Of the Indian Rights Association
Regarding the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indian Schools at Caddo Springs and
Darlington, Indian Territory (Oklahoma)
Mr. Painter's comments:
At my request Mr. Seger gave me, for my own information, an account of his experiment, under Agent Miles, in getting Indian school children to support themselves. I publish it, as also the history of his Colony, though it was not written by him with the least expectation that it would be so used. I hope no one who would solve the Indian problem will fail to read these letters
SEGER COLONY, May 28th, 1887
PROF. C. C. PAINTER--
DEAR SIR:--As you wished to have me make a note of some of the results of my work in trying to civilize these Indians, I will state very briefly some of the methods used:--
In 1874, I was set to work by Agent J. D. Miles to show an Arapahoe how to plough and plant his field and fence it. I succeeded in getting him to do about half the work in ploughing, planting and fencing five acres of ground. At this time the Cheyennes were on the war path, and the Arapahoes were generally very insolent. While we were at work, there would frequently some bands of young Arapahoes ride up to us and try with taunts and jeers to get Curly (for that was the Indian's name) to give up his farming. At one time Curly bared his breast to them and showed a number of ugly scars and dared them to call him a squaw; he told them he was not a man with two hearts. When he was an enemy to the whites he procured his own food and blankets, and now as he was eating their food and receiving kindness from them he was willing to learn to provide for himself by cultivating the earth, as he was convinced that that was the road all the Indians would finally have to travel.
This Indian was the only one that farmed that season. 1875. J. D. Miles placed me in charge of what was then called the Arapahoe Mission School, though it was run by the Government. When the first term closed it was called the Arapahoe Industrial School. With Indian boys belonging to the school we planted and cultivated 50 acres of corn and a garden, and cut the wood for the school.
1876. The school building was enlarged to accommodate one hundred children, and then the Cheyennes put their children in school for the first time. The proceeds of the corn crop raised in 1875 was invested in cattle, paying for thirty-two head. In 1876 the school, under my charge, raised 100 acres of corn and a large garden. One-half of this crop was turned over to the Government, and the other half sold and invested in 100 head of two-year-old and yearling heifers. The cattle were divided among the boys according to the work they were able to do, and each boy's cattle were pointed out to him and branded, so he would know them. The boys herded the cattle.
I bought forty-two head of cows at eleven and twelve dollars each, and placed them in the herd and sold them to the school children for the same that I paid. As a good deal of the work about the school was done by the children, for which they received small pay, I persuaded them to invest a small portion of their wages in the purchase of cows.
The girls that worked in the laundry, sewing room and kitchen were soon the owners of a cow each. The forty-two head were soon closed out and paid for by the school.
One young Indian woman that worked in the laundry paid for three head. One Cheyenne woman traded buffalo robes for twenty-five two-year-old heifers, and gave them to her daughter, who was in school.
Agent Miles and myself, after considering the matter, concluded that this school herd and farm could, in time, support the school, so that the school would not only become a Manual Labor and boarding school, as we then called it, but it would be a Manual Labor and self-supporting school. With this end in view, with the Indian boys I hauled logs for a house, which, with the help of Agency carpenters, was built at Caddo Springs, three miles north of the Agency. The cattle were moved up to that place, and I detailed three boys to take care of the ranch and cattle. With the Indian boys I put up a stack of hay which was sold out to passing freighters at the rate of one cent per pound, an Indian boy selling the hay kept account of the money and turned it over to me, and it was used for a contingent fund for the school.
The Northern Cheyennes who had been sent down to this Territory were not willing to put their children in the same school with the Arapahoes. Agent J. D. Miles had a temporary building put up at Caddo Springs, near the log house before mentioned, large enough to accommodate fifty children, and I moved into the log house with my family and undertook to run the school of fifty children with one white lady to assist, and the work was done with large scholars from the other school. The baking was done by a Cheyenne boy, and the sewing by an Arapahoe girl, the cooking by an Arapahoe girl assisted by the baker and his apprentice. The dining room and the chamber work and laundry was done by details from the school.
