From 1877, when a $20,000 appropriation was made for Indian schooling, to 1900, when over $3,000,000 was appropriated, over $35,000,000 had been thus expended by the government. It had spent since its foundation nearly $400, 000,000 on the Indians, outside of the cost of wars against them; and the present expenditure is about $10,000,000 a year.
On 8 Feb. 1882 an act was passed, amended in 1890, to sweep away as soon as feasible, the system of tutelage and pauperization, in the belief that abolition was best for Indians and whites alike. All reservations were to be surveyed; all Indians who wished to take up lands in severalty to a certain amount might do so —and by the act become citizens, as well as all who had previously done so under treaties and Congressional enactments, over 10,000 in number. About 2,000 a year comply with the permission and many of these new citizens are made voters by their States; in 1915 there were over 24,000 such in the United States.
The total Indian population of the United States, exclusive of Alaska, on 30 June 1915 was 333,010. Exclusive of the five civilized tribes, including freedmen and intermarried whites (101,521), the number was 231,489 dis tributed as follows: The total area of Indian lands amounts to 68,102,691 acres in 224,713 allotments of which 34,768,430 acres are allotted, 33,334,261 are un allotted and 7,470 allotments comprising 1,077, 257 acres, are public domain. The total annual income of 309,911 of the Indian population on reservations for the fiscal year ending 30 June 1915 was $23,193,046, comprising $4,790,968 of crops raised by Indians, $2,114,623 of stock sold, $1,177,000 worth of weaving, basketry, etc., manufactured by 27,297 Indians, $1,446,021 of cut timber, $2,304,339 worth of wages earned, $499,585 of rations and miscellaneous issues, $2,975,526 from leases, $3,571,855 from sales of lands, $2,125,787 interest on trust fund, $630,560 treaty and agreement obligations and $1,556,182 of Indian moneys, proceeds of labor and mis cellaneous.
The progressive tendency of the present day has been reflected in the vigorous activity of the Indian Service branch of the Department of the Interior dealing, as it does, with the intricate complexities involved in the lives of over 333, 000 members of the race, both as to the in dividual and to every phase of their social and industrial functions. Thoroughly convinced that their material and industrial prosperity is more closely attached to their landed interests, the development of agriculture and stock rais ing has been given an impetus never before undertaken. Not only their own moneys but
reimbursable funds made available from appro priations by Congress have been invested in thousands of cattle and other live stock. The Indians are being taught how to make the best use of this wonderful asset and rapidly are realizing that from the farm and the range their material salvation must be obtained. A happy correlation of the instruction given in the schools is being made with the future environ ment of the boy and girl. The mere acquisition of knowledge is subordinated to the practical teaching of facts and laws which bear directly on everyday life on the farm and in the home. Poverty or dependence on others saps the ener gies of any individual. The Indian is no excep tion and the greatest work of the Indian Serv ice is placed on his material advancement. As his herds increase and his lands produce, the Indian becomes better prepared to assimilate the knowledge which comes from the study of books Love of home and domestic happiness follow as a natural consequence. In 1916, ac cording to the report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, the birth rate among the Indians exceeded the death rate for the first time in half a century. The prime factors in bringing about this result are up-to-date hygiene and sanitation, modern methods of combating pre ventable diseases and the disappearance of the mane Better habitations are now provided and the infants of the race are safe guarded from birth according to the principles of modern science; hospitals of modern type are provided, displacing the medicine man and his incantations. In consequence of what is being done in educating the Indian to the im portance of modern sanitation, tuberculosis, trachoma and other preventable diseases that formerly ravaged the tribes, are fast disappear ing. In academic and vocational schools, equal to those of the most progressive white com munities, the Indians are being taught the usual school subjects, the common trades, the prin ciples of the government under which they live, good manners, proper living and the niceties of refined society. Consult Sells, C., An nual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior' (Washington 1915). See also CHEROKEE;