OCR Text |
Show 8 REPORT OF THE them in their new home from the assaults of the Sioux and other hos-tile tribes. Without this protection, they will not, and indeed onght; not to remove; and the military post, before alluded to, should be located with reference to such protection. The Indians of the Great Nemahaw agency, comprising the Sacs and Foxes of Missouri, and the Iowas and Kickapoos, will, with the partial crop raised by them, and the portion of their annuities with-held to meet their necessities, get along without any serious incon-venience. It is gratifying to know that some of the Indians of this agency are impressed with the necessity of exerting themselves to change their mode of life, to adopt new habits, and to have their means emoloved in the erection of houses and the o.rre nin-e and culti- vation of Farms. The crops of the Indians within the four agencies embracing the Delawares, Shawnees, Wyandotts, Pottawatomies, Kansas, Sacs and Foxes of the Mississippi, Chippewas, Ottowas, Kaskaskias, Peorias, Weas, Piankeshaws, and Miamies, have, to a very great extent, failed, and suffering to an uuusual degree will only be prevented by the application of a portion of the ample money-annuities, which most of them have, to the p- urchase of such supplies as mav be necessary for their comfort. The agents have been instructed to cause the exterior lines of the tracts reserved by the recent treaties with the tribes west of Missouri and Iowa for their future homes to be surveyed and distinctly mark-ed, so that the Indians may remove within them at the earliest prac-ticable period. In the case of the Shawnees, the united tribe of the Kaskaskias and others, and the Miamian, the homes of the Indians cannot be selected until the government surveys are made, embracing the tracts ceded by them; and it is therefore very desirable that the public surveys in the Territory of Kansas should be prosecuted with-out delay. The tribes in Kansas and Nebraska with whom conventions have recently been concluded, as well as several others witbin the range of the emigration to those Territories, are now undergoing a severe trial, and it is by no means surprising that their moral condition has not improved during the past year. Most of them were to remove to new locations; but the conventions had first to be ratified by the Senate, and the necessary appropriations made to carry out their provisions. In this unsettled state, the minds of the Indians were ready for any and every impression that the circumstances surraunding them would .be calculated to produce. The effect has been, and will continue to be, unfavorable to them, until they can be placbd securely in their new homes; and it will then require the most faithful attention on the p u t of their agents, and the constant and devoted efforts of the mis-sionaries and teachets, to prevent them from contracting the vices and rejecting the virtues of civilized life. It is gratifying, however, to notice the fact, that in the midst of these adverse influences, the various mission-schools within the cen-tral superintendency, from which reports have been received, are in a sound, if not flourishing, condition, and the number of Indian youth attending them is equal to that of any former year. |