OCR Text |
Show Extract from th8 report of the Secretary of the Interior. The administration of the business of the Indian bureau has been at.teuded with unusual difficulties during the past year. Most of the Indian tribes with which treaties have been made (excepting th? tribes in Kansas) have .manifested a restless and tnrhulent spirit, developed, in many instances, into open hostilities. The Indian country south of Kansas, inhabited by the Cherokees. Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Seminoles, was occupied b y the insur-gent .~v ery soon after the commencement of the war. The ~ndians,& overawed by a strong military force in their midst, and seeing no prospect of aid or protection from the troops of the United Statea, renounced their allegiance to the federal government,and made treaties . ... with the insurgent government. , By those treaties that government agreed to pay them the same amount of annuities which they had previously received from the United States, and there is good reason to believe that one or more of the instalments have been paid. A large number of the Indians were organized into regiments and placed in the insurgent army. A portion of them. who refused to participate in this insurrectionary movement, attempted to resist it by force, hut after two or three engagements were driven from the country. About seven thousand, including women and children, fled to Kank-sas. They were driven out during the last winter, and having no shelter to protect them from the weather, and being very mdifferently supplied with clothing, they were exposed to extreme suffering, and many of them perished from cold. They were destitute of food, and must have died from starvation if subsistence had not been furnished to them by the Indian bureau. During the last spring three regi-ments of the refugee Indians were organized under the directions af the War Department, with the expectation. that they would he sent to the Indian country, and be aided by such aqditional forces as would he sufficient to prot,ect them in their homes. They have since been detailed for military duties in some other portion of the country. In the meantime the women and children stiH remain in Kansas, and are snbsisted from the annuities due to the insurrectionary tribes, under treaty stipulations. The principal chief of the Cherokees has visited Washington for the purpose of endeavoring. to restore the former relation of t h e , nation to the United States. Be insists that they have been guilty of no voluntary disloyalty, and that what they have done they did under the pressure of superior force, wbioh they were unable to resist. The futurerelations of these tribes to the government should be deter-mined by Congfess. |