Simon Pokagon
An Indian on the Problems of His Race
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About the print version
An Indian on the Problems of His Race.
S. Po-Ka-Gon Editor Albert Shaw
The Review of Reviews
13 Astor Place, New York
1895
American Monthly Review of Reviews
Note: V. 12 (Dec. 1895): Pages 694-695.
Published: 1895
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AN INDIAN ON THE PROBLEMS OF HIS RACE.
BY S. PO-KA-GON, AN EDUCATED CHIEF OF THE POTTAWATTAMIES.
I. THE SQUAW MAN OF THE INDIAN TERRITORY.
SIMON PO-KA-GON, OF MICHIGAN.
IN traveling through the Indian Territory, a short time since, I was deeply
mortified to find nearly all the common people of both races living in such
ignorance and poverty. I visited many families of the lower classes, and learned
from them that they had no opportunities whatever to secure homes, as all the
best lands had been gobbled up by a few hundred "squaw white men" and "half
breed Indians," who were swimming in plenty and luxury while they themselves
were being drowned in want and poverty. I next visited one of the "squaw white
men," a land king, who owned thousands of cattle and over one hundred thousand
acres of good land, besides a squaw wife attired like a queen. I cautiously
asked him how he happened to marry her. He replied that under the law of his
nation white men were entitled to citizenship provided they married Indian
women, and that it further provided that a citizen could hold such land as he
might fence in or plow around. In answer to my question as to how he liked his
wife, he said: "It is the only investment I have ever made in my life that has
paid me, and I cannot go back on the bridge that carries me safely over." I then
inquired of him how long he expected to hold his vast estate. His answer was: "I
suppose always, as my nation has been guaranteed by the United States to be
perpetual, and our law-making power never to be interfered with by them. So you
see we are wisely protected for all time to come, and if white men trouble us
here, the United States has promised by a solemn treaty to drive them out of our
nation." He further informed me he was talked of for senator.
I next called on a member of the legislature who was a high-headed
half-breed, owning 60,000 acres of land, besides many horses and cattle. After
he had shown me his little farm and stock, I very carefully referred him to the
laws which the "squaw man" had told me of, and asked him if he considered that
they had a legal right to make such enormous land grants to a favored few, while
the common people were deprived of all good land, and the necessaries of life as
well. His reply was: "Our law makers are an educated body of people, and know
what laws are best for the people of the United States." I then said, "Do you
not know, sir, that the United States, by its several treaties gave you this
land in trust, with an express proviso that it should be held in common for all
the Indians; that is, each member of your tribes should share alike? And is it
not also true that you requested such proviso should be made, so that you might
live as near as possible, as your fathers did, east of the great river?" His
only answer was, "We are guaranteed by the United States that we may run our own
nation as we please and that they will not interfere with us." I replied that it
was very strange to me they should desire such unjust legislation. He then said,
"You common Indians cannot understand the spirit of national matters." I asked
him several other questions, to which he gave very evasive answers, finally
telling me my foolish questions "made him tired."
The fact is, the Indian territory is nearly as large as the State of Ohio,
with climate and soil fully as good. Its white population is about 300,000. Its
Indian population, squaw men and half-breeds, about 65,500, who constitute all
the citizens upon whom the government rests.
From the above, and many other facts not stated, Pokagon does feel that
Congress should take some measures, as soon as possible, to straighten out
matters in that territory, and to secure to the common red man the rights which have been basely stolen by the very lawgivers that should protect them; and also
should provide for the white men scattered throughout the territory, who are
lawfully and peacefully there, the rights of citizenship, which cannot fail to
break up that dangerous land clique of a few hundred squaw men and half-breeds
that now control legislatures and courts of law as well. In fact, Pokagon has
felt in his heart for several years that it would be more statesmanlike, instead
of caviling over the annexation of distant islands in mid-ocean, to at once
annex to the United states the Indian territory, which is practically composed
of four foreign powers, and then to admit it as a state into the Union as soon
as possible under the circumstances of the case.
II. AS REGARDS THE INDIAN RESERVATIONS.
It was good economy, no doubt, for the United States to free our people on
the great Sioux and other reservations, instead of keeping a standing army to
fight them in case they should take to the warpath. And yet the system is a bad
one for our people. It kills energy and begets idleness, the mother of vice. It
certainly will prove a fatal blow to our people if long continued. The
government ought to find something for them to do, although it might pay it but
little or nothing. It is too much like fattening animals. It forms a nucleus
where unprincipled lazy white men gather whose only aim is to satisfy the greed
of appetite and the lowest passions of their nature. Most of them, through
marriage, become "squaw men," drawing rations from the tribe to whom their wife
belongs. And so it is our people are imposed upon, and becoming mixed with the
vilest of white men, who are much worse than savages, as is shown by the devil
that is born and developed in the half-breeds. The only way I can see out of the
present muddle is for steps to be at once taken whereby each family shall have
allotted to them a certain number of acres of good farming land which cannot be
sold by them for a term of years, and help them out of the Indian funds, as
occasion requires, and only have families of near kin, or those socially
connected, have allotments together, thereby avoiding outlaws and white
vagabonds who swarm at the present time like hungry bees about our agencies to
rob and steal at payment times.
Break up as soon as possible the last vestige of tribal relations. Teach them
to know that they owe allegiance to no man on earth except the great chief of
the United States. Make each one a present of a beautiful United States flag.
They take easily to object lessons, and will soon learn to love the Stars and
Stripes, and take great pride in feeling its image in their hearts. They must be
taught that they cannot longer live as their fathers did, but must live as white
men do, or else lie down and die before the cruel march of civilization. I have
sent many children to the government Indian industrial schools, among whom were
my own and grandchildren, and have carefully watched the workings of these
schools, and was indeed proud to visit them as they met on the World's Fair
grounds and exhibited the works which astonished the teachers of white schools.
Hence I believe those government schools were conceived by the Great Spirit, and
born in the hearts of noble men and women, and fully believe when a great
majority of the 28,000 children between six and sixteen who are still unprovided
for shall be gathered into the school, and when the reservations are broken up
and the people scattered in houses of their own, that then and not until then
will the great Indian problem be solved.
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