amples of the reservation system.

In what follows, then, I criticise the reservation system, so far, at
least, as it applies to the Indians of California, and not the management
at Round Valley; and I say that it is a piece of cruel and stupid
mismanagement and waste for which there is no excuse except in the
ignorance of the President who continues it.

Most of the Indians of these northern coast counties, as well as those of
Southern California, have for some years been a valuable laboring force
for the farmers. They were employed to clear land, to make hay, and
in many other avocations about the farm; they lived usually in little
rancherias, or collections of huts, near the farm-houses; the women washed
and did chores for the whites about the houses; and there has been, for at
least half a dozen years, no pretense even that their presence among the
whites was dangerous to these. Mr. Burchard told me himself that more than
half the Indian men at Round Valley were competent farmers, and that
the Indian women were used at the agency houses as servants, and made
excellent and competent house-help.

Scattered through Potter, Little Lake, Ukiah, and other valleys, they were
earning their living, and a number of farmers of that region have assured
me that it was a serious disadvantage to them to lose the help of these
Indians. Nor was it even necessary to speak their language in order to
use their labor, for the agent told me that, of the Potter Valley tribe,
nine-tenths speak English; of the Pitt Rivers, four-fifths; of the Little
Lakes, two-thirds; of the Redwoods, three-quarters; of the Concows and
Capellos, two-thirds. The Wylackies and Ukies speak less; they have been,
I believe, longer on the reservation. As I walked through the Indian camp,
English was as often spoken in my hearing as Indian.

The removal of the useful and self-supporting part of the Indian
population to the reservation was brought about by means which are a
disgrace to the United States Government. There is in all this northern
country a class of mean whites, ignorant, easily led to evil, and
extremely jealous of what they imagine to be their rights. Among these
somebody fomented a jealousy of the Indians. It was said that they took
the bread out of white men's mouths, that their labor interfered with
the white men, and so forth. In fact, I suspect that the Indians were
too respectable for these mean whites; and you can easily find people in
Cal