pulsory schooling for our children is right; but as the kindergarten is a fit transition to book teaching, so is herding the proper initiatory to culture of the soil.

The Indian must sooner or later share his natural opportunities for a living equally with the whites, and be satisfied with the same amount of territory; but it does not follow that he should be expected to be satisfied with it at once.

The 12,000,000 acres have been acknowledged to be theirs, whether properly or not, and it cannot be said that they have given it up willingly. They reluctantly ceded any of it, and entirely left the State only by compulsion. If the United States were not to blame for supposing, in years past, that the Rocky Mountains would never be wanted by the whites, certainly the Indians were not, and they ought to be eased up in the relinquishment of them as much as possible; and, if they must come to agricultural life, let them do so gradually, as we should certainly wish to under like circumstances. The support promised during the learning period is far less desirable- far less likely to hasten the time of their independence - than profitable and congenial employment like herding. Had one quarter of the reservation been left to them for another generation, the transition from hunting to a nomadic life with flocks might be hopeful.

Would not this have been at the same time politic and less cruel? There would, doubtless, have been greed among the miners and settlers till they had grasped the whole State; but they were not alone to be considered.

Granting, if you please, that the Utes should have been removed on to lands in severalty at once, should not their preference of locations have been regarded? Pre-occupation should give some claim to choice. Why remove them to as remote a country as possible? The Government must make a stand for them somewhere. It may as well be understood sooner as later that their farms, if not their reservations, are to be held inviolate. Perhaps the present locations in Utah and New Mexico are equal to any in Colorado. That the Indians themselves did not think so was reason against making the removal.

Before the Uncompahgre Utes were removed, the poor fellows made many unsuccessful attempts to have the agreement by which they disposed of their reservation reconsidered, and so modified as to enable them to remain and occupy the Uncompahgre Valley. "They were especially vehement in their demands to be permitted to remain about the ranch of their late chief Ouray, and to have the agency moved to to that point," a distance of about ten miles below the late agency. They were told that they had accepted and signed the agreement, and that the commission had no authority to modify or change it."* Again, after the commission had returned from selecting the new location, the Indians repeated their wish to remain at Ouray's place. They would not go to the new location without threats of compulsion.

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The nearness of the valley of the Uncompahgre, the home of their choice, to white settlements and a market for surplus produce, as soon as there should be any, should have been regarded an advantage. The early settlers in a new country are not by any means the best for the Indians to come into contact with. The New York Indians who remained in New York State in 1851 improved more and prospered better than those who migrated west.†

This constant crowding westward has all along kept the Indians from intercourse with better population, and discouraged improvements of the land. Ouray had a farm of considerable value, and several other Indians had cultivated the land successfully and made some money out of it.

In the abandonment of the reservation system, it is hard to see how the liability of conflict between the races is to be lessened. If the red men are not to be penned up within their acres (and why should they be any more than the whites within theirs?); if, like the whites, they are to be allowed to range over the public domain for game, the sudden transition to civilized pursuits may be avoided as with a large reservation, but at the peril of more constant and serious collision with the settlers than heretofore.

*See Report of the Special Commissioners.

† Otis' Indian Question, p. 103.

With the ordinary injustice to the race, it is likely that the Indian, who depends upon roaming for very support, will be restricted, while the white man, with already abundant arts of living on a limited area, will go free. The excuses of the military must be more plausible than ever, though untenable, for always defending the whites, when Indian reservation has become public domain.

The treatment of the Utes is less excusable in view of the fact that they have always been known as a peaceable tribe. There can, of course, be an amount of oppression that the best people cannot endure. It has often seemed to me that the time would come when neither love nor fear would prevent a collision. Then there would be "horrible massacre" if the Indians conquered in an open fight in defence of their homes and their rights; "glorious victory if the soldiers were successful in sustaining an invasion. There has been much less difference in the modes of warfare than in the proper significance of these terms. Certainly there has been much less difference in the cruelty of the two races than in their culture.

