| OCR Text |
Show l2 REPORT OF THE Kansas, and to convene them in council, that I might hear their petitions and complaints in case they had any to present. TA e New York Indians, who have for many years been living by permission of t Delawares on their lands, hope to have their claims adjusted at an early day so as to be enabled to remove to homes of their 0%-n. The claims of the New York Indians upon the government have long been delayed, and call loudly for redress. I shall shortly make these claims the snhject of a special commu-tion. My council with the Pottawatomies lasted two full days and was to me par-ticularly interesting. I found them intelligent and apparently happy. They have a reservation thirty miles s uare, rich in soil, and beautifully located on the Kansas river, near Topeka, t1 e present seat of government for the State. A large majority of the tribe, usually denominated the c'mission band," are far advanced in civilization, and are anxious to abandon their tribal condition and have a suitable portion of their lands allotted to them in severalty, and the remainder sold to the government at a fair price, to create a fund to enable them to commence agricultural pursuits under favorable anspices. This policy is, however, strenuously opposed by the wild or "prairie hand " of the tribe, who look with jealousy upon any innovation upon their traditional customs. I assured the "mission band" that their desire to adopt the rineiple of individual property, and to rely for su port upon the cultivation of tfe soil, rather than the chase, was walraly approvei by the government, and that in case proper efforts, and a reasonable time for reflection, should fail to induce the rest of the tribe to adopt this mode of life, measures would be adopted to relieve them from the in cubus which now hinds them to an unciviliaedlife. This tribe has had the ad vantage of good schools, there being two upon the reservation-one under the charge of St. &1ary2s Mission of the Oatholic church, and the other under that of the Baptist Church south. St. Mary's Mission school seemed to be in a prosperous condition, popular with the Indians, and doing much good. The female department deserves particular mention for its efficiency in teaching the different branches of edueation. The exhibition of plain and fancy needle work and embroidery, executed by the pupils, creditably attests the care and atteu-tion bestowed by the sisters upon these children of the forest. I t was plain to me that their hearts are in the work. I cannot speak so favorably of the school for boys, hut assurances were given by the present conductor, who has recently taken charge of it, that its deficiencies should he remedied. Much of the im-provement in the mode of life, observable among the Pottawatomies, is attribu-table to the schwls. The Baptist scl~ool being closed on account of its con-nexion with the Southern Board, was not visited, hut I was informed that it had been the means of much good. I visited the Sacs and Foxes and found them a vigorous and powel*ul race, not one of whom, so far as my observations extended, has adopted the costume of the whites. They accept the theory, but reject the practices of civilizedlife. The chiefs talked fluently of the necessity of an abandonment of the chase, and their willingness to do so, and to become cultivators of the soil, but with the exception of Ki-o-kuck and some of the half-breeds, I saw little or no efforts to obtain a subsistence in this way, since they prefer to rely upon their buffalo hunts (to which they go,annually) and their annuities. My predecessor, Mr. Greenwood, negotiated a treaty with this tribe in 1859, providing for a distribu-tion in severalty of eighty acres of land to each of its members, and the sale of their surplus lands to p-rovide means to establish them in agricultural pursuits under favorable circumstances, and subsequently contracted for the building of houses for the various families upon their several allotments. One hundred and five of these dwellings were built before I entered upon the discharge of the I duties of Oommissioner. Believing it to he had policy to build houses for I Indians, instead of assisting and encouraging them to build for themselves, and |
