Inspector C.C. Duncan had reported: “I have the
honor to report that I have this day completed the inspection of this Agency.
When here two years ago I had the pleasure of reporting this agency, then under
Captain Cooke, as one of the best managed agencies under the Department, and I
especially made mention of the system of irrigation which had been projected
and almost completed by Captain Cooke, at very little expense to the Government.
I find that the present Agent, Mr. Steell, has taken up where Captain Cooke
left off, continued the work and with the present allowance of one thousand
dollars will be able to build such lateral ditches as are necessary for the
purpose of utilizing the lands alongside the main ditches, and there will be
plenty of land and water to furnish a sufficiency of hay for all needful
purposes. It is useless to expect any results from farming on any portion of
this Agency except a few small valleys favorably located, and the results of
farming the present year show that with about five hundred acres in cultivation
only five or six hundred bushels of grain were secured. This is purely a
grazing country, one of the best sections in the west for cattle, especially to
fatten cattle. Some of the winters are rather hard on young cattle, but with
proper attention and feed for two months in the year they will live through
until spring. I find that the Indians here are doing well in cattle, seem to be
impressed with the idea that it is important for them that they should raise
good stock, and from cattle heretofore furnished by the Government and such as
they owned themselves they were enabled to put in on the Government contract,
during the present year, something near a half a million pounds of beef,
besides shipping six hundred head to Chicago, they now own some few over twenty
thousand head, or about ten head to each Indian. Under their recent treaty by
the terms of which they are to receive from the Government one million five
hundred thousand dollars for a portion of their reservation, ceded for that
amount and really worth about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, they will
for the next ten years be well provided for, and if they can be induced to
continue their present effort in raising and caring for cattle they will be on
a self-supporting basis.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau
pg.68-69
No comments:
Post a Comment