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Show REPORT. DEPART~ONF TTH E INTEEIOR, Omrcs INDIAANRE AIRS, November 26, 1859. Sm: In compliance with custom and regulation, I have the honor to submit the following annual report on Indian Atiairs for the present year, accompanied by reports of the superintendents and agents, to which I would refer for particulars respecting the present condition, progress, and prospects of the different tribes within our jurisdiction. The amount applicable during tho last fiscal year fur fulfilling tl~e stipulations of our numerous treatles with various tribes, and for other necessary purposes connected with our Indian policy, was $4,852,407 34. The amount drawn from the treasury, and paid and expended or remitted therefor, was $3,402,014 52. The amount of the estimates submitted to Congress for appropriations for the present fiscal year, was $2,575,271 94. The amount appropriated was $2,484,271 94, making applicable for expenditure during this year, inclnding the nnexpended balance from the previous year, and interest, amounting to $202,002 89 on trust funds invested in stocks, the sun1 of $4,136,667 65. The amount estimated as necessary for the next fiscal year, including t h e fulfillment of the stipulations of new treaties ratified by the Senate at the last session, is $2,505,990 38. Of these new tFeaties, twelve in number, ten are with fifty different tribes and bands in Washington Territory and Oregon, embracing about nineteen thousand Indians, and by which their title is extingnished to a, very large extent of country required for the extension of our settlements in that distant but growing portion of our confederacy. It is estimated that 58,992,1170 acres have thus been added to the disposable public domain, at a cost of about five and tbree fifth cents per acre; and it is believed that if the provisions and purposes of these treaties shall he properly and judiciously carried out, there will be no further recurrence of difficulties of a serious character with the Indians in that region. The agent for the Indians remaining in the State of New York, reports favorably of their continued but gradual improvement. These Indians comprise the remnant left of the once famed and formidable confederacy of the Six Nations, whose dominion and despotic sway at one time extended from the shores of Lake Michigan to the Carolinas and from the Saint Lawrence river to the Wabash. Though much reduced in numbers, their decline in that particular has been far less than that of most if not all the tribes who have suffered the evils of continued removal from dace to dace as the white wonnlation has - ~ advanced. At the commincementbf the war of the ~;.volntion, they are estimated to have numbered not more than nine thousn.nd. Their ~ ~~ ~~~~~~~~~. preaent population i~ about four thol~sand. They are comfortably |
