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Show THIRD ANNUAL REPORT OF TIIIO BOARD OF INDIAN COMMISSIONERS WASHINGTON, D. O., December 12, 1871. Sin: I have the honor to submit herewith the third annual report of the Board of Indian Commissioners to the President of the United States. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, VISTQEOT COLTER, Secretary. Hon. COLUMBUS DELANO, _ Secretary of the Interior ', Washington, D. C. SIB : The Board of Indian Commissioners, in making their third annual report, find abundant cause for thankfulness and encouragement while reviewing the condition of the Indians in the United States during the past year. CONFIDENCE AND GOOD WILL BETWEEN. WHITES AND - INDIANS. The remarkable spectacle seen this fall, on the plains of Western Ne-braska and Kansas and Eastern Colorado, of the warlike tribes of the Sioux of Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming, hunting peacefully for buf-falo without occasioning any serious alarm among the thousands of white settlers whose cabins skirt the borders on both sides of these plains, shows clearly that the efforts of the friends of peace in establish-ing confidence between the white people and the Indians, in this hereto-fore greatly disturbed section of the country, have been eminently suc-cessful. We contrast this picture with that presented by the same tribe, when, five years ago, in consequence of our Government's bad faith in violating its treaties with them, they were engaged in a war made mem-orable by the so- called Fort Kearney massacre, in which ninety- eight of our soldiers were killed in sight of the fort, and in the course of which many of the settlers on the frontier lost their lives, and so many hun-dreds of others were compelled to abandon their cabins and flee to the larger towns for safety. PEACEFUL RELATIONS WITH BED CLOUD AND- THE SIOUX. With the exception of some slight manifestations of ill- will against the progress of the Northern Pacific Railroad,, caused by a misunder-standing, this numerous and powerful tribe has been perfectly friendly during the past year. The chairman of the board held a council at Forfc Laramie < vith Red Cloud and his principal chiefs in June, and found them unchanged in their professions of a determination to maintain peaceable relations with the whites. He could hear of no complaints |