The proverbial cruelty and treachery of the Indian is but the natural resort of weakness against strength and ignorance against knowledge.

The Utes have been removed to their short quarters. The injustice done will not be undone. And now, does the past forbid us to hope that the best possible will be made by the Government out of the condition of helplessness and unhappiness to which it has brought them? They are surely entitled to everything that can be done for their welfare: they must have food and clothing until they can provide themselves with them.

Heretofore, the efforts to make them independent have not been co-ordinate and commensurate with the direct supplies of the necessaries of life. The appropriations for annuities have generally been abundant; but the money allowed for school-houses and schools, for workshops and tools, for agricultural implements, for live stock of the right kinds, and for mechanics and farmers who can not only work but teach how to work, has been altogether too meagre.

Had the cattle and sheep already mentioned been what they ought to have been, and what the Government intended they should be and paid for, and what they would have been except for the dishonesty of the contractors and the connivance or "gullibility" of the agents, the advancement of the Utes might perhaps have been much greater and the encouragement to teach them much greater. There is still reason, however, to be hopeful.

The Utes belong to a low grade of the race; but they can be taught, and in a few generations may become skilful and industrious. No persistent and systematic effort to improve them has been made. Children must be placed in boardingschools where they may be under constant supervision and can acquire the art of living as well as the rudiments of learning.

It were desirable that some of them be brought to Carlisle or Hampton, and be returned as teachers in the common branches of the schools and in industrial pursuits. Let it also be the aim of the Government to see that the Indian is stimulated by deriving profit from what he raises and manufactures.

No one is more aware of the difficulty of making these people work than the writer. While among the Uncompahgre Utes for two years as agent, he can claim to have accomplished very little in this direction, yet enough to be assured that, with a proper sequence of acquirements and in the course of say a half a century, a complete revolution in their habits could be effected. Only let the welfare of the Ute be duly considered in all our transactions with him; let him be recognized as a man, with all the essential qualifications of manhood; let us but realize what as a people we owe him, not only as a man, but for the sacrifices he has been obliged to make for us,—and no suspicions of his incapacity will permit us to slacken our efforts for him for at least a century. The Utes of Colorado, I repeat, have not yet had a fair chance. It is to be hoped that their hour of greatest oppression has passed. As we point to them now to illustrate the past treatment of their race, so may they hereafter

be examples of what may be accomplished under that wiser and juster policy of the United States which must soon be inaugurated. Nothing, perhaps, is more hopeful for the race than the public sentiment which has been created in their behalf within the past three years.

The report of the commissioners appointed to select the lands to be held by the Utes in severalty for farming and grazing purposes recognizes the difficulty of bringing the Utes speedily to civilized habits, and recommends an extension of the territory to be allotted under the agreement lately made, with the limitations and restrictions common to Indian reservations, for the double purpose of extending the herding district for a series of years and of protecting the Indian from too close proximity to the whites. This is really a recommendation of a retreat from the hasty advances made upon the territory of the poor savages. It remains to be seen whether justice and humanity will induce Congress ever to take such a step. If this recommendation is adopted, the Utes will have small reservations restored to them, within which their farms will lie.

Judging by the past, we must say this tribe is doomed; and its experience is paralleled by that of many another tribe. But we have no right to be hopeless. We owe these poor fellows more than we can possibly do. We never can compensate them for the wrongs they have suffered at the hands of our citizens, which the Government has been too powerless or too indifferent to resist. Nor can it be denied, whatever general intent of kindness there may have been, that there has often been a lack of humanity in legislation and administration.

Such stories are truly pathetic; and the common attempt of an enlightened race to excuse itself by recounting the barbarities of savages, not often unprovoked, is utterly vain and futile. It is by no means pleasant to contemplate the righteous retributions of heaven or the verdict of posterity. HENRY F. BOND.