Helen Hunt Jackson, from A Century of Dishonor (1881)
There are within the limits of the United States between two hundred and fifty and three hundred
thousand Indians, exclusive of those in Alaska. The names of the different tribes and bands, as entered in
the statistical table so the Indian Office Reports, number nearly three hundred. One of the most careful
estimates which have been made of their numbers and localities gives them as follows: "In Minnesota and
States east of the Mississippi, about 32,500; in Nebraska, Kansas, and the Indian Territory, 70,650; in the
Territories of Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, 65,000; in Nevada and the Territories of Colorado,
New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona, 84,000; and on the Pacific slope, 48,000."
Of these, 130,000 are self-supporting on their own reservations, "receiving nothing from the
Government except interest on their own moneys, or annuities granted them in consideration of the cession
of their lands to the United States."
. . . Of the remainder, 84,000 are partially supported by the Government-the interest money due
them and their annuities, as provided by treaty, being inadequate to their subsistence on the reservations
where they are confined. . . .
There are about 55,000 who never visit an agency, over whom the Government does not pretend to
have either control or care. These 55,000 "subsist by hunting, fishing, on roots, nuts, berries, etc., and by
begging and stealing"; and this also seems to dispose of the accusation that the Indian will not "work for a
living." There remains a small portion, about 31,000, that are entirely subsisted by the Government.
There is not among these three hundred bands of Indians one which has not suffered cruelly at the
hands either of the Government or of white settlers. The poorer, the more insignificant, the more helpless
the band, the more certain the cruelty and outrage to which they have been subjected. This is especially true
of the bands on the Pacific slope. These Indians found themselves of a sudden surrounded by and