Page 327

REPORT     OF  THE    COMMISSIONER       OF   INDIAN    AFFAIRS.      327
the farmers in charge of the Puyallup and Chehalis reservations had been
instructed to ascer- 
tain and report the number of each claim selected, with the name of the Indian
selecting it, 
that titles may be given them. As fast as the names of claimants and numbers
of claims 
taken on the treaty reservations are reported to me I will send them to you,
that allotment 
titles may be forwarded. As there is no treaty or act of Congress authorizing
titles to In- 
dians who have selected homes on non-treaty reservations; and as I regard
the taking and 
improving separate permanent homes by Indians as the first prominent step
toward true 
civilization, and as a matter of paramount importance, which should be encouraged
in every 
way possible, I shall prepare and give to each Indian who selects a claim
on a non-treaty 
reservation a simple tenancy title to himself and heirs, so long as he continues
to occupy 
and cultivate the same, which will satisfy them. 
The Puyallup reservation is much the largest, and contains more good agricultural
land 
than all those of the other reservations of Medicine Creek treaty combined.
The treaty 
provides for but one set of employ6s, and they are all on this reservation,
to wit, school- 
teacher and assistant, farmer and assistant, physician, blacksmith, carpenter,
and inter- 
preter. Superintendent Milroy had assigned this reservation to the care of
the Presbyte- 
rian church, and the employis were all of that faith. I found a commodious
two-story 
boarding-school building and goQd teachers, the Rev. Mr. Sloan, a Presbyterian
clergyman, 
and wife. They have preaching to a good congregation, and a prosperous Sunday-school
each Sabbath, but the week-day school, on account of the inadequacy of the
funds for 
boarding and clothing the children only, have 28 children, 16 of whom are
clothed and 
boarded by their poor Indian parents, so anxious are they to have their children
educated. 
I am credibly informed that, if adequate means for boarding, clothing, &c.,
were provided, 
at least 50 Indian children could be had from the different reservations
of the Territory to 
attend the school. As there are no Government employ6s at either the Muckleshoot,
Nes 
qually, or Squaxin reservations, of course there is no school or any other
civilized appliances 
at either one of these reservations, and all of their children are growing
up in the native 
barbarism of their parents. As the small school fund provided by the Medicine
Creek 
treaty expires next April, and if the school for the reservations of this
treaty is to be con- 
tinued, it must be by a direct appropriation for that purpose. I recommend,
in the name of 
humanity and civilization, that this appropriation shall be at least $5,000;
$2,000 of which 
shall be for the pay of three teachers, superintendent, matron, and teacher;
and $3,000 for 
boarding and clothing the children and other expenses of the school. 
I found on the Chehalis reservation only a farmer and a physician. The school,
as I was 
informed, was discontinued last spring for want of funds. The Indians complain
of this 
very much, and were very anxious for the school to be again opened. I found
that Superin- 
tendent Milroy had assigned the care of this reservation to the Methodist
Episcopal church, 
which had an organized church there of Indian members and two local Indian
preachers; also a 
very prosperous Sunday-school. Seeing that by the last Indian appropriation
act there was 
$3,000 allowed from the general incidental fund for the support of schools-one
at Colville 
and one at Chehalis-and believing that I would be allowed a sufficient portion
out of this 
sum to pay teachers for the Chehalis school, and I could get sufficient from
the amount of 
the general incidental fund allowed this agency for general expenses to board
and clothe the 
children of a reasonable-sized school at Chehalis, I took the responsibility
to employ a 
teacher and matron at the rate heretofore paid them, viz. $1,000 for the
former and $500 for 
the latter per annum, and re-opened the school there on the 28th instant
with 24 Indian 
children, greatly to the delight of the children and their parents. Two or
three times this 
number of children could be had if I knew that adequate means would be furnished
for their 
support. 
I presume that the main object of the Government in her Indian policy is
the civilization 
and christianization of the Indians. The ignorant, superstitious, barbarian
habits and cus- 
toms of the adult Indians being fixed and very difficult to change, of course
the only hope 
of permanent civilization is in the rising generation. If all Indian children
could be edu- 
cated and trained up in the habits, morals, and industries of civilized life,
they would become 
good citizens, melted into the body-politic, and our Indian system ended.
Indian school- 
children, unlike the children of civilized parents, have not only to learn
reading, writing, 
arithmetic, &c., from their school-teacher, but must also learn from
them the habits, morals, 
and industries of civilized life, which they cannot acquire from their ignorant,
barbarous 
parents, as the children of civilized parents do, at their homes. It therefore
seems to me to be 
a matter of the very highest importance that ample provision be made for
the maintenance of 
efficient industrial boarding-schools, in which all Indian children between
the ages of five 
and eighteen years should be required to attend. I therefore ask an appropriation
of $5,000 
for the support of the Indian boarding-school at the Chehalis reservation,
and most earnestly 
recommend that the other items of appropriation asked for this reservation
in the report of 
your predecessor for 1872, page 336, be also granted to carry into operation
the civilizing 
appliances and machinery recommended on pages 334, 335, and 336, of that
report. I would 
especially recommend the appropriation of $3,000 for procuring a good portable
saw-mill 
for the reservations set forth in the repor-referred to, and $2,000 for salary
of engineer and 
sawyer. 
The Shoal-Water Bay reservation,  )f about 340 acres, set apart by Executive
order ol