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Show COMNISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 19 alone; that the tribes are to be protected and remain undisturbed within the limits of their reservations, and that this policy will be inflexibly adhered to by the government. The condition and interests of the white border population would thus be improved and promoted, and the main cause for strife, disorder, outbreak, and murder, so common between the frontier settler and the Indian, being thus re-moved, these atrocities would occur but seldom. Many of the Indian tribes are now in the annual receipt of large sums of money, in consideration of their cessions of territory. With the exception of a few of the tribes in the southwest who have regular organized governments, and who, by their legislative enactments, ap-propriate a good portion of their funds for educational and national purposes, the payment of money annuities to the Indians entails upon them evils which, in most cases, far outweigh the good resulting therefrom. A large proportion of the individuals of the tribes to whom these annuities are payable seem to rely upon their per capita for support, and drag out a miserable existence from payment to pay-ment, depending solely on it. And the notice for the Indians to assemble to receive their annuities seems to be the watchword to sum-1 mon to the pay-ground a miserable class of men who deal in spirit-uous liquors, games, and other vices, and who, in despite of the vigi-lance of the officers, are enabled to carry off large amounts of the I funds of the Indians, obtained by the most shameful, dishonorable, and unlawful means. Combinations of men, too, as powerful as they are unscrupulous,( keep constantly on foot systematic and organized plans to deceive and! corrupt the chiefs and principal men, and thus they often obtain the! signatures of these ignorant, deluded, and corrupted people to powers of attorney and other instruments, appropriating and assigning to them and their confederates in such nefarious practices large amounts of the funds of the Indians without any valid consideration therefor. These last named parties have frequently been enabled, with instru-ments and powers of attorney, obtained by means as degrading to them as injurious, demoralizing, and corrupting to the Indians, to obtain the sanction and approval of Congress and the executive de-partments, and thus the government, instead of protecting, has, in some instances, been the oppressor of its wards. On this subject the developments which have transpired since the last report induce me to repeat the suggestion "that all executory contracts of every kind and description, made by Indian tribes or bands with claim agents, attorneys, traders, or other persons, should be declared, by law, null and void; and an agent, interpreter, or other person employed in, or in any way connected with, the Indian service, guilty of participation in transactions of the kind referred to, should be instantly dismissed and expelled from the Indian country; and a11 such attempts to injure and defraud the Indians, by whomsoever made and participated in, should be penal offences, punishable by fine and imprisonment." I do not see how the obligat~onso f the government to its Indian wards can be fully met and faithfully discharged without the aid of penal statutes to protect them from the evils referred to ; and under a full |