The Indian Dispossessed
significance of the Government's beneficence is disclosed in the report for 1886:
"The Government has apparently been very generous to the Mission Indians. It has given them more than twenty different reservations, embracing nearly 200,000 acres; but what a country! After a careful examination of all the land we do not think there are over 5,000 acres of tillable land, and the best portion of that is now held by trespassers in defiance of the agent and Government.
"The Potrero reservation is covered over with squatters who have settled there long since the lands were set apart for Indian purposes. They are there in open defiance of law. They have managed to get their cases before the Indian Department for adjudication. The rights of these Indians to these lands are as clear and absolute as the proclamation of a President can make them. The squatters should never have had a standing in court till after they were dispossessed. The Government ought to have removed every one of them, and if they have rights then let them assert them before the courts. Until the Indians feel assured of a perfect title they will not build houses, put out orchards or vineyards, nor anything to make the land more valuable."
"The squatters should" and "the Government ought"—these are sure marks of a new agent. What a godsend to his Government and to the Indians each and every new, inexperienced agent
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