News about Indians

I found a newspaper in California that was written on September 14, 1887. It was called the Los Angeles Herald. There was a section about Indians written by John Ward, a United States Indian Agent. In this section John said, "Clothe the Indian with the insignia of citizenship, and invest him with title to land, in fee simple, and still it does not make him a man, without he has been taught the arts of industry and has solved the problems of self-support." In other words, he is fighting for Indians to become citizens and for them to farm to have more money. He also paraphrased that in the past year Indians farms have failed because of the dryness from the winter and because there is no irrigation system. Therefore it was hard for the plants to stay alive. On the other hand, he believes that the government has helped Indians become more educated with the building of some schools throughout reservations. But the problem with these schools is that the teachers are not professionally trained and disease spreads easily throughout the schools. Sanitation was a big problem for Indians during this time period (1887). Whooping cough and measles was spreading in the reservation and there was no way to stop it because of the lack of hospitals. Many indians died because there was no where for them to go to receive treatment. So John Ward is urging for the government to build hospitals on the reservations for them now. In conclusion, John Ward is trying to raise awareness about all of the problems that Indians are suffering through.

I am a white man living in Los Angeles and it is September 14, 1887. I have just finished reading the Los Angeles Herald that was published for today.  Todays newspaper was very interesting, lots of things were brought to my attention. In particular, 7 seven things caught my eye.

1. I did not know that Indians did not have hospitals on the reservations. This is horrible! How do they receive treatment when they are sick? How do they have surgeries if they need them?

2. Disease is spreading through the reservation schools so the school population is dropping. This means less Indians are getting educated.

3. There is no irrigation systems on the Indian farms. How can they grow food if there is not enough water for the plants? It is crazy because sometimes the us white people buy their products. But, if there is no water, how do we purchase the products?

4. There is a new medicine out called Hamburg Tea. This medicine apparently prevents and cures lots of sicknesses including, kidney disease, headaches, skin disease, nausea, and constipation. It also cleans the blood and purifies the whole body.

5. Recently, a lot of land has been put on the market. One ad in particular caught my eye. It said, "A Beautiful $10,000 Home Free!" This is interesting because who is selling their home for free. But then I read at the bottom and it said that you pay a lot less than 10,000 so it is considered free but it's really not.

6. There is going to be an auction sale on Friday! This is the first auction sale of the fall season! I will take my family there if I can remember.

7. Lastly, I found that a new railroad will be working for just a few days this week. It is called "The Electric Railroad." Sometime this week I will go look at the railroad to see how technology has advanced.

Overall, this newspaper taught me more than any other newspaper has before. I am looking forward to all the events coming up! And I am going to try to help out the Indians so that they can receive, somewhat, the kind of resources that we receive.

Below is a picture of Hamburg Tea, a cure for many diseases: