Collection: Directories and Documents > Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection

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Title: Funding the California Indian Superintendency Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection # of Pages: 13 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2024-09-03 14:21:59 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 03:17:31 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 03:17:31

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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ri Vor 59 C1a9a) 4F. Historical Society of Southern California a 36 Scott’s Bluff rises 750 feet above the plain. It was named for Hiram Scott, an * early fur trapper who crawled some sixty miles to this place to finally expire after being abandoned as dying by his companions. ; 37 Spring Creek was filled with trout. a 36 Mitchell Pass Station, immediately south of Scott's Bluff. The Robidoux Pass. route, several miles to the south, had been extensively used during the earlier migration. These old passes have since eroded into deep valleys, now almost li canyons. The site was once known as Camp Schuman and after 1864, as Fort 9 Mitchell. Both served as an out-post for Fort Laramie. a 39 Horse Creek Station and ranch were located here on Horseshoe Creek and in © 1862 the rancher’s wife was an Indian. Her relatives were frequent visitors. " 40 This trading post was known as Fort Bernard. Other travelers report that i ; was a poor post, offering little help to the emigrant. a 41 Fort Laramie was one of the most important points on the road to Oregon © and California. Under various names and at nearby sites, the place had been settled since 1834 by the fur trappers. In 1849 the post was sold to the Government. to become a military post. Here travelers could always find traders and Indians with the latest news on conditions of the route and attitude of the Indians. Repairs could be made to the wagons, the oxen shod, necessary articles acquired an general overhaul made for the mountainous road ahead. The Fort takes its a from Jacques La Ramée, an early trapper who lost his life here in the river in 1821, The site is now a National Monument and many of the original buildings have been preserved. They are the oldest buildings in Wyoming. Funding the California Indian Superintendency: A Case Study of _ Congressional Appropriations ¢ BY MICHAEL A. SIEVERS Among historians of Indian affairs, it is seemingly an article ‘of faith that Indian appropriations were insufficient. Henry E. Fritz, noting in The Movement for Indian Assimilation that apwropriations averaged a little over six million dollars annually, ‘observed that Congress was determined to “appropriate as little as possible.” “Most Congressmen,” he continued, “had no ear for complaints about scanty rations and starving red children.” Loring Benson Priest, arriving at the same conclusion, wrote in Uncle Sam's Stepchildren that “Indian administration following the Civil War was repeatedly on the verge of collapse because of a shortage of funds.” Earlier, the Indian Peace Commission re‘ported in 1868 that “scarcely a dollar is expended . . . on the “civilization of Indians.” Yet, in spite of such generalized statements, there is a paucity of ‘in-depth research on Congressional funding of Indian affairs. ‘Although Priest’s Uncle Sam’s Stepchildren and George Dewey Harmon’s Sixty Years of Indian Affairs discuss funding in more ~@ detail than most, accounts are usually either too general or “# oo detailed to be of much value.’ Yet an understanding of the ~@ relationship of appropriation to policy execution is central to 4 comprehending the implementation of Indian policy. No writer has really explored with any sophistication or comprehensiveness guch issues as how much was appropriated, why it was appropriated, by whom, and whether funds were adequate. Moreover, the application of quantitative analysis to such problems is nonexistent.” Answers to these questions are outlined here only in reference to the California Superintendency in hopes that a more comprehensive study will see print in the future. [491