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Show REPORT OF THE BOARD OF INDIAN COMMISSIONERS. 97 tlieir children. I see the size of tins reservation and the number of people who are living on it ; there are three tribes, the Walla- Walla, the Umatilla, and the Cayuse. I do not wish you, my friend, to have bad feelings at what I have said. The President when lie sees what is written, will see what his children have said, and then he will think in his heart that his children ( the Indians) love their country. My friend, I tell you again, I love my country ; I want to raise my children, and also raise provisions for them on it. That is why I don't want any white man to come and live inside the reservation. That is what Governor Pal-mer and Governor Stevens told us, that no white man shall go and live inside our reserva-tion. Now, my friend, you have heard what I have said about my land, and that is why I want to stay here ; I cannot find any other country outside ; my friend, the white man, has occupied the whole country. I see the whites traveling 1 through the country on all sides, but I stay here on these lauds that they promised me I should keep. Mr. MEACHAM. We have heard your words ; it does not make our hearts sick. We know you love your country ; it is right you should love it, and you should think long and well before you agree to sell it. You want to look the ground all over, for to- morrow, for one year, for always. We do not talk with you as we would if we were trading horses. We realize that it is a great question to you. We know you have hearts to feel. We know it is true the land was given to you for your home ; you have had this home ; since it was given to you, nobody has been allowed to take it away. Nobody ever will take it away from you by force. You complain some of Palmer and Stevens ; the Government has done what Palmer and Stevens agreed to do. They promised that the Government would protect your homes, and it has done so. The Government built a high fence all around your reservation. You did not see the fence. No man has put a house on your lands. The Government has paid the money they agreed to pay. If you have not had all the benefit of it we are not to blame. The President of the United States has made a new plan about Indian matters. He has heard that things are not going right. He told Conoyer that things were not going right. The President and Couoyer talked together, and they made a new set of officers. They go out every summer and see all the Indian people, and how their business is done, and they go back to Washington every winter, and tell how things are going. This is a new thing and a good thing. It was not done so when you had the treaty with Stevens and Palmer, or things might have been different. You say Palmer and Stevens promised three mule- loads of money. The Government paid you more money than that, in the kind ot money Palmer meant. You knew nothing but silver money. It has been paid a little at a time each year; that is the reason your eyes cannot see it all at once. You have had it in blankets, in clothes, and plows ; in paying men to keep your schools, to doctor people, to make plows, and mend your guns; in building your mills to grind your grain; he has made a mill to make boards; he has bought the cattle to haul your logs ; he has kept the white man from stealing your trees; he has kept a man here to watch that people do not wrong you ; a carpenter to make houses for your children and old people ; and a father has been here for six years to teach you religion. If you have not realized all you expected to do by coining here the President has not been to blame. Congress has given the money, and has not been to blame. The agents and employes have not all been to blame. Perhaps they have not done as well as they might have done. On other reservations the Indians have gone to work. Only a few of your people have learned to work. If your children can't read, who is to blame? The school has been there all the time. I don't mention these things to make them feel bad, but I want you to see that it is not all bad ; that the Govern-ment has done pretty near what is has agreed to do. I had to say these things, because you accused my Government of not doing what it had agreed to do; and when you remember the bad, remember also the good, if the Government had failed to protect you, where would you have been to- day ? If the Government were to take away the high fence from around it, you could not hold the reservation a week yourselves ; and you know and feel in your hearts, what we now say is true. The Government is always good, and always tries to do what it agrees to do. But the President can't see all over the world. He can't know of all the little bad things. We want you to respect and love that Government nine years more. The Government takes care of you, and keeps the whites from you. It will keep up an agent, the mills, schools, and some preachers. At the end of that time will you be able to hold your own 1 Mr. BRUNOT. I protest against giving them an idea that the Government will abandon them at any time. Mr. MEACHAM. When you made the treaty with Stevens and Palmer it was thought tluit in twenty years you would become like white men ; that at the end of that time you be, like the white men around us, able to take care of yourselves. What I meant before was this thing. Now I ask you if you think at the end of nine years you will be able to take care of yourselves. A few of you can do it now ; but suppose there were no agent, no Government, but yourselves to look out for you, could you do it? Suppose there was no. agent, no Government, the white men of the land could trade you out of all your stock and all you have in five years. With all the law, they do cheat and swindle you. If there was no law to protect you, where would this people be ? I have mentioned these things, not from a bad heart, but to get them before your mind, and have you think of them. I want you to know my Government is honest and true. I know some white people are 7 i c |