OCR Text |
Show maintenance, and transportation of troops and attending incidental -expenses, rightly expended in peaceful operations would not only leave thousands of indians to cultivate the soil, cause them to raise their own subsistence, but maintain almost if not entire peaceful relations with them. parsimonious expenditures for such purposes is a mistaken policy and proves far the most expensive in the end. Government should appropriate from seventy to one hundred thousand dollars pr. year to be expended through the Indian Department of the Territory, annually, if it would avoid the expense of expeditions for the suppression of Indian hostilities. True, we have managed with much less even including such expeditions, but Ten thousand dollars pr. annum for this Superintendency is too limited to expect anything of a permanent character to be accomplished. There are many difficulties to be surmounted in training the wild Indians; they are naturally savage, revengeful, and prone to wander about and to lead vicious, idle, and criminal lives; but they are susceptible of improvement especially the young by exerting the proper influences; the old may be induced to peace and lend their influence for the instruction of their youth, but it takes time, patience, and money to accomplish it. The people of this Territory have suffered enormously through Indian depredations; they have been united in regard to avoiding |