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Show 62,353 square miles, inhabited by more than 75,000 souls, inelitding 50,000 civilized Indians, without the protection of law, and not infre-quently the sceue of violence and wrong. The necessity of establishing a government in some form, or at least a Uuited States court, for these people is manifest, and I respec,tfully recommend that this necessity be again clearly laid before Congress. REMOVALS TO THE INDIAN TERRITORY. The Indian Territory has a population at present averaging a little orer orle inhabitant to the square mile. The unoccupied portions of this coantrs are sufficient in extent to furnish a homestead to every lndian family in the United States, and it has heretofore been consid-ered feasible eventually to domicile a large majority of the Indians in this Territory. Experience, however, shows t.hat.110 effort is more on-successful with an Indian than t.hat which proposes to remove him from the place of his birth aud the graves of his fathers. Though a bar-ren plain without wood or water, he will uot voluntarily exchange it for any prairie or woolllaod, however inviting. The 5,000 Pimas and Maricopas, a peaceful and agricultural people in Arizona, who are- shut in upon a narrow strip of laud along the Gila, whose waters are insutlicient for irrigating their lands, atld \rho often suffer from hunger and are hardly treated by adjoiniug settlers, were at length prevailed npon by their agent to send a delegation to the In- .dian Territory, with the view to the selection of a tract of co11otry to which the tribe should remove. The delegation reported t,he country fertile and in all resnects as desirable as it had been renresented to them; but it was uoi possible to gain the consent of the tribk, or any por; tion of it, to remove from Arizona. The Arickarees, at Fort Berthold, in Dakota, are in a more ~traitened and deplorablecondition than the Pimas. Their crops fail three years out of five. Their village is a lo~lg distance from wood ar~d grass. . I They are ohligfxl to lire in dirt lodges, half undergrouund, for fear of the j Sioux who perpetually threaten to destroy them. These were also per-suaded to send a delegation to the Indian Territory with a view to col- 1 onizing. The country was found sat.isfactorg, and the agent was not without hone that the Arickarees would avail the~nselreso f its fine ad- i \,aotages, Gut after a full discussion by the tribe they decided and de-clared in conneil, ' l We are willirlg to work harder and have less in 1)a-kota, but are unu.illiug to run the risk of gping away from a country which has been so long our home." Removals t~ the Indian Territory heretofore effected have been either through compulsion, like the original removal of the Cherokees, Choc-taws, and other now civilized tribes, and latterly of the Modocs, or have bee11 on the part of those tribes living just over the border in Kansas who had attailled a certain degree of civilization and were familiar with the country to which they were going. The Pawnees, who are of this class, are now in process of removing from Nebraska. From these facts it see~ns that the prospect of inducing any large number of Intlians, and especially such tribes of Iudians as woitlrl be most benefited by a removal, volunta,rily to settle in the Indian Territory is not encourag-iug, aud cannot safely be made the basis of any general plan for ft~ture relief or civilization of Indians. It is not impossible that hereafter this Territory, if kept open, ulay furnish homesteads for such Indians as have triad the ways .of the white mall's life and failed in the serere com-petition to which they hare beet1 subjected. But bexond such a use it |
