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Show ' COMMISSfONER OF LYDIAN AFFAIRS. 15 Territory to such an extent that it is said there is not a single county that is absolutely secure. Surely a policy, or, I should rather say, a want of policy, which is so enormously expensive as this, so fruitless of good results, and which promises so little for the future, either inimproving the condition of our own people or that of the Indians, bught to be abandoned at once and forever, and some system adopted from which better results may be reasonably anticipated. I have heretofore urged the propriety of recopising the right of the Indians to a qualified ownership of the soil, and treating with them for its extinction in such portions as may be required for the purposes of settlement, thereby pro-viding s fund from which the indims may derive such assistance as may be necessary, while acquiring a sufficient knowledge of the arts of civilization, to enable them to provide for their wauts. I am still of the opinion that this is much the best policy to puraue towards the Indians in providing for their wants when located upon reservations, for, in the first place, it is attended with the szme expense whether we assign them a tract of land, and then, by direct ap-propriations, provide for their necessities, ar treating with them for their claim to the territory we extinguished their title to such portions as we desire, they re-taiuing thb same tract that would otherwise be assigned to them, and receiving for the lands surrendered the moneys which must otherwise he appropriated to enable them to live; and, secondly, it would preserve in the Indian his native pride and independence, since, instead of feeling that his freedom to roam at will had been restrained by arbitrary and resistless power, and he compelled to relinquish the homes and customs of his ancestors, he would realize that the change had been wrought by fair negotiations to which he was a party, and that, for the rights and privileges surrendered, he had received a fair equivalent. Whether the one method or the other shall be preferred, I think it perfectly evident that we shall be guilty of little less than criminal neglect if we longer delay the adoption of such measures as will result in the concentration of the Indians upon suitable reservations, and to this end I earnestly invite your eo-operation in an endeavor to procure the passage of a joint resolution by Congress, at its approaching session, authorizing either the negotiation of treaties having for their object the establirihing of the Indians upon three suitable reservations, of which one for the Utahs shall be in the northern or northwestern portion of the Territory, one for the Apaches in the southeastern, and one for the Navajoes in the weatern, or empowering the President, by proclamation, to set apart suit-able tracts for such reservations, and vesting the title to the same in therespect-ive tribes for which they are designed. As to the Pueblos, I believe they may safely he left, with temporary appropriations for their benefit, to the operation of the present Territorial and future State laws. If action such aa or similar to that I have indicated can be had from Congress I Lave the fullest confidence that in a very few yeam it will pmve of inestimable value alike to the Indians and the whites . ~ fN ew Mexico. |