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Show COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 9 As heretofore reported to you, an association of persons has under-taken to appropriate to their own use a portion of the land ceded by the Delawares, fronting on the Missouri river, and south of Fort Leavenworth; have laid out a' city thereon,and actually had a public sale of the lots of the same on the 9th and 10th of October last. These unlawful proceedings have not only taken place under the eyes of the military officers stationed at the fort, but two of them are said to be members of the association, and have been active agents in this discreditable business. Encouraged by these proceedings, and prompted by those engaged in them, other persons have gone on other portions of the tract ceded by the Delawares in trust to the United States, and pretend to have made, and are now making, such "claims" as they assert will vest in them the lawful right to enter the land at the minimum price under the pre-emption law of July 22, 1854. It is well understood that these parties can acquire no title to the lands thus "cla~med." They must be sold at public sale to the high-est bidder, and the stipulations of the treaty complied with in good faith; and the government should at once interpose its authority, and expel all who are trespassing on the Delaware cession. The effect has already been injurious to the peace of the Delawares, and it is due to them that such prompt and .unmistakable action be had as will assure them that the United States will keep its faith. The Indians should under no circumstances be permitted to become dispirited, or to lose confidence in the public authorities; for if they do, all efforts to civilize them or to improve their condition must be unavailing. 1 Procrastination or delay in this case will induce others to trespass on the similar cessions made by the Iowas and Kaskaskias, and others, if not upon the homes reserved by these and other Indians. In view of the facts above stated, I am constrained to submit a few \ suggestions in relation to the emigrated tribes in Kansas Territory, who, by the policy of the government adopted more than thirty years ago, and reluctantly acquiesced in by them, were removed to, and became inhabitants of, the country now embraced in this Territory. Already many of them have ceded, and it is expected that others will cede, the larger portion of their lands to the United States, for the use and occupation of our citizens. The faith of the nation was pledged in the most solemn form, before these tribes removed to the region west of the Mississippi, that they should have the undisputed possession and control of the country, and that the tracts assigned .to them therein should be their permanent homes. It waa called the "Indian Territory," and the intercourse act made it unlawfal for white 1 men to go into it, except on a license obtained, and for special pur-poses; and, in this secluded home, it was believed the efforts of the government and the philanthropist to civilize the red man would be more successful than ever before. Such was not the w e , however. Our population advanced rapidly to the line which was to be the barrier, and, with the emigration consequent upon our ' acquisitions from Mexico and the organization of our new Territories, necessarily subjected the Indians to that kind of contact with the whites which 1 was sure to entail on them the vices, while deprived of 1. good in-fluences, of civilization. |