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Show COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AEFAIRS. 189 Te~ritoryt,h e Kiowas, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes, from the Arkan-sas river, and the Comanches from Texas, often roam over portions thereof, and would give a total of 3,700 warriors, and 17,000 souls. Add to this estimate from eight to ten thousand Pueblo Indians, and the total Indian population of New Mexico will approximate 26,000, though I am inclined to the opinion that the estimates of travellers, as to the number of the Coyoteros, is too high. Many depredations have been committed and many lives lost during the past rear, of which yo11 have been informed by the monthly re-ports of the several agents and myself, most of which are attributable to the Jicarilla and Mescalero Apaches, and the &Iohnacbe Utahs, but as peace has been made with these bands strong hopes are enter-tained that similar occurrences will be rare in future. During the past summer a party of Comanches, from Texas, visited me at this place, who informed me that they had been driven from their own country by the Osages, and expressed a desire to remain in this Territory permanently, but I declined giving them permission to do so, and directed them to return to their country, which they prom-ised to do. These Indians surrendered to me a llexican boy whom they had captured in Chihuahua, and otherwise behaved themselves very well whilst in this part of the Territory; but after leaving this place they committed several depredations upon our citizens, as I am mformed, and they continue to remain in the southeastern portion of the Territory. I would, therefore, ask for instructions as to their disposition. Are they to be permitted to remain, or be forcibly re-moved? I find great difficulty in preventing the sale of ardent spirits to the Indians, and so long as this practice is continued it will be impracti-cable to keep them in peace and quietude ; and I am informed that many of our citizens gamble with them and win the presents given to them, leaving them as destitute as they were before the presents were delivered. As the treaties recently negotiated only extend the inter-course laws relative to the traffic in ardent spirits, over the Indian reservations and the country ceded, I would respectfully recommend that these laws be extended, by act of Congress, over the whole Ter-ritory, and that gambling with the Indians be made a penal offence. The Pueblo Indians continue well disposed, and I can but reiterate the recommendations contained in my last annual report for their benefit, and as there is an act of the legislative assembly of the Ter-ritory constituting the several pueblos bodies politic and corporate. with powers to sue and be sued, &c., I would respectfully recommend that Congress should exercise the power reserved to it by the 7th sec-tion of the act establishing a territorial government for this Territory, by repealing this act of the legislative assembly. If this is not done, I feel confident that many of these pueblos will be reduced to want and broken up. These Indians are ignorant, and but little removed from a savage state, and interested persons stir up litigation between the different pueblos and between the Mexican population and the pueblos. As an evidence of the extent to which this practice has ob-tained, I would mention the fact of the pueblos of Acoma and Laguna having over twenty suits now pending between them, and when all |