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Show COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 15 nbw aid and teach them to live without this resource, or their destruc-tion is inevitable. Appropriations were made at the late session of Congress to enable the department to negotiakti-mties with the Indians of these Terri-tories, in which provision should be made for the inauguration of the policy referred to. It is to be regretted that these appropriations were delayed until it wss too late in the season to send out the goode and other presents, without which the negotiations cannot be at-tempted with a reasonable prospect of success. They had, therefore, necessarily to be deferred till the next year. In the mean time, the governors of the Territories have been called upon, in their capacities of superintendents of Indian affairs, for information as to the extent and nature of the various Indian claims, with maps indicating the boundaries of each, and such other information as would enable the department to issue the necessary instructions; and also as to the character and description of the articles most useful to the Indians, and best suited to aid in the accomplishment of the object in view. The reasons which prevented the accomplishment this season of treaties with the Indians in Xew Mexico and Utah, apply with equal force to the Blackfeet and other Indians of the Upper Missouri, and adjseent to the Territory of Washington. Measures will at once be adopted so as to insure a council with them early the next year. Appropriations having also been made for the like purpose in the Territories of Oregon and Washington, the articles intended for presents were promptly procured and shipped.by.the way of Cape Horn, and the superintendents in those Territories Instructed to pro-ceed as early as practicable with the negotiations. It is hoped that these will result in satisfactory arrangements for the permanent settle ment of the Indians, and in the establishment of such relations b e tween them and the whites as will prevent the recurrence of such inhuman scenes and atrocities as have taken place in Oregon during the past year; and in which it is due to truth to state that the latter have, in some cases, been the aggressors, and shown themselves to be as barbarous and cruel as the Indians. Indeed, the usual order of things has been to some extent reversed, the department having had to invoke the aid of the military for the protection of the weak and helpless Indians from the persec~~tionasn d cruelties of the whites. In this connexion, I would refer to the report of Superintendent Palmer, of Oregon, and to the elaborate report of Covernor Stevens, of Washington, as containing much valuable and interesting inform-ation in regard to the tribes, and the condition of Indian affairs in those two Territories. . Our Indian relatians in California begin to wear a moreencouraging aspect. No serious disturbance has occurred there during the past year. The system of colonizing the Indians on reservations located so as not to interfere with the progress of the white settlements, has thus far been attended with happy results, in withdrawing the Indians from the injurious contact with the mining snd agricultural popn-lation, from which the painful collisions and disturbances that have heretofore occurred arose. While its tendency is to satisfy the whites that they will hereafter be secured from molestation and annoyance |