The school was taught by a Cheyenne girl who had got all her training from the other school. The primary school of fifty children was taught and cared for with only one white person, who went from one department to another and had a general supervision of all the children of this school, started new from camp, except those who were employed to work, and they were taught in the school room by an Indian girl. They left off at the close of a term of about four months with very few that could not read in the First Reader, and they could repeat many passages of scripture and sing hymns. I kept raising corn and paying Indians for work, when they could take the place of white employes, and got as many to invest their earnings in cattle as I possibly could. A few benevolent people donated a small amount toward the herd, and in one way and another we had a herd of 400 head of cattle. Of these, 150 head belonged to the school as an endowment fund; the remaining 250 belonged to the school children individually. About this time an Indian Inspector came and looked over the herd and inquired into the plan and was pleased with the prospect. He recommended that 400 heifers be given to the school by the Government, which was done, and there is where our reverses set in. Before these cattle were given to the school the Government had no claim on the herd, as it had been earned mostly by the Indians themselves, and what little had been given was the property of the Indians as a school, not of the Government. The Agent did not have to account for this herd any more than he did for the Indian ponies and their lodges.
But when the Government gave 400 head of cattle, the Agent had to take them up on his books and had to account for them and become responsible. The Indian boys now had to take care of double the number of cattle, and they did not know to whom half of them belonged. Their own cattle they knew how they came by--they had earned them, one at a time; some of them they had watched grow up from cunning little frisky calves until they had become cows and the mothers of other calves. The boys, when they were detailed on herd, could point out their own cattle to their fathers and mothers and friends and could realize that they were the owners, and were taking care of their own cattle. When the new lot came in, they would naturally ask "To whom do these cattle belong?" The answer would be "They are given to the school." The next question would be "What for?" We might answer "To make the school self-supporting," but--did--it--do--this? Let us see how it turned out.
The boys lost a great deal of interest in taking care of the herd, as there were so many cattle belonging to the Government, and so few belonging to the children. I lost my interest in the scheme, as the Government had jumped my claim, and I gave up the job. The Agent soon found it was necessary to hire a white man to take charge of the herd. This cost, I think, $75 per month. The herd being larger, it required more horses. The Government must buy horses to herd these cattle. The Agent must take them up on his accounts and be responsible for them. The result was, the Inspector came, recommended that the herd all be issued out to the school children, and their parents should take them to camp and take care of them. This was done, except the taking care of them. The majority of the children do not know what became of their cattle. I know many of them were eaten up the next winter; many sold for half price; some strayed away for want of care; a few of them were kept and the Indians have been content to kill only the increase.
I am fully satisfied that if the Government had let that herd alone, that to-day, with the farming that could have been done by the children, the schools would cost the Government at least $10,000 less per year than at present, and the school children could mostly have been located near the schools by the Government helping them to improve a small place, and much of this help could have been furnished by the school. Oxen could have been taken from the school herd to break the ground, and as the school boys all knew how to plough, the cost of starting a home for each boy as he grew up would have been trifling.
When I left the Indian work, I did not expect again to engage in it, though I remained in the country, and hired Indians to work for me. I have paid them thousands of dollars: have employed them to carry mail, make brick, put up hay, tend mason, excavate for cellars and cisterns, cut cord wood, herd cattle and horses, chop and haul logs to the mill, and build wire fences. I did this when I was not an employe of Government and it was optional with me whom I hired.
In the above statement I wish to show that Indians can and will work; that if their labor is properly utilized it will support them. The fault is not with the Indians that they are not self-supporting, but with the policy that tries to make men and women of them by feeding them as Indians.
In the case of this school here, there was $10,000 worth of cattle thrust upon these Indians whether they wanted them or not. They had no corrals, no permanent abiding place: they were here to-day and there to-morrow, and were not ready to take care of cattle except in their way--which was to kill them and to eat them.
In the case of the school herd there was $5,000 worth of cattle that had cost the Government nothing. They were purchased with the earnings of the school, and the natural increase of the herd: they were accumulated as a white man accumulates stock. The children valued them as a white man values his stock.
With the above account of the school herd before you, need I tell you what the drawback was? If so, I will answer by using an old proverb, which is this--"Too many cooks spoil the broth."
Yours truly,
MR. SEGER'S ATTEMPT TO MAKE AN INDIAN SCHOOL SELF-SUPPORTING; HOW IT SUCCEEDED, AND WHY IT FAILED
J. H. Seger
[From "The Conditions of Affairs in Indian Territory and California," A Report by Prof. C. C. Painter, Agent of the Indian Rights Association (1888)]
