OCR Text |
Show 18 REPORT OF TEE The efforts of the department to provide for the Christian Indians, as required by the act of June 8,1858, have resulted in a conventional arrangement, by which they are confederated with the Swan Creek and Black river bands of Chippewas, in Kansas, and secured comfort-able homes among these Indians. The great southern tribes located west of Arkansas and Southern Missouri, continue to present in their orderly conduct, their regular, stable, and well administered governments, and in their general pros-perity, the same marked and gratifying evidences of advancement and improvement that have so repeatedly been noticed in former reports. The same policy mhich isolated the tribes in Kansas also placed these Indians separate and apart by themselves, but had they not become imbued with the impulse, and adopted many of the habits and pursuits of civilized life in their former southern homes, it is doubted dhether they would now be any further advanced than when first removed. Civilization is not to be taught and acqnired by precept alone, but mainly by practical example, and immediate and constantly ,recurring evidence of its blessings and advantages. Could there have been mingled with the tribes, so mistakincrlv isolated. an orderlv. U " . , in~lnat~.iorR;~I ,I ~en ter1firi~irlwg hite ~~opnlational,l tl~corlzins~pc c:ula-tion as to the beet n~eansot'accomnl~shiutnh eir eivilizatiori. nol~ldb. v this time, probably have been at 6n end. "That desirable result wo;lcf, at least, have been so far realized as to relieveus of our present anxiety concerning their future condition and welfare. The flattering accounts in relation to the adoption by several of the 7 northern tribes of Indians, of the plan of allotments to them in seve-ralty of a portion of their tribal country, has induced this office to suggest to the superintendent of the southern superintendency, that the fact be communicated to the Indians within his district with a view to the consummation of a similar policy among them. Such a system could very well be administered and carried out by the Indians themselves, with a little assistance from the government. It would be necessary that their lands should be regularly surveyed, upon the same plan as those of the United States: this being done, it would be advisable for them to select reservations for themselves, which would at once give to all classes an idea of separate property in lands, and, in my judgment, stimulate them to-greater exertions to become practical agriculturists, and they would progress more rapidly in all the arts of civilisation. Thus, too, a prosperous and thriving community wouId be fbrmed, which would soon be in a condition to come in closer contact with the white race. The removal of the remaining Seminoles from Florida, with the ex-ception of the aged Chief, Sam Jones, and a very small number of his personal adherents, was successfully accomplished last spring, by Su-perintendent Rector, who waa charged with the execution of this onerous and difficult duty. After his return from Florida, that officer, under instructions from the Department, made an exploration of the western portion of the Choctaw and Chickasaw country, lyhg between the 98th and 100th degrees of longitude, for the purpose of selecting a site for an agency and suitable locations for the Wachita and other In-dians ; for whose accommodatiou that strip of country was leased from |