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Wicked King

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.
equitable division of the lands in allotment cannot be made under
existing conditions.
“Two factions exist in the tribe, one in favor of allotting under
existing laws and the other in favor of selling the timber, distributing
the proceeds per capita and thereafter allotting the lands to the
unallotted Indians belonging on this reservation.
“Appended hereto is the part of the Office file relating to this
allotment correspondence, particularly the submission to the
Department of the request for authority to procure agreements from
the Indians to allot the lands under the existing laws with the
understanding that the timber should be cut and sold for the benefit
of the tribe at large.” (File omitted in this book.)
For several years there have been extensive cuttings of pine
timber on the reservations at Bad River, Lac du Flambeau, Lac
Courte Oreille, and Fond du Lac. The total amount cut on each of
these reservations was as follows: Bad River, 57,183,770 feet; Lac du
Flambeau, 23,049,110 feet; Lac Courte Oreille, 4,268,050 feet; Fond
du Lac, 13,128,775 feet. All of this timber was cut on allotments
except 12,068,620 feet cut from unpatented lands of the Lac du
Flambeau Reservation, claimed by the State of Wisconsin as swamp
lands, and 56,955 feet cut from tribal lands of the Bad River
Reservation.
A number of circular letters were addressed by me to persons
living in Wisconsin, requesting information as to the condition of the
Indians. It is known that not only is there vocational training in the
schools, but also more or less higher educational training. One of my
correspondents, a missionary, takes the view that there has been too
much higher education of Indian children in his State, and it would
be far better to confine the work to the teaching of trades and give no
book instruction beyond the fundamentals. He thinks that the
average Indian when educated beyond this point, is not willing to
take his place as an ordinary workman. Another gentleman, while
expressing satisfaction with much that has been done, sums up the
situation in the particular Indian community in which he resides as
follows: “Too much red tape.”
The progress of these Indians while slow, is satisfactory. They do
not present a sufficiently interesting problem for our study at the
present time. It is safe to predict that within a generation, a full-
blood Indian in Wisconsin will be a rarity. They may continue to live
an indefinite length of time in various communities where they are
now settled, but Government supervision (save possibly on the
Menominee reservation) may be safely withdrawn in the near future.
In Michigan the larger number of Indians are Chippewa
(Ojibwa), with a sprinkling of Ottawa and Potawatomi. Schools care
for a majority of their children, and the adults are, for the most part,
quite self-supporting. They may be dismissed from our pages.
Proceeding westward to the headquarters of the Mississippi, we
have the great Minnesota region which is generally covered in my
four chapters upon White Earth reservation. West of the Mississippi
River, there are very few Indians in that great area of Texas (but
702), and in Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana; the numbers
range from 313 to 780. These areas may be set aside as containing
such a preponderance of white population as to render those of
Indian blood an extreme minority. Of the mountain states, Colorado
contains but 870 Indians, Wyoming 1715, and the others 4,000 to
11,000. The great Indian populations are, therefore, confined to nine
states. Ten states contain from 800 to 8,000. The remaining twenty-
nine contain but a fraction of the entire Indian body, and they are
now more white than Indian.
Texas, in spite of its enormous size, is interesting in that but a
handful of Indians are in evidence. In 1850 the Indian population
was considerable. Nelson Lee’s book of captivity among the
Comanches[8] gives an idea of the extent of the roving bands of
Comanches and Apaches infesting the State in early days. The
hostility of the Texas people was such that through the organization
of the famous Texas Rangers those Indians were either driven out of
the State or exterminated. Very little consideration was shown them,
and I can find no evidence of any general effort being put forward to
protect these Indians in their rights or place them upon reservations
or establish schools among them. Our troops were frequently sent
into Texas, and as late as 1875, roving bands of Indians infested the
western part of the State and carried on raids into old Mexico, or
stole stock from Texas ranches. As to the number of Indians in the
State of Texas just prior to the Civil War, there seems to be no
reliable statistics.
The Texas tribes were of the general Caddoan stock, of which the
Comanche appear to have been the largest and strongest branch.
These Indians ranged through the valleys of the Brazos and Colorado
and extended their conquests to the land of the Apache, along the
Rio Grande, to the west. They were essentially buffalo Indians and
were not agriculturalists, but presented the purest nomadic type
found in the southwest. This must not be misunderstood. The
Navaho are nomadic to a certain extent, but their range has been
limited. Moreover they possess flocks and herds. There is no
evidence that the Comanche ever domesticated sheep, goats, and
cattle, although they frequently obtained stock in their raids against
the Texans. As they were continually on the move following the
buffalo in its migrations, or planning war parties against the white
people and Mexicans alike, they were pure nomads, as stated above.
Years ago, during the height of Indian troubles in Texas, a law
was passed expelling red men from that State. Indians entering the
State were subjected to fine, imprisonment or expulsion. The feeling
against the race was very bitter, and Indians in Texas never received
just treatment.
A few of them were, in later years, taken to Indian Territory, but
most of the Comanches, it is safe to affirm, were killed in action.
Although the Texas rangers were superiorly armed and better
mounted, the Apaches continued their warfare from the earliest
times down to about 1870, when their power was permanently
broken. They were very cruel and vindictive. Nelson Lee’s narrative,
to which I have referred, is one of the most interesting Indian
captivities ever brought to my attention. It presents a vivid picture of
the Comanche as they were during the period preceding our war with
Mexico.
CHAPTER IV. THE OJIBWA OF MINNESOTA

