Henry Gannett

“ West of this singular strip of forest the country assumes the appearance of the "Great Plains,"—that long incline which stretches eastward from the base of the Rocky Mountains. The surface is a monotonous, rolling, treeless expanse. ”

“ The Navajoes are another tribe of the Athabascan group which is far removed from the body of the family. They inhabit the northern part of Arizona and New Mexico, where they have a fine reservation. They have considerable native civilization, not a few of them engaging in agriculture, and in raising horses, sheep, and goats. They weave blankets, which are prized highly throughout the south-west. They are a fine athletic race, and excellent horsemen. While not an aggressive tribe, they have frequently been at war with the whites. ”

“ As, however, all stimulus to self support is wanting, it seems surprising that any tribe should have made perceptible advance at all, and the progress attained is therefore encouraging for future effort. The policy of the Dominion Government is almost precisely similar to that of the United States, but the results are very different in the two countries. While the United States have had almost continual trouble with their aboriginal inhabitants, Canada has had no Indian difficulties of importance. ”

“ The name Pueblo (city) is used to designate a number of tribes of town-building Indians in New Mexico. They resemble one another very closely in their surroundings, and in their manners and customs; and their history has been the same. Subdued by Coronado in 1540, they made a successful revolt two years later, but were subdued again in 1586. In 1680 they made another unsuccessful revolt. When the country was ceded to the United States in 1848, these Indians were recognized as citizens, and have since remained so. Their houses are communal, generally but one structure for the whole village. ”

“ Driven westward by the Dakotas, they were found by early explorers at the eastern base of the Black Hills, in Dakota. Subsequently part of them moved south, and allied themselves with the Arapahoes. Within a few years they have all been collected on a reservation in the western part of the Indian Territory. Their whole history has been a series of wars against their red neighbours and the whites. They are a large, powerful, athletic race, mentally superior to most of the other tribes. Their occupations are war and hunting. Thus far they have made little or no progress in civilization. ”

“ On the other hand, it has been greatly depreciated and even brought into contempt by the vagaries of certain etymologists, who discover affinities where there is nothing but the vaguest verbal resemblance. [1] Science has demonstrated beyond all cavil that, while differing widely among themselves, the American languages not only betray no affinity to any other tongues, but belong to an absolutely distinct order of speech. They are neither isolating or monosyllabic like the Indo-Chinese group, agglutinating like the Ural-Altaic, Bantu, or Dravidian, nor inflexional like the Semitic and Aryan. ”

“ The obvious alternative also remains, that the two forms may have become differentiated on the American continent, just as similar differentiations must, by those who do not accept the doctrine of fixity of species, be assumed to have taken place in Asia. For such an evolution America offered a more ample field even than Asia, for it is not confined to the northern hemisphere, but stretches from the Arctic nearly to the Antarctic Circle, presenting in this wide range almost every conceivable variety of climate, atmosphere, soil, and temperature. ”

“ The language of the Chiquitos, of whom there are endless subdivisions, is one of the richest and most widely diffused in South America, serving, like the Tupi in the east, as a sort of lingua franca jn the Bolivian lowlands and the northern parts of Gran Chaco. The numerous tribes of this latter region seem to form an ethnical group related to the Chiquitos peoples, and like them speaking a great variety of distinct languages. ”

“ The Dominion has always fulfilled the conditions of its treaties, and has always administered punishment promptly and severely when the necessity arose. The United States have broken treaty after treaty, or have neglected to fulfil their obligations to such an extent that most tribes no longer have confidence in the promises of the Government. In cases of outrages by Indians, it has, as a rule, been very slow and dilatory in punishment. ”

“ During the late civil war they were divided, part adhering to the Union and part joining the Confederacy. At present they number about 14,000.
The Dakota or Sioux nation is at present the most powerful of the Indian tribes in North America. Its warriors possess fine physique, great personal courage, and great skill in warfare. Though backward in adopting civilization, their intellectual powers contrast very favourably with those of most other tribes. The nation numbers 30,000 to 35,000 souls, divided into twenty-one bands or subtribes more or less independent of one another. ”

“ Within comparatively narrow areas occurs occasionally every conceivable element of confusion, as in California and the south-western States, occupied by the morally debased and physically degraded Pah-Utes, the tall and manly Mohaves, the ferocious Apaches, the mild and intellectual Indians of the New Mexican Pueblos, some fishers and hunters, some living on roots and berries, some skilled agriculturists, all speaking fundamentally distinct languages. ”

“ Amidst all these endless points of divergence, it seems impossible to find any common basis round which to group the various tribes and races, and the problem becomes further complicated by the fact that, while many of these tribes differ in speech, though evidently of one racial stock, others belonging to the same linguistic connexion present the widest physical discrepancies. Thus the Chiquitos and the Moxos peoples of Bolivia, obviously of one ethnical type, speak several fundamentally distinct languages. ”

“ Others are perched upon high inaccessible mesas, with strong towers for defence and observation, while others, "cave dwellings," are merely walled-in niches in the cliffs of the canons, evidently the last refuge of a hunted, desperate people. ”

“ These towns, which were evidently inhabited by a people closely resembling the Moquis and Pueblos, are found in south-western Colorado on the San Juan river and its branches, in north-western New Mexico, in south-eastern Utah, and over the greater part of Arizona. Certain regions appear to have been very densely populated. The largest towns are built in exposed situations, without special precautions for defence, and were plainly inhabited by a mild agricultural race, who were enjoying a period of peace. ”

“ Exception is made, however, in the case of white men who marry Indian women. In the case of most of the tribes, the Government holds in trust funds belonging to them derived from the sale of their original land. The income from these funds is paid in the form of subsistence and clothing, live stock, and tools. An agent is appointed for each tribe or group of tribes, for the purpose of regulating its relations with the Government, and of providing and issuing these supplies. ”

“ While, for instance, the Thlinkeet of the extreme north-west Pacific seaboard, the Apache of Arizona, the Quichua of Peru, and the Aymara of the Bolivian uplands are amongst the very harshest and most guttural tongues in the world, the Otuke of the Bolivian plains, the Mohave of Arizona, the Chiquito of the upper Paraguay basin, the Samucu on the north frontier of Gran Chaco, and many Amazonian dialects are distinguished by great softness, often rivalling in euphony the most musical languages of the eastern hemisphere. ”

“ Nutka, from Nutka Sound, west coast of Vancouver Island, came gradually into use as the collective name of the eastern Vancouver tribes, and of some peoples on the opposite mainland ethnically related to them. But the languages differ so widely that they cannot be reduced to a common root. Though possessing great intelligence and even considerable artistic skill, shown especially in their wood and bone carvings and plastic works, these north-western nations betray an absolute incapacity for adapting themselves to civilized institutions. ”

“ Inhabitants.—Besides the Indians who originally inhabited this territory, the United States Government has from time to time moved thither entire tribes or parts of tribes, from more or less distant portions of the country, assigning to each tribe a definite area or “reservation.” The immigrants now outnumber very largely the original occupants of the soil. The reservation is, to a certain extent, a prison-house. An Indian is not allowed to leave it without a pass from the agent ”

“ The Pequod and Mohegan tribes were amongst the largest and most powerful. Their range was central Massachusetts and Connecticut. During the settlement of those States, these Indians were removed to western New York, where they rapidly became civilized and prosperous. But in 1857, their land being wanted, they were removed to Wisconsin, and placed on a poor reservation there. They now number barely one hundred men, women, and children.
The Delawares, when first discovered by the whites, were living on the banks of the Delaware river. ”

