly supposed to be attracted to the office by the same motives.
I have as yet said nothing of the source from which the requisite funds are derived for the payments, but it must not on that account be supposed that the United States government annually indulges a generous impulse, by distributing gratuities amongst the wild tribes on its borders. As emigration sets further westwards, the government, recognising for form’s sake, the title of the Indians to the land they occupy, makes treaties from time to time with those tribes on whose property the settlers are encroaching, and buys up their land at the rate of about ten cents, (fivepence) an acre, at the same time reserving out of the purchase a certain district for their use, which hence receives the name of Reservation. But the capital of the purchase-money, instead of being paid over at once, is invested, and the interest divided amongst the members of the tribes in question once every year, some in cash, some in provisions, some in dry goods or clothing, while part also is set aside as I have mentioned, as an agricultural fund, and of this, in addition to their regular share of the remainder, the civilised class reaps the benefit.
Having succeeded, I trust, in explaining to a certain extent the system which the United States pursue in their dealings with the Indians, let me return to the day we came to the Agency, and the way in which we spent it.
Our first thoughts were directed towards making sure of some sort of accommodation in the place for a day or two. And this appeared a matter of no small difficulty. There was indeed a farmhouse, that did duty as a sort of inn, or “boarding-house,” in which the whites of the place were in the habit of taking their meals, but this was full. Every bed in the place, we were told on all hands, was occupied. But thanks to “Pam,” who was kind enough to introduce us to the superintendent, we found that the difficulty was not insuperable, and so agreed to stay, the superintendent making himself responsible for our getting a roof to sleep under. Having settled this point, we had time to turn our attention to the Indians and the day’s programme. The weather was glorious, and the day was a sort of holiday with the tribe. Indians came flocking in from every quarter, attracted by the report of the arrival of a steamer, a rare sight to most, and to some a novel one, for though, during those few months in the year which follow the break-up of the ice, when the water is high enough, a weekly steamer makes its way to the Agency, it must be remembered that but few of the tribe are resident there throughout the year, and that the great majority of those present at this time had been drawn thither by the payment. In they came, a mixed crowd of men, women, and children, lit gaily up by the bright colours—blue, green, and red—of the blankets which many of them wore, bustling about in a state of restless curiosity at the sight of so many strangers.
But after awhile, the attention of all, white and red, was turned to a council, in which the tribe proposed to lay its grievances before the new agent for redress. The agent presided in a chair, while the men who took part in the council sat facing him on the ground in three or four semi-circular rows, one behind the other. The orator, an appointed officer, who speaks for the tribe on such occasions, from the centre of the open space in front of the semicircle, addressed the agent in the Sioux or Dacota language, with all due emphasis and gesticulation, squatting down on his haunches at intervals to allow the interpreter (a white) to explain what he had just been saying. Outside the council stood squaws and whites, watching the proceedings. The men in council were for the most part smoking, passing their pipes from one to the other according to the custom amongst them, and every now and then would express approval of the orator’s words by a “Ho!” an equivalent to “Hear! hear!” with ourselves.
The council over, we adjourned to the “boarding-house,” where, after waiting till one set of hungry people had made way for us, we squeezed ourselves down to dinner at a crowded table. It were hard to say whether the dinner or our fellow-guests were the dirtier. But the slovenly meal is more especially impressed on my memory by the fact that some of us were inadvertently leaving, without settling the score, when we were arrested by the voice of the landlord shouting to us from the other end of the room: “Guess you fellers may as well pay for your dinners.” And yet this style of address was by no means new to me. I had learnt long ere this that in the West the rougher the man the more generally recognised were his claims to the name of a gentleman, and that to be spoken of as “this man,” or addressed as “you feller,” should be regarded in the light of an unconscious tribute to respectability. In the afternoon there was an ox (which had been given to the Indians, it was said, by the governor of the State, who had been our fellow passenger from St. Paul) to be cut up and distributed, after which an Indian dance was to come off in honour of the gift. So we sauntered forth to see what was going on. The beast had been slaughtered, and was being cut up. The Indians sat near in groups, chatting and smoking, and watching the operation with a degree of lazy interest; those who possessed such articles of luxury sheltered under umbrellas, while others would screen themselves from the sun under the shade of some leafy boughs, fixed close to them in the ground. Many of the visitors took the opportunity of driving bargains with them for their pipes and other curiosities, and a great deal of business was done in that way, but the usual result of a heavy demand was apparent in the extravagant prices asked. We, having made up our minds to remain, waited for a cheaper market on the morrow. The Indians themselves would not unfrequently make a bid for