The Ojibwa commonly known as Chippewa, constitute one of the

great divisions of the Algonkin stock. We shall have much to say
concerning their ethnology, in a subsequent volume. But following
the scope accepted for this book, we shall treat of the Ojibwa as one
of the great Indian tribes (numerically), at the present time and one
much “advanced” along the white man’s trail.
The year 1850 found the Ojibwa, or Chippewa, Indians located
as they are at the present time, with some exceptions. A few in
Wisconsin and on the shores of Lake Superior; some at Turtle
Mountain in North Dakota, but most of them living in the State of
Minnesota at Leech Lake, White Earth, Red Lake and Cass Lake. The
number of these Indians in the year 1851 was about 28,000. In 1884
the entire number is given as 16,000. In 1905, the “Handbook of
American Indians” estimates that there are 15,000 in British
America and 17,144 in the United States.
Those who wish to trace the migrations, and study the
interesting customs and folklore of these people would do well to
consult an interesting book written by an Ojibwa, Mr. William W.
Warren. The manuscript of this work was prepared between 1850
and 1853. Warren’s mother was three-fourths Ojibwa and his father
a white man. He died of tuberculosis June 1, 1853, and the
Minnesota Historical Society did not publish his history of the nation
until 1885. Clearly, Warren was the most prominent of later-day
Ojibwa; he had served in the Minnesota Legislature, and he was
possessed of a brilliant mind and would doubtless have made his
mark in the world had he lived.
In the early ’50’s and ’60’s a few of the fur companies still did
business in northern Minnesota. It was no uncommon sight to see
the “Red River ox carts” bringing supplies into northern Minnesota,
or carrying loads of furs to the nearest Hudson Bay post, in the Red
River valley to the north. The Ojibwa came in contact with the
French-Canadian element during the activities of the fur trade, and
had little in common with, or met few Americans, until white settlers
from the East increased in numbers in the State of Minnesota.
While this and the succeeding chapter are confined chiefly to
White Earth, a description of Leech Lake and Red Lake reservations
should not be omitted.

HONORABLE GABE E.
PARKER, CHOCTAW

Registrar of the United

States Treasury.

The Ojibwa Indians living on Red Lake have not been allotted,
but hold their land in common. The pine timber possessed by them is
valued at several million dollars. Most of the cabins are grouped
about the shores of Red Lake, and the Indians while not well-to-do,
are far from pauperism. It has not been necessary to ration them as
in the case of White Earth, where the Superintendent, Major John R.
Howard, last winter fed 762 Indians. The reasons for this are set
forth in succeeding pages.
The Ojibwa at Leech Lake have valuable white pine, but this has
been cut under Government supervision and the dreadful scandals
occurring at White Earth have been avoided. At Leech Lake, Red
Lake, and Cass Lake, the Indians live by working in the lumber
camps, agriculture, fishing, and some serve in other branches of
industry. They have, however, depended entirely too much upon
interest payments made by the Government. Much of the educating,
training and support of these Indians is paid for by the interest
accruing to the Indian on a fund of several million dollars in the
United States Treasury and belonging to the Ojibwa of Minnesota. It
has been pointed out by other observers, and emphasized in
addresses at Lake Mohonk and elsewhere, that this fund is a curse
rather than a blessing. The mixed-blood element, controlled by a few
shrewd French-Canadians, wish to secure possession of it; attorneys
are attracted by its presence; the young men and women, in some
cases, will not work since they expect to be supported out of the fund.
It should be divided up per capita among the Indians. The
Government should control, or supervise, the portions belonging to
Indians known to be incompetent or drunkards, and instead of
paying them money, give them groceries and clothing until their
portion of the fund is exhausted. Councils should be called on all
reservations, or at central points, on allotment groups, and the
Indians made to understand that with the payment of this money,
responsibility on the part of the United States ceases,—excepting in
the case of incompetents, referred to above.
With the dreadful lesson of White Earth, staring everyone in the
face, it is incomprehensible that Red Lake should be allotted, and the
timber issued to the Indians. Yet there was a determined effort to
bring about such a result, and it was only through opposition of the
Indian Office, and Inspector E. B. Linnen and others that the steal
was prevented.
The Indians live in frame and log dwellings. The birch-bark
wigwam is rare—save for summer residence. Ordinary “store clothes”
are worn by all persons. The birch-bark canoe still persists, and there
are some survivals of ancient customs. Such a majority of the people
speak English and live like the lower classes of Caucasians, that the
bands may be considered less Indian than the Sioux, and much less
primitive than the Navaho. The photographs prove this statement.
Let us look backward and compare conditions of the ’80’s and of
1905–’12.
 Rev. Joseph A. Gilfillan was a missionary in northern Minnesota
for twenty-five years. He became entirely familiar with the Ojibwa
language and spoke it fluently. He is a quiet, modest man. The
Indians told me of numbers of heroic actions on his part during the
twenty-five years he labored in and about White Earth reservation.
During the spring of one year, when the ice on the lake was breaking
up, two white men were in a most perilous situation, and although
there were larger and stronger men standing about, no one would
venture out to save the lives of the unfortunates. Gilfillan went out—
although he frequently broke through the ice—and managed to bring
both men ashore.

BUILDINGS PINE POINT, WHITE EARTH,

MINNESOTA

Built and formerly occupied by Rev. James Gilfillan

as a school. Now used as Government School.

