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Show REPORT COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. DBPARTMEONPT T HE INTERIOR, O$ce. Inddan Affairr. November 15, 1864. SIR: In submitting my fourth annual report, I deem it proper, before pro-ceeding to make a particular statement in regard to each of the superintenden-cies and independent agencies from which reports have been received, to make some suggestions of a general nature as to the policy heretofore ursucd towarda the Indians, and to call your attention to some subjects which o not especially relate to the superintendencies and agencies. c f A requirement of the Indian service, which, on account of our rapidly extend-ing settlements, and the consequent organization of new Territories and admia-sion of new States, is becomil~g daily of more preqsing importance, and requiring at our hands immediate consideration and appropriatelegislative and executive action, is the setting apart of portioua of the public domain to be held excln-sively for the use of the Indians. That the Indians bave a usufruct right, or right of occupancy, in all that part of the national territory wherein the same has not been extinguished, is a principle which has been established by the higbest judicial tribunals of our land, an& has been recognized from the earliest neriod of om national existence. Notwithstanding, houwever, the authoritative'and imposing sanction which has been extended to this right, it is found that, as our settle-ments advance, the Indians, through the inst&mentality of treaty negotiations, by milihry force or by stress of circumstances which they are powerless to resist, are compelled to retire before them. From a glance at the history of our relations with the Iudiaus, it will appear that we bave been governed by the course ofevents, rather than by the adop-tion of a well-settled policy. The early settlers of the country everywhere met with a kind reception from the Indians, but as the settlements increased in numbers and extended their borders, it soon became manifest to the Indians that their hunting-grounds were being invaded and their limits gradually restricted. Their feelings of hospitality were in time changed to sentiments of bitterest hostility, and that dark page of our national history, containing a recital of our numerous Indian wars, and the peculiarly bloody and barbarous scenes attending them, has been the result. As our borders have been extended, and civilization with its attendant blessings has taken possession of the once inbroken wilder-ness- home of the Indians, treaties have been negotiated with them from time to time, and uniformly, and in almost innumerable Fnstances,they have been recog-nized as a separate and distinct people, possessing in a restricted sense the pecu-liarities and characteristics of distinct nations. These treaties, with but few exceptions, have defined by natural metes and bounds the portion of the public domain which, from the time of their negotiation, were, by their terms, to be regarded as the separate and exclusive homes of the respective tribes with which they were negotiated; and it would form a not uninshuetive subject of inquiry to investigate and define the various portions of the States, now exclu-aively occupied by our own people, which at times have been set apart under the sanction of solemn treaties for the e;m.Zusiue use of the Indians ; and it in |