“ The Pottawattamies occupied a part of the lower peninsula of Michigan, whence they were driven into Wisconsin by the more powerful Iroquois. They were allied with the French in their wars against the Iroquois, and took part in Pontiac's conspiracy. In the wars between the colonists and the mother country they took the part of the latter. In 1838 most of them were removed to a reservation in Kansas. Of these the larger proportion have abandoned the tribal relation, and become citizens. Of the others, some are in Kansas, upwards of 300 are in Indian Territory, while the remainder are wanderers. ”

“ Pacific Coast Indians.—The Indians upon and near the Pacific coast are divided into a great number of small tribes. Speaking generally, they are lower in the scale of humanity, both physically and mentally, than those of the interior. In northern California, Oregon, and Washington, their principal subsistence was, before the Government undertook their support, the salmon, which in spring crowded the rivers. They are mostly of a mild, peaceful disposition. The Indians of southern California were early taken in charge by the Jesuit missionaries, who Christianized and partly civilized them. ”

“ The only real intellectual faculty common to all the American races is that implied by the peculiar polysynthetic mechanism of their speech. But beneath this general morphological structure, the substance of the languages themselves varies greatly in all that concerns their phonetic systems, vocabularies, relational forms, syntax, and methods of combination. ”

“ The Arikarees, Gros Ventres, and Mandans are three tribes which inhabit a permanent village at Fort Berthold, Dakota, on the Missouri. They have a partial civilization of their own, not acquired from intercourse with whites. They live in houses made of wood, covered and thatched with earth and straw. For sustenance they depend largely upon the produce of agricultural labour. ”

“ The more general tints are a copper or cinnamon brown, and olive yellow; but the subjoined table of tribes, grouped according to their colour, shows that the extremes of a deep brown almost approaching a true black, and of a light or fair hue almost approaching a true white, also occur, altogether independently of latitude, climate, or elevation of the land:—
Similar tables might easily be drawn up of stature, varying from the dwarfish Eskimo, Fuegian (mean 5 ft. 1 in.) , and Peruvian (mean 4 ft, 9 in.) to the gigantic Patagonian, the tallest race on the globe. ”

“ Several of the tribes, notably the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles, have made considerable advance in civilization. All the members of the above tribes wear the ordinary dress, live in houses, and are engaged in civilized pursuits. Their occupations are almost entirely farming and stock-raising, principally the former. They support schools, which are attended by a large proportion of the children of the tribes.
The following tables, taken from the report on Indian affairs for 1879, illustrate the progress made by these five tribes ”

“ The climate is comparatively dry, the average annual rainfall being but 20 to 25 inches; and irrigation is needed for the successful cultivation of most crops. The mean annual temperature is somewhat lower than in the east, while the contrast in this regard between summer and winter, day and night, becomes much more marked. Timber is found only in the river valleys, on the faces of bluffs, and among the hills. ”

“ In 1878 there were 263,000 acres in the territory under cultivation by Indian labour; 503,000 bushels of wheat were produced, 3,038,000 of Indian corn, 220,000 of oats and barley, 339,000 of vegetables, and 120,000 tons of hay. The live stock consisted of 59,200 horses, 249,000 cattle, 189,400 swine, and 22,500 sheep.
The population of the five civilized tribes is almost entirely rural. There are no large towns. ”

“ In the eastern part deer, and brown and black bears, are quite abundant, except in the neighbourhood of settlements; and wild turkeys are plentiful. In the western part antelopes and bison are the principal large game; wild horses are still occasionally met with; and various species of grouse, sage hens, owls, rattlesnakes, gophers, and prairie dogs are abundant. The vegetation of the eastern part is profuse, especially in the bottom lands. ”

“ It is a powerful, warlike tribe, at war with the whites almost continually since the latter entered the country. A large part of the tribe is on the Fort Stanton reservation in eastern New Mexico, while another portion, under the chief Victoria, has for a long time been devastating the border settlements of New Mexico. The Tonto-Apaches, collected in large numbers on the San Carlos reservation in Arizona, where they are doing something at farming, are of Yuma stock. ”