On another occasion, he was held up by several armed men, sent

out by the mixed-blood and French-Canadian element, who opposed
his missionary labors. In fact, one of the men presented a gun and
threatened to shoot him if he continued in his determination to
preach to the Indians that Sunday. The above incidents (and more
could be related) give an idea of the character of this worthy man. He
has never been engaged in any of the disputes regarding the
deplorable situation among the Minnesota Ojibwa, and it required
considerable urging on my part to persuade him to testify before the
Congressional Investigation Committee of which Honorable James
Graham was Chairman.
Rev. Gilfillan, largely at his own expense, built splendid
schoolhouses, missions and chapels at Pine Point, White Earth and
Twin Lakes. His mission was successful and he had at one time
several hundred Indians in attendance in both school and church,
and a corps of efficient workers. I think it is correct to state that there
were more church members on White Earth reservation during
Gilfillan’s administration than at the present time. Certainly the
moral tone was far above that which obtains today. It is sad to relate
that Gilfillan’s missions were discontinued, and the buildings where
he devoted so many years of unselfish labor were taken over by the
United States Government at far less than their actual value.
Rev. Gilfillan’s statement made to me, and accepted by the
Congressional Committee[9] and published in their report is as
follows:—
Washington, D. C., Dec. 9, 1910
“Hon. Warren K. Moorehead,
Andover, Mass.

“My dear Sir: Your favor of 8th instant has just reached me, and it gives me
pleasure to answer your inquiries. The first is, ‘While there was much suffering
when you were missionary at White Earth, Pine Point, Twin Lakes, etc., is it not
your opinion that there was less swindling than at the present time?’
“In answer I would say that I do not consider there was any suffering at all to
speak of from June, 1873, when I went there, till along toward 1898, when I left.
The Indians raised garden produce; many had fine fields of wheat. They could
gather all the wild rice they wanted to; fish were abundant. Some of the men made
two or three hundred dollars by the muskrat hunt each spring. They made a good
deal by furs. Some hunters killed as many as forty deer in a winter. They made
maple sugar. They had all the berries they could gather. From all these varied
sources they made a good living. They had unlimited fuel at their doors. They were
rent free. I have heard people say, and I believe it, that there was not nearly so
much poverty or suffering as in a white city, where the poor have only one resource
—wages. If they had wished to raise a little more vegetables, as potatoes, corn, etc.,
they could have lived on the fat of the land. They were in those days happy,
peaceful, and contented communities. To the above-enumerated sources of income
of theirs I omitted to mention that there passed through my hands for them, given
by the Episcopal mission, more than $130,000 in money for all imaginable
purposes—from spectacles to building churches for them and supporting their
children in schools. There were several thousand dollars’ worth of clothing sent me
for them by charitable people. There was no crime during the twenty-five years I
was there, although for many years there was not even Indian police. There was no
instance of holdup or robbery, not to speak of greater offenses. Life and property
were absolutely safe—far safer than in any white community I know. None of them
would ever have thought of molesting anyone. They were in those days happy,
peaceful, harmless people. As to how the present state contrasts with that, you
have been out there lately and know better than I.
“As to your second question, whether there was less swindling than at the
present time, I would say that then there was none at all. The Indians had no lands
to sell; no property of any kind except their little patches of gardens, their little
furs, wild rice, etc. There was nothing to tempt the cupidity of the white man. As to
how that contrasts with the present, you have been out there and know better than
I.
“But I ought to qualify this by saying that for some years in the nineties there
was a great deal of swindling from them unwittingly perpetrated by the
Government, for an account of which I refer you to my inclosed printed statement
made to Mohonk Conference in 1898, which you will find on Page 13 of the
inclosed pamphlet. And that you may know that the statements made therein are
true, I may inform you that the then Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Hon. William
Jones, who went to the ground and personally investigated, endorsed upon that
statement: ‘I find that the statements herein made by Mr. Gilfillan are in the main
correct.’ This indorsement does not appear on the copy I send you, but is on other
copies. To briefly specify the heads under which this swindling was done: it was;
First, by billeting upon them three Chippewa commissioners at $39 a day for the
three, making with their clerks, etc., $88 a day, the Indians said; said
commissioners being mostly politicians out of a job, and their positions almost
sinecures. Secondly, by repeated farcical ‘estimating’ of their pine; three several
‘estimations’ (pretended), covering a period of perhaps nine years; two of said
estimations costing $360,000, and then done dishonestly in the interests of those
who bought the pine, whereas the real worth of the work, done honestly, was only
$6,000. Thirdly, by cutting green pine, but paying for it as ‘dead and down’ pine,
so getting for it seventy-five cents a thousand instead of five dollars a thousand.
But most destructive of all was the swindling done by fire; the timber being fired to
allow of its being cut as ‘dead and down’ and paid for at seventy-five cents a
thousand instead of five dollars. It was a pitiful sight to see those magnificent pine
forests, where I used to ride for seventy miles on a stretch through great pine
woods, shapely and tall, the trees reaching up, it seemed, 100 feet, that, like the
buffalo, could never be replaced, now all blackened and scarred, killed and dead.
The glory of the State of Minnesota was gone when in the nineties her magnificent
pine forests that covered so large an area of her northern part were fired to get the
Indians’ pine for seventy-five cents a thousand.
“Now, as to your next question, whether there was more drinking among the
Indians then than now. I am glad to say that for many years after 1873, when I first
knew them, there was, one may say, no drinking among the Indians. The mixed-
bloods, who were mostly French-Canadian mixed bloods, always drank a little, but
the Indians were remarkably free from it. The White Earth Indians lived twenty-
two miles from the railroad, the nearest place where they could get liquor; they
were almost that distance from the nearest white men. The Red Lake Indians were
one hundred miles from the railroad, the Cass Lake one hundred, the Leech Lake
seventy miles. They were almost as far from any white men, except the
Government employees and the missionaries. So they were secluded from the
white man and his vices. But the great reason of their immunity was the missions.
The influence of the Gospel and the church in their secluded position kept them
safe. It is no reflection on the White Earth Indians to say that in the place from
which they had been removed in 1868—Crow Wing—they had fallen most
dreadfully under the dominion of the ‘firewater,’ both men and women. They were
in a most dreadful state of degradation from that cause. But never was the power of
the Gospel more signally shown than in their cleansing and renovation on the
White Earth reservation. I never saw a drunken Indian nor even one that I thought
had tasted liquor. They had become communicants of the church, had their family
prayers, their weekly prayer meetings from house to house, where they exhorted
each other to steadfastness in the Christian life. What had such a people to do with
liquor? Some of them, who at Crow Wing had been in the lowest depths, told me
that they had not tasted liquor in twenty years, others for other periods; and I
know they told the truth. Among all the chiefs, numbering perhaps twenty, on
White Earth Reservation, there was just one who drank, and he, I am informed,
had the liquor supplied to him by a mixed-blood, who, in payment, got him to
swing the Indians to his schemes.
 OJIBWA, BLIND, FROM
TRACHOMA, PINE POINT,
WHITE EARTH
RESERVATION,
MINNESOTA

“But into this fair garden of temperance Satan drew his shining trail and
toward the last years of my residence there sadly marred it. It was found that much
money could be made out of Indians drinking, and it soon grew up into a most
profitable industry. It came about in this way: Congress, as everybody knows,
passed a law that liquor should not be sold or given to Indians. A set of men arose
who saw the money there was in that; they arrested Indians who had taken a drink,
or as witnesses, took them to St. Paul or Duluth, fiddled with them a little, and
then presented a bill of $400, I believe, to the Government for each Indian, which
money was paid, and they divided it up among them. The Indians had all the
whisky they wanted while under the care of these deputy marshals, as they were
called; they kept drunk while with them, and they brought plenty of liquor home
with them to the reservations when they returned. They did not want to stop the
Indians drinking; they encouraged it; the more drinking the more cases and the
more money for them. This was found so profitable that it grew to a monstrous
height. Once they had, it was said, every adult male Indian on the White Earth
Reservation in St. Paul in whisky cases, a distance of, say 240 miles, and for every
one of these men they got perhaps $400. The most of the deputy marshals who
made the arrests were French-Canadian mixed-bloods of the lowest character,
nearly all of whom openly and frankly drank themselves, though in the eyes of the
law Indians like the Indians they arrested; and a high official of the United States
Government told the writer that one of those half-breeds made $5,000 a year out
of it, as much, perhaps, as the salaries of the members of the Cabinet of the United
States Government. How many hundreds of thousands of dollars or how many
millions they got out of the Government by this swindle under the form of law it
would be interesting to know. Some of those mixed-bloods worked that gold mine
for eighteen years. The loss of so much money to the Government was pitiful, but
not half so pitiful as the terrible demoralization of the Indians by the operations of
those men. Here again the good intentions of the Government in passing that law,
that liquor must not be given or sold to Indians, was turned into death and
destruction to them, and became most bitter gall in its carrying out by the agents of
the Government to enrich themselves.
“So the answer to your question as to whether the Indians drank more then or
now must be that in the early years after 1873, when there was just one honest
white deputy marshal named Nichols, they drank practically none at all, most of
them never tasting it for years; but that later, after the swarm of mixed-blood
deputy marshals arose, there was much drinking under the manipulation of those
men, restrained, however, by their very great lack of money, for at that time none
of them had got any.
 “As to your other question, namely, the relative healthfulness of the Indians
then and now, I would say that there was always much tuberculosis among them,
owing to their crowding into one-room cabins, heated very hot in the winter,
without ventilation; and if there was one tubercular patient, that one was spitting
over everything, so that if there was one sick in a family he or she almost
necessarily communicated the infection to everyone who was infectible. They say
that formerly, when they lived practically in the open air, winter and summer, in
their birch-bark wigwams, though in a 40–degrees-below-zero temperature in
winter, and lived on a flesh diet, that consumption was unknown among them; but
in the transition state, when shut up in the one-room cabin, living on salt pork and
heavy bread, and in many other unsanitary ways, the ravages of consumption have
been serious. Whether worse now than in the days from 1873 to 1898 I do not
know. I only remember a few who had sore eyes, which I suppose was trachoma, in
those days.
“Believe me, very respectfully yours,
“J. A. Gilfillan”

