school system. This will be at a saving of about $1,000 a year to the Government, will provide a trained primary teacher, and the teacher's quarters will be assigned to the district farmer for whom quarters have heretofore been rented. Very few men teachers are trained or adapted to the work of primary teaching, and in my judgment, wherever conditions are fit, trained women primary teachers should do the day school work. In general, with reference to Government Indian day schools, this may be a discordant note, but it is an honest one: The present urge for more advanced grades in the day schools may easily carry us too far. Parents will not control children in the homes or en route to and from school, and teachers can not do so. There is little restraint or control of the young on the reservation It is true that the boarding school is an abnormal and unnatural institution, but much of our work with Indians is in overcoming natural tendencies. We should have better law and law enforcement machinery on the reservation before attempting to go beyond the fourth grade on the reservations with which I am familiar. Very respectfully, JNO. B. BROWN, Superintendent. ANNUAL REPORT, NARRATIVE SECTION SALT RIVER INDIAN RESERVATION, JUNE 30, 1929 SECTION IV. INDUSTRIES 66 Our program for Salt River Indians as to industries is to lease unoccupied allotments and tribal lands on an improvement" basis, thus securing the clearing and leveling of lands, the installation of power lines, wells, and machinery for pumping irrigation water, to improve reservation roads, fences, and homes. There are no funds available to these Indians, either private or public, from any other known source. This plan would take no land from any Indian farmer which he would or could improve or cultivate for himself, and it would provide improved tracts of land for those younger men who may desire to utilize them 10 years hence. The lands which it is proposed to lease have now no gravity water for irrigation and have none in prospect. It must be either this plan or the lands must remain desert. Farming and range-stock business afford the chief sources of income for these Indians. Much benefit to the range has resulted from the sale of several hundred worthless ponies. This is a distinctly advanced step. Methods are improving slowly and are still crude. Wheat, cotton, and Kafir corn or Hegari are the chief crops. Wheat is still largely cut by hand sickles, threshed by the tramping of horses, and winnowed in baskets by hand. We are trying to show them that to cut and thresh by use of a combine at a total cost of $2.50 an acre would be much better business. Conservation and tradition and their refusal to keep any account of costs have united to prevent progress. The attitude of these people is largely one of " gimme." They would be glad to have the Government send machines to harvest for them, but failing in this, would prefer the old, laborious, expensive way. There is some alfalfa grown for feeding horses or for sale, but there is not above a half dozen cows on the reservation. These Indians to have considerable poultry. There is little fruit and no citrus fruit, although most parts of the reservation are well adapted to such as to soil and climate. There are no cantalope or lettuce crops or truck gardens, although on the south side of Salt River, where there is available water, the white neighbors are growing these crops profitably. The remedy? Better control of the lawless, so that our Government farmers may be free to help and inspire the progressive members of the tribe. The prevention of vagrancy would help much. The best of our men will harbor, shelter, and feed the worst. A begging, loafing man who pollutes the atmosphere of our towns is arrested and put to work. Our Indians have minds to comprehend, and would speedily fall in line with a plan of law enforcement, if we had one. The idea that they should be pardoned because they do not understand is no longer tenable. There is an "improvement association" on Salt River Reservation, but thus far it has done little to justify its name. Its members are suspicious of our efforts for their betterment, spend their time in complaining of the Govern ment's failure to keep faith as to irrigation water, but do nothing to secure better use of the water they now have. This association voted to refuse the use of "pumped water" and refused a free ride to see crops grown by the use of such water. The leaders of this group are now busily opposing our tentative plans to lease their unoccupied and unimproved lands, without waiting for details or explanation of the plan. There have been no leases to white men on this reservation heretofore. There have been no patents issued and hence no land sales. There are many inherited allotments whose status is becoming more complicated as the years pass. The amalgamation of the race with the whites would be enhanced if those allotments, too small to be divided among the heirs and for which there are no Indian purchasers, were to be patented and sold to white settlers. This can not be done until suitable adjustment of water rights can be secured. Leasing small 10-acre allotments to whites is not approved as it would attract only the "sack-dragger” element. The sale of inherited allotments where the heirs will not use them is a gradual and sane way out of the reservation business, and is recommended. It is further suggested that allottees who persist in lawlessness might appropriately be given fee simple deeds to their lands, permitting them to sell same, and thus exclude the outlaws from the reservation, making them amenable to State laws. Very respectfully, JNO. B. BROWN, Superintendent. SURVEY OF INDIAN CONDITIONS THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES SATURDAY, APRIL 18, 1931 UNITED STATES SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE OF COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS, Fort McDowell, Ariz. The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at Fort McDowell, Ariz., Hon. Lynn J. Frazier (chairman), presiding. Present: Senators Frazier (chairman), Wheeler, and Thomas. Also present: Senator Ashurst, ex-officio member of the subcommittee, and Senator Hayden; Hon. J. Henry Scattergood, Assistant Commissioner of Indian Affairs; A. A. Grorud, special assistant to the subcommittee; Nelson A. Mason, clerk; and F. S. Milberg, official reporter. Senator FRAZIER. This hearing is held under authority of a resolution adopted by the Senate of the United States, authorizing a subcommittee of the Committee on Indian Affairs of the United States to make an investigation and hold hearings throughout the United States on the various Indian reservations. We are in a hurry this morning as we have got to drive a considerable distance to-day, so we will proceed at once. The first witness we will call is Gilbert Davis. GILBERT DAVIS was thereupon called as a witness, and, after being first duly sworn, testified as follows: Senator FRAZIER. Your name is Gilbert Davis? Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir. Senator FRAZIER. You live here at Fort McDowell? Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir. Senator FRAZIER. Do you have a business council among your Indians here? Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir; once in a while. Senator FRAZIER. Are you a member of the business or tribal council? Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir. Senator FRAZIER. Do you speak for the whole group or just a part of them? Mr. DAVIS. For the whole reservation. Senator FRAZIER. Do you have a statement you want to make to the committee? Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir. Senator FRAZIER. Go ahead. Mr. DAVIS. There is a great problem here for our reservation; that is a ditch called the Jones ditch that is above here, above Fort McDowell, which is supposed to be a high-line canal. That was abandoned for years. That was abandoned ever since 1910. It was used when the white settlement was here. When the reservation was turned over to the Indians the Government cared for it for awhile. They carried the ditch for the Indians for awhile. Then the head washed out. Now, we can not handle it ourselves and ever since we have asked the Government to rebuild the dam, renew the ditch again, but they tell us they have not got money enough to build the dam again and to renew the ditch for the Indians. Senator FRAZIER. How long ago did the head dam wash out? Senator FRAZIER. You have not had water since 1906? Mr. DAVIS. Not since that time, no; not on Dunne Creek. Senator FRAZIER. Is there available water, if a dam could be put in there? Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir. Senator FRAZIER. Have you had an estimate made to see how much it would cost to put in a dam? Mr. DAVIS. The Government surveyed it and they wanted to put up a new dam and ditch here but they told us that cost a lot of money. I do not know how much it will take but that is what I understand, it will cost the Government a lot of money. At the same time there is not enough land to put up the ditch. That is the excuse and that is the reason they let it go and they drop it ever since. Senator FRAZIER. Go ahead. Mr. DAVIS. That is our main problem here. All of the Indians on the reservation know that very well. We have lived here many years. We got the reservation in 1903. Then we want the Government to build that dam and the ditch for the reservation. We have no well that we can get for water, that is, for farming, and the Government people want us to do that. You want us to farm our land; you want us to condition ourselves, and yet it seems like some of the old people-it seems the Government just wants to starve us here, which is true. We have been asking the Government to build this dam for us. As I say they told us it cost a lot of money to build the dam and renew the Jones ditch again, so we just kept quiet about that. We have asked a lot of times. Senator THOMAS. How many Indians have you here on this reservation? Mr. DAVIS. I think it must be about 37 families here. There are only 193 or 194. Senator THOMAS. That is the total number of Indians. What is the name of the tribe? Mr. DAVIS. The Mojave Apaches. Senator THOMAS. Where do you come from? Mr. DAVIS. We come from San Carlos. Senator THOMAS. How far is that from here? Mr. DAVIS. It must be over a hundred miles from here. Senator THOMAS. Why did you come down here? Mr. DAVIS. We were under military prison at that time and the Government released us at San Carlos. When they released us we came here because that was the promise. The promise was our old Indians were mostly scouts and General Crook promised when we help the Indians or when we help the Government to make peace for the Government with the Apache Tribe then we must return to our homes, meaning in this country either here or Camp Verde. Senator THOMAS. Why were you held prisoners? Mr. DAVIS. We were supposed to be warlike at that time. Mr. DAVIS. We were captured. All of us surrendered and they captured us under military Senator THOMAS. When was that? Mr. DAVIS. In 1873, I think. I was not born at that time. That is all I heard. Senator THOMAS. How long were you kept prisoners? Mr. DAVIS. Over 20 years. Senator THOMAS. When you were released you were brought here by the Government? Mr. DAVIS. No, sir; they released us there, and some of our tribe went to Camp Verde and still live there, and some of us come here to Fort McDowell because we know that the old people, the old scouts, tell us this was our chosen place. My grandfather was the chief of the tribe and he remembered that promise. The Government sent some of the chiefs from San Carlos to select their land, and my grandfather was the one that selected Fort McDowell here. Senator THOMAS. You came here in about 1903? Mr. DAVIS. 1901; some came before, 1897. Senator THOMAS. Was this all raw land at that time? Mr. DAVIS. This was all white settlement. Senator THOMAS. White settlement? Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir. Senator THOMAS. Did the whites claim the land? Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir. Senator THOMAS. How did it come that you settled here among the whites? Mr. DAVIS. We camped around here. We asked the Government to give us this land because this was the promised land. Senator THOMAS. At that time was the land under irrigation? Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir. Senator THOMAS. By the white people? Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir. Senator THOMAS. The Government stepped in and bought the land from the white people and gave it to you? Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir. Senator THOMAS. And when was that? Mr. DAVIS. That is September 15, 1903. Senator THOMAS. At that time you had irrigation works? Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir. Senator THOMAS. You proceeded then to work the land under irrigation? Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir. Senator THOMAS. Can you raise anything here excepting through irrigation? Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir. Senator THOMAS. What can you raise without irrigation? |