Agriculture, Education, and Work
In the late 1870s and the early 1880s there was some farming by both the Cheyenne and Arapaho with the Arapaho being more enthusiastic and successful. However there were recurrent droughts which resulted in crop failures. It took several years for even the Indian agent and his farmers to understand basic techniques of dryland farming such as conserving winter moisture. There was some work hauling supplies, making hay, and cutting wood. Gradually more children were enrolled in the boarding schools on the reservation and at Carlisle Institute particularly after a separate facility patronized by the Cheyenne was established in Caddo Springs. However there was little work even for the Carlisle graduates. The Indian agent's promising attempt to build a cattle herd was aborted when the Office of Indian Affairs commanded distribution of the herd giving each Indian an average of three cattle, which predictably they did little with. Shortages of rations continued with few resources available to the Indian agent to provide work opportunities for his charges.
Read more about this topic: Cheyenne And Arapaho Indian Reservation
Famous quotes containing the word work:
“But the doctrine of the Farm is merely this, that every man ought to stand in primary relations to the work of the world, ought to do it himself, and not to suffer the accident of his having a purse in his pocket, or his having been bred to some dishonorable and injurious craft, to sever him from those duties.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)