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Show R E P O R T OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. DEPARTMENTOP THE INTERIOR, OFFI~E OP INDIAN AXFAIRS, Washington, October 5, 1885. SIR: In compliance with t,he requirements of law, I have the honor to submit my 'nnual report of the operationa ot t,he Indian Bureau for the year 1X85, prefacing the same with some observations which will indicate the policy which I think should be adopted in the manage-ment of the affairs of the Indians. This Bureau will be fortunate if it should? amid the ma.ny conflicting interests with which the right,s of the Iurlians are confronted, be able to secure to them full aud complete justice; while, on the other hand, it will &ll very far short of its duty should it waver in its determina-tion to require from them a substant,ial compliance with its regulations and an obedience to t,he laws. PARMS AND HOMES. It requires no seer to foretell or foreseethe civilization of the Indian race as a resultnaturally dedocible from a knowledge and practice upon their part of the art of wgricultul.e ; for the history of agriculture among all people and in all conntries intimately connects it with the highest inteilectual and moral development of man. Historianli, philosophers, and statesmen freely admit that civilization as naturally follows the im-provecl artsof agriculture as regetation followa the genial sunshine and the shower. and that those races who arein ignorance of agricultureare also ignorant of almost eversthiup else. The Indian coustitutes no ex-ception to this political maxim. Steeped as his progenitors were, and as more than hadf of the race now are, in blind ignorance, the devotees of abominable superstitious, aud the victim^ of idleness and thriftlessness, the absorbing querx which the hopelessness of his situation, if left to his own guidance, suggests to t,he philanthropist, an11 particularly to a great Christian people like ours, is to know how to relieve him from this state of dependence and barbarism, and to direct him in paths that will eventually lead him to the light and libert~yo f Amerioan citizenship. There are in the United States, exclusive of Alaska, about 260,000 |