There has always been a conflict between the full-bloods and

mixed-bloods of Minnesota, and especially at White Earth
reservation. This dates from the migration of a number of mixed-
blood Indians (chiefly French-Canadian) from Canada. They have
caused no end of trouble, and by clever manoeuvering dominated the
councils.
The favorite chief of the entire Ojibwa nation was Hole-in-the-
Day. He became war chief in 1846. The Indians talk of him even at
the present day, and the story of Ojibwa, presented towards the end
of this book, will be found of interest in this connection.
The Indians told me, during the investigation of 1909, who were
responsible for the murder of this fine old chief, but they were
unwilling to testify, fearing the vengeance of the French-Canadian
element. The following interesting communication, from one in
authority, clears up the murder of Hole-in-the-Day, and explains the
hostility between the scheming mixed-bloods, and the honest,
although ignorant full-bloods.
 INDIAN SCHOOL CHILDREN IN UNIFORM, PINE
POINT WHITE EARTH, MINNESOTA

“During the summer of 1912 Mr. James T. Shearman was

detailed by the Honorable Secretary of the Interior to secure
testimony concerning the eighty-six mixed-blood Indians suspended
from the White Earth rolls. At this hearing certain testimony was
given that may be of interest to you, as it explains the assassination
of the then head chief of all the Chippewas, Hole-in-the-Day, who
was killed at Crow Wing by a party of Leech Lake Indians in 1886. At
this hearing an old, blind Indian testified that Clement Beaulieu,
father of Gus Beaulieu, Albert Fairbanks, uncle of Ben Fairbanks,
and certain other mixed-bloods employed him and other Indians
then living at Leech Lake to go to Crow Wing and kill Chief Hole-in-
the-Day, agreeing to pay the Indians $2000 for the deed. They went
to Crow Wing and killed him according to agreement. Later, when
the mixed-bloods refused to pay the price agreed upon, they
organized another party and came to White Earth, intending to kill
Beaulieu and certain other mixed-blood families. Upon their arrival
here they were induced by the present Head Chief, Me-zhuck-ke-ge-
shig, who was related to one of the party, to return to Leech Lake.
After this old, blind Indian finished his story, Me-zhuck-ke-ge-shig,
now about ninety years of age, went upon the stand and confirmed
the testimony of the former witness. Mr. Shearman’s report is
probably on file in the Secretary’s office, and I am informed that a
brief of the testimony was made by Mr. E. C. O’Brien of the
Department of Justice, and you can probably obtain a copy of the
same.
“Since Mr. Shearman was here on the matter referred to, I have
been furnished additional testimony concerning the killing of Hole-
in-the-Day. It appears that the party left Leech Lake under the
pretext of going hunting, there being nine in the party, and that only
four of them were in the plot to kill Hole-in-the-Day. When they got
to the Crow Wing country May-dway-we-mind said: “Hole-in-the-
Day dies today.” Later, they met him about a mile and a half from the
Crow Wing Agency at a branch of the two roads, where he was killed.
After the deed was done, one of the party named Ay-nah-me-ay-gah-
bow asked why he had been killed. The answer was that they were
told to do it and that there was a reward for killing him, that each
one of the party was to get a thousand dollars and a nice house built
for him, and the one who shot first was to take Hole-in-the-Day’s
place as Head Chief. The man who asked the first question also asked
who offered the reward and he was told that Clement Beaulieu
(father of Gus H. Beaulieu), Albert Fairbanks (uncle of Ben L.
Fairbanks), ——[10] with others, were the men.
“Me-zhuck-ke-gwon-abe or Jim Bassett also stated that about
four years after the killing he came with May-dway-we-mind, Num-
ay-we-ne-nee, Way-zow-e-ko-nah-yay, O-didh-quay-ge-shig and
Day-dah-tub-aun-gay to White earth for the money that had been
offered as a reward and which they did not obtain.
“It is a matter of history that Hole-in-the-Day was opposed to
the admission of the mixed-bloods to this reservation and that he
was killed at their instigation, and there has been irrepressible
friction between these Indians ever since.”
 CHAPTER V. THE LEGAL COMPLICATIONS
AT WHITE EARTH—THE DEPARTMENT OF
JUSTICE

Judge Marsden C. Burch, representing the Attorney General of

the United States (Department of Justice) before the Committee on
Expenditures in the Interior Department, House of Representatives,
went into modern Ojibwa history at great length. The hearings began
July 25, 1911, and continued through March 27, 1912. The testimony
lies before me, and it fills 2,759 pages. It would be well nigh
impossible for readers to consult this enormous bulk of evidence
submitted by several hundred witnesses. He found, as have others,
that they moved into Minnesota from the head of Lake Superior
some seventy years ago. About 1868 the White Earth reservation was
established, and the following bands were located at White Earth,
Leech Lake, Red Lake, and Cass Lake in Minnesota: the Mississippi;
the Otter Tails; the Pillagers; and a few Indians still claiming they
belonged to the Lake Superior band and the Fond du Lac band. The
White Earth reservation consisted of thirty-six townships, or
829,440 acres. The population in 1909 was 5,300; about 700 full-
bloods and 4,600 mixed-bloods. Those who have traveled over it will
agree with Judge Burch’s statement.
“I have never seen a more beautiful stretch of territory than that
embraced in the present White Earth reservation. It contained lakes
and streams, prairies and forests, timber enough of white pine
originally there to build all the elegant buildings that might have
been needed for centuries to come, of the most valuable character—
timber which now converted into lumber would be worth in the open
market, ranging by various grades, from $35 to $110 per thousand
feet, board measure. It is hard wood, ample for fuel and all kinds of
purposes. There were marshes and lakes wherein they could fish, and
whereon they could hunt and gather wild rice for their sustenance;
and the richest of prairie lands imaginable, high, rolling, healthy—
everything that could be desired for the last stand of a great race.”
On January 8, 1912, Judge Burch made a longer speech which
reviews the entire political and Departmental history of White Earth.
[11]
Some readers may wish to know a little concerning the legal
procedures by which Indians are dispossessed. We will, therefore,
take White Earth as an example, and omit the discussion of similar
troubles elsewhere. I present about a fourth of his address.

