absolute control of them, so that the Government
cannot build schoolhouses among them unless sites are deeded for that
purpose, which they are sometimes unwilling to do. These people are
still self-governing, but their titles are now in danger, owing to a
recent ruling of the local courts that declares them citizens, and as
such liable to taxation. Being for the most part very poor and fearing
to have their land sold for taxes, they have petitioned the United
States to act as trustee to manage their estates.

The natives of California were a peaceable people and made scarcely any
resistance to the invaders, a fact which has resulted in their rapid
decline and extreme poverty. Under the Spanish friars they were gathered
into missions and given a general industrial training, but after the
secularization of the missions the Americans took possession of their
cultivated lands, and many of the Indians were landless and homeless.
The remnants are now living as squatters upon the property of white
settlers, or on small pieces of land allotted them by the Government.

In striking contrast to the poverty-stricken condition of these Pacific
Coast Indians is the wealth of the Osages, a small Siouan tribe
occupying a fertile country in Oklahoma, who are said to be the richest
people, per capita, in the world. Besides an abundance of land, rich in
oil and timber, they have a trust fund of eight million dollars in the
United States Treasury, bringing in a large annual income. They own
comfortable houses, dwell in substantial towns, and are moderately
progressive.

THE TRUTH ABOUT INDIAN AGENCIES

The Indian of the Northwest came into reservation life reluctantly, very
much like a man who has dissipated his large inheritance and is driven
out by foreclosure. One morning he awoke to the fact that he must give
up his freedom and resign his vast possessions to live in a squalid
cabin in the backyard of civilization. For the first time his rovings
were checked by well-defined boundaries, and he could not hunt or visit
neighboring tribes without a passport. He was practically a prisoner, to
be fed and treated as such; and what resources were left him must be
controlled by the Indian Bureau through its resident agent.

Who is this Indian agent, or superintendent, as he is now called? He is
the supreme ruler on the reservation, responsible directly to the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs; and all requests or complaints must pass
through