OCR Text |
Show i4 REPORT OF THE large money annuities, they had sunk almost to the lowest depths of degradation ; but, influenced doubtless by the earnest efforts of their agent to impress upon them the importance of a change of life and habits, they seem to have caught the infection of a spirit of self-improvement from the example set them by the Sioux. Having been won to the idea of severalty in property, they desired a division of so much of the lands iu the reservation assigned them by the treaty of 1855, as was necessary to give a farm to each, and to ha>-e the remainder disposed of in order to obtain the means of improvement, . ' and of freeing themselves of a load of debt which has been hanging over, and harrassing them for some years., It being also very desirable to secure the relinquishment of their surplus, and to them uselesa lands, for the benefit of the whites, who are rapidly filling up the country around them, a final treaty with them, for the accomplishment of these objects, was consummated on the 15th day of April last, which now awaits the constitutional action of the Senate and President of the United States. Allusion was made in the report of last year to the discontent of the Yanctonnais band of Sioux, and their bad conduct in interfering in om relations with the See-see-to-an and Wahpaytoan bands of their Minne-sota brethren; and also to their rejection of friendly overtures for a. council with them, for the purpose of coming to some understanding in regard to their alleged grievances, growing out of the treaties of 1851 with the Minnesota bands, which they contend ceded a large portion of country belonging to them, and for which they claim com-pensation. I regret to state that a like effort, the past summer, though accompanied, as was that last year, with the offer of valuable presents, intended to soothe them, also entirely failed. Further friendly measures towards them seem to be useless; and if they persist in their lawless and reprehensible course, it will become necessary te chastise them into submission. From the report of the agent for the Yancton %oux, it appears that. those Indians are quietly submitting to the obligations of the treaty made with them last year, by concentrating and settling upon the reservation on the Missouri river, assigned to them by that treaty, where it is hoped they can hereafter be controlled, and gradually domesticated. Nothing of interest is known to have occurred among the numerous , Indians within the upper Missouri agency. The agent for the Blackfeet reports favorably of their disposition and conduct; and he states the interesting fact, that through the energy and enterprise of Mr. Charles P. Chouteau, of St. Louis, the contractor for the transportation of the annuity goods for those Indians, they . were this year taken to Fort Benton by steam-six hnndred miles. further than the Missouri was ever so navigated before, and, bemg a distance. bv the course of the ~iver. of three thousand one hundred miles from9its mouth. Though suitable reservations have been allotted to the border tribes in Nebraska, consisting of the Poncas, Pawnees, Omahas, Ottoes, and Missourias, and every effort made to induce them to cult~vate their lands for a subsistence, they still continue to persist in their customary |