JAMES BASSETT, FULL-

BLOOD OJIBWA IN
TRIBAL COSTUME

In 1869, the Nelson Act was passed. This provided for the
collecting of scattered Ojibwa from ten localities and concentrating
them at White Earth, Red Lake and Leech Lake. Judge Burch enters
into a lengthy discussion of how the Nelson Act was followed by a bill
introduced by Senator Clapp, and that in January, 1904,
Representative Steenerson of Minnesota introduced another bill. Of
this the Judge says:—
 “Under the terms of this Steenerson Act each Indian who had
received an allotment on the White Earth Reservation or was entitled
thereto should have an additional allotment sufficient to make the
original and additional total 160 acres, provided that if there should
not be enough land for 160 acres each, the additional allotments
should contain only so much land as could be allotted by dividing the
total remaining allotable land by the number of eligible allottees.
“We expect to show that of this White Earth Reservation there
was an area of lake surface aggregating 59,731.24 acres; also that
there is claimed as swamp land going to the State as part of its quota
under the organic law of Congress 26,658.15 acres. The allotments
additional under the Steenerson Act were made by one Simon
Michelet, the White Earth Indian Superintendent, or Agent, at that
time. By omitting the two items of lake land and State swamp land
from consideration, he figured that there was sufficient territory
practically to furnish each allottee the full 160 acres of land, and thus
he proceeded to allot to those who first came to be served the total of
160 acres; of course, including all the valuable pine upon the
reservation.
“We expect to show that those who were thus favored by these
complete additional allotments were largely composed of persons
who could be handled in the matter of purchase of the timber by the
representatives of the lumber companies that had procured the
greater portion of the timber in the four townships. Large numbers
of persons eligible to additional allotments, but who came later, were
denied the same because there was no land left for them, there being
31,516.88 acres lacking. It will thus be seen that the so-called
additional allotment under Michelet was a fraud upon the rights of
from 400 to 500 Indians who were absolutely left out in the cold. In
addition to this, it would seem that the allotments made included the
59,000 odd acres of lake land, thus increasing the fraud upon those
who were not favored with pine in these additional allotments. The
allotment was, of course, in direct violation of the Steenerson Act
itself. It is a matter of question whether those who had knowledge of
and participated in the benefits arising from these illegal allotments
can not be yet reached by a court of equity and they compelled to
account for their misdeeds.
 “No machinery for carrying into effect the Clapp amendment
was provided therein, and thus it remained to be determined who
were and who were not adults of the mixed-blood and freed from
restraint as to alienation. The result was that designing persons
rushed in and obtained deeds and mortgages indiscriminately; that
is, from children of the mixed-blood and adults of the full-blood the
same as adults of the mixed-blood. In all of these they were
accustomed to recite the competency of the Indian, and attached to
the deed in each case they usually secured what purported to be the
affidavit of two persons that the allottee was an adult Indian of the
mixed blood, which affidavits were ordinarily passed with the deed in
making mesne conveyances or in recording in the proper county
recording office. In connection with these transactions we shall be
able to demonstrate to the committee that every variety of fraudulent
schemes and devices which would occur naturally to acute minds was
resorted to to defraud the Indians. The taking of these deeds in
violation of law from minors of the mixed-blood and from full-bloods
eventuated in the action of the Government in requiring the
Department of Justice to file about 1,200 bills in equity to remove
the clouds from the titles to lands thus unlawfully obtained.
“Following upon the sudden acquirement of money by persons
in some respects less fitted to handle the same and make proper use
of it than white children of tender years, there came a condition of
affairs which we expect to demonstrate to the committee as most
deplorable and shameful, a stain upon the fair fame of a great and
enlightened State. Saloons ran wide open. Cheap and tawdry articles
were sold at extravagant prices. The Indians were overreached, and
the money they had obtained from selling or mortgaging their lands
or timber was coaxed from them in exchange for objects of little or
no value, but of supposed utility—such as decrepit horses, defective
vehicles, unmanageable sewing machines, and even pianos of little
worth. A perfect frenzy of drunkenness characterized many who took
their way to the neighboring town of Detroit, and encamped in its
vicinity, and practically the same conditions occurred in the hamlets
along the Soo Road. The land-shark, passing under the more
dignified title of real-estate agent, was everywhere in evidence, and
the money-loaning shark, posing under the more dignified business
appellation of banker, was engaged in over-reaching the Indian right
and left.
 “From the close of 1906 or 1907, when isolated transactions
were going on, the fiercest of the fraud and debauchery had
subsided, till the summer of 1909 a condition like that of the quiet
which succeeds a prolonged intoxication occurred. The Indians had
mainly, in one form or another, parted with their heritage and in
most instances, had suffered severely from the result. Poverty,
sickness, a sense of mortification and loss at the hands of the white
men pervaded their minds and depressed their spirits. The pine
again, as in the case of the four townships, by clean-cut lines of
apparent division had shown up in the ownership and possession as
to certain territory (and this the largest and most valuable part) of
the Nichols-Chisolm Lumber Co.—pine reputed in extent to be of the
amount of 150,000,000 feet.

