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Show REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFI'AIRS. 55 EXHIBITION OF INDIANS. Some applications have been received during the year asking for authority to take Indians from reservations for exhibition purposes, but most of them have been refused. The authorities by the Department are as follows: January 23, 1895, to Messrs. Cody (L'Buffalo Bill") and Salsbury to take 125 Indians from reservations in North and South Dakota, Ari-zona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma for general show and exhibition pnr. poses. A bond in the sum of $10,000 was given by this firm. January 23, 1895, to James A. Bailey, of Barnum & Bailey Circus, to employ 10 Moquis, 10 Apaches, and 10 Navajo Indians from their reservations for general show and exhibition purposes. The bond given in this case was for $6,000. March 9, 1895, to Charles P. Jordan, licensed trader at Rosebud Agency, 8. Dak., to take about 20 lndians from the Rosebud Agency, for the purpose of exhibiting a Sioux Indian village at the Atlanta Exposition. He had previonsly had charge of a party of Indians at the Midwinter Exposition in Oalifornia, and in view of his good care and satisfactory treatment of those Indians, his personal acquaiutance with the Rosebud Sioux, and his long connection with the Indian service, he was. granted this special permission and no bond was required of him. Authority has occasionally been granted allowing Indians to attend local celebrations, nuder such conditions and restrictions as would insure the Indiins propcr treatment and surroundings. Such Vppor-tunities to participate in town or State gatherings tend to identify the interests of the Indians with those of their white neighbors, and to foster harmonious relations between them. As stated in my last annual report, whenever cngageluents with Indians for exhibition purposes are made their employers are required to enter into written contracts with the individual Indians, obligating themselves to pay such Indians fair stipulated salaries for their serv-ices; to supply &em with proper food and clothing; to meet their traveling and needful incidental expenses, including medical attend-ance, etc., from the date of leaving their homes until their return thither; to protect them from immoral influences and surrouudings; to employ a white man of good character to look after their welfare, and to return them, without cost to themselves, to tbeir reservation within a certain specified time. They have also been required to execute bonds for the faithful fulfillmcnt of such contracts. In three cases where persons were last year granted authority to engage Indians for show and exhibition purposes, and in wbioh proper contracts were entered into with the individual Indians, and bonds executed and filed with this office, the terms of the contracts were very largely disregarded. |