DISPOSSESSED OJIBWA AT REAR OF AGENCY

BUILDINGS

Rice River, White Earth, Minn., 1909.

“Pine in another clean-cut and well-defined territory, reputed to

amount to about 50,000,000 feet, was found to be in the possession
and under the control of the Park Rapids Lumber Co.; and in still
another section, equally well defined in its boundary line, a reputed
50,000,000 feet was controlled by the Wild Rice Lumber Co.
Likewise the best of the agricultural lands had fallen into the hands
of, or under the control of, the so-called bankers at the hamlets
before mentioned, and certain men of great wealth and influence
resident in the city of Duluth, as well as in St. Paul and Minneapolis.

“The first result of the treaties of 1889 was the saddling upon the
Chippewas of an allotting commission of three members and a large
retinue of subordinates. The expense of this commission was $88 a
day, and the work that the commission and its subordinates
accomplished could doubtless have easily been done by an allotting
clerk at $1,000 a year. Besides this commission many other white
officials were sent to the reservations, ostensibly to supervise the
cutting of the timber and on many other pretexts, for all of which the
Indians had to pay. A corps of estimators, each drawing $6 a day of
the Indians’ money, was appointed to estimate the pine on the Red
Lake Reservation. Fraud having been discovered in making this
estimate, a new corps of estimators, numbering about twenty-six,
was appointed to do the work over again. Each of the new corps also
received $6 per day of the Indians’ money.
“The new corps proved to be grossly incompetent. They were
always well supplied with whiskey and drank heavily. They spent
most of their time in towns fifteen or twenty miles distant from the
pine they were sent to estimate. Some of the interlopers were
members of this corps of examiners, and, though they absented
themselves for long periods of time, they still drew their pay. It has
been asserted that the total cost to the Indians of these two corps of
estimators was $350,000 and that the real value of their work was
about $6,000; that in many cases the pine had been underestimated
in the interest of the purchasers. The second corps of estimators were
likewise discharged and a third corps appointed to go over the work
previously done. Like the celebrated case of Jarndice v. Jarndice, it
seems that after all the proceedings were over, although the pine
alone on the reservations, exclusive of that on the White Earth
Reservation, was supposed to be worth from $25,000,000 to
$50,000,000, there would be little or nothing left but heirs.
Although an Indian entitled to a share of the immense value of these
lands and forests might be starving to death, he could not procure
two cents from his great wealth to buy a pound of flour.
 “While the proceeds from the sale of the pine was thus being
squandered, the Indians were also being defrauded by the loggers
and lumbermen who were purchasing the timber. By the conspiracy
at the Crookston sale in 1900, the Indians doubtless lost several
thousand dollars, and by the fraudulent operations under the so-
called ‘dead and down’ act, they lost even a greater sum.
“Another source of complaint on the part of the real Indians of
Minnesota is the payment of annuities to persons whom the Indians
contend are not members of their tribe, and whose names are not
properly upon the tribal rolls, and who consequently had no rights
thereto.
“Another grievance of which the real Indians bitterly complain
and which was the immediate cause of the outbreak of the Pillagers
in 1898, resulting in the killing of a major and six soldiers of the
United States Army, and the wounding of many others, was the
conduct of certain mixed-blood deputy marshals, several of whom it
is claimed by the Indians were persons who had improperly been
placed upon their tribal rolls. These deputy marshals originated and
developed, as we shall expect to show, a system of arresting and
transporting to St. Paul, Duluth, and Detroit various members of the
tribe, charging them either with bringing whiskey upon the
reservation or with some other like offense. We expect to show that
the purpose of these mixed-blood deputy marshals was to secure fees
for making such arrests and for bringing other Indians to the said
cities as witnesses against the Indians accused. The practice
continued for some years, until finally, as we expect to show, a
member of the Pillager Band was arrested in this manner and taken
to Duluth. He was left at Duluth without money to buy food or to buy
transportation home, and compelled to walk back to the reservation,
a distance of more than 200 miles. When he arrived at the
reservation he was nearly dead from exposure and starvation.

“An instance of the manner in which the Minnesota Indians

have been made the instruments or causes for defrauding the
Government through Congress, in the interests of attorneys, and
these same parties who have been so often suggested, is the Mille Lac
Indian case. An appropriation of $40,000 was secured through an
act of Congress ostensibly for the relief of the Mille Lac Indians as a
payment for certain alleged improvements made by them upon the
Mille Lac Reservation. The matter came up this way:
“In 1854 the Mille Lac Band ceded their reservation to the
Government. In 1862, when Chief Hole-in-the-Day advised a
combination with the Sioux for an uprising against the Government,
these Indians refused to participate on account of their ancient
enmity with the Sioux. To reward them for their loyalty the President
promised them they might still remain on their reservation as long as
they did not interfere with the Whites.

GROUP OF THIRTY PERSONS CONSTITUTING

LINNEN-MOOREHEAD FORCE WHITE EARTH
INVESTIGATION, 1909

“Under the Nelson Act, in the treaty of 1889, they ceded this
privilege of occupancy to the Government, but some portions of
them refused to remove to White Earth, claiming that they had never
really ceded anything to the Government. As an inducement for these
parties to leave, Congress was persuaded to appropriate $40,000, or
so much thereof as might be necessary for the purpose, to pay these
parties for the improvements they had made during their occupancy
of the reservation. (32 Stat. L. 268.) Michelet and this same ——[12]
went over for the Government to investigate and appraise the
improvements, and found practically none—nothing but the charred
remains of some Indian tipis; but to eat up, that is, to cover the entire
$40,000, these charred remains were appraised at the original cost
of the tipis, and items were inserted in the list of improvements, such
as the profit an Indian would make gathering wild rice for a year, for
gathering wild honey for a like period, and other like items. Now, the
real disposition of the money seems to have been as follows:
“First, $4,000 was paid to Gus H. Beaulieu for attorney’s fees,
$2,500 was paid to D. B. Henderson as attorney’s fees, and $1,500 to
D. B. Henderson for expenses. Four chiefs received $1,000 each.
About $17,000 was then prorated among the Indians; $10,020 then
remained in the hands of Gus H. Beaulieu.
“It then became necessary for the Mille Lac Indians to employ
another set of attorneys to sue Beaulieu for the $10,020. After
considerable expensive litigation, Beaulieu deposited $5,600 to the
credit of the Mille Lac Band in the Merchants National Bank of St.
Cloud, Minn., and paid $1,000 to the Indians’ attorneys.
“The traders in the vicinity of the Mille Lac Reservation then
commenced suit for the money so deposited, claiming that the
individual members of the band owed them money for goods. Again
a compromise was effected with the result that a portion of the
$5,600 was turned over to Agent Michelet for distribution. There is
now about $208 waiting for the claimants.
“We think this is indicative of the way in which Congress has
contributed innocently from the public funds to the support and
enrichment of a few persons of little or no merit, by a species of
pretense of recompensing the Indians who, in the end, have slight
participation in the generous provisions so by Congress made.”
CHAPTER VI. THE WHITE EARTH SCANDAL

Judge Burch’s research led him to conclude that the Indians

were in vastly better shape forty years ago than at the present time.
The reading of Warren’s book, Gilfillan’s testimony, and other
evidence establishes it beyond question that the Indian does not
seem to have suffered to any great extent in either health or morals
prior to 1880. The older men of the tribe, who were keen mentally in
spite of great age, when I visited those Indians in 1909, told me much
regarding their past. I visited them under most auspicious
circumstances, being empowered by the Indian Office to conduct
investigations of affairs at White Earth, and having at my command
numerous interpreters and assistants. The old shaman, Bay-bah-
dwun-gay-aush, Me-zhuck-ke-ge-shig, Ojibwa,[13] Mah-een-gonce,
and others with whom I talked a great deal, laid the blame for their
present deplorable condition on the unscrupulous French-
Canadians, mixed-blood element, as well as covetous white men who
sought timber and land. Gilfillan has pointed out in his letter the
increase of drunkenness due to large financial rewards offered by the
Government in pursuing a mistaken policy.
Father Aloysius Hermanutz has been at White Earth since 1878.
In his testimony before the Graham Investigating Committee, he
stated that the full-blood Indians at that time were in good condition.
Nearly everyone owned a team of oxen, a cow, and cultivated fields.
Many of them raised vegetables and there was much weaving of rugs
and small carpets. They had an Agent, Mr. Charles Ruffey, who was
kind to them but very strict. The farmer was a competent man and
knew how to make Indians work.
“I met him one day on the road on horseback. He went to that
Indian—to that farm—I met him there and asked him where he was
going, and he said: ‘There are two Indians, Father, up beyond that
church. They didn’t plow their field in order to put the seeds in, and
the Agent ordered me to tell them if they don’t plow their fields now
(it was in April) that the team will be taken away from them.’ And of
course they were oldtimers. That was Saturday when I saw them, and
on Sunday morning they started to plow. They were scared and they
plowed their fields. At the time the Indians were in very good
condition, and then afterwards it changed and they went down
again.”
The illustrations accompanying these chapters were taken
during the investigation of 1909 and give some idea of conditions
obtaining at that time. So much has been said and written regarding
the situation of the Minnesota Ojibwa, that the Government adopted
heroic measures, and conditions are to a great extent ameliorated,
but they are still far from satisfactory.
Omitting the racial traits of the people the past sixty years, let us
consider their present condition and the causes leading up to it.
The 1889 bill (Congress) was known officially: “For the Relief
and Civilization of the Chippewa Indians.” There is both sarcasm and
irony in that phrase, which only those of us who know what kind of
“relief and civilization” the Chippewas have received since the bill
was passed, can appreciate.
At the time White Earth reservation was created, a treaty was
made with the Ojibwa bands, March 19th, 1867. It was the
Government’s intention at the time this solemn treaty was signed, to
encourage progress in industry, and to permanently locate the
Ojibwa upon farms. With so laudable a purpose in view, one of the
provisions of this treaty was as follows: Any Indian who brought
under cultivation ten acres of land, was entitled to a fee simple
patent, or deed, for forty acres additional, and so on up to 160 acres.
This encouraged many Indians to become industrious and they
brought under cultivation many tracts of land. In 1887, under the
Dawes Act, the holdings of agricultural land were limited to eighty
acres. After the “Relief and Civilization” act of 1889, Gus Beaulieu, a
French-Canadian-Indian politician, and others became very active in
and about White Earth reservation. A Mr. Darwin S. Hall was
appointed Chippewa Commissioner and became interested in Mr.
Beaulieu’s projects.
Whatever the original purpose of this act, it was used by venal
white men to get hold of the Indians’ land. Previously the land had