OCR Text |
Show REPORT OF THE COHM16910NER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 7 partly from a legitimate deference to the convictiou of the great body of citizens that the Indians have been in the ~ a s utn iustly and cruelly treatetl, and that great pntirnrr and long forl;rar;invG t)iifil~t to I)r exei- . oiaed in l~r i l~girll~iegti ~a 1.01111tdo ~ t t b n ~ i ~ stoi othi ~e l ,rt'setil r e i ~ ~ o n ~rel. ~ l e quirementsof theGorernment, and partly from the knowledge onthe part of the officers of the Goverximeut cllrirgedwith administering Indian affairs, that, from the natural jealousy of these people, their sense of wrongs suffered in the past, and their suspiciousness arising from repe.ated acts of treachery on the part of the whites; from the great distance of many bands ana individuals from points of persolla1 com-munication with the agents of the Government, aud the absence of all means of written communication with them; from the efforts of aba~l-doned and degraded whites, living among tlie &di;ri~s exerting much infloence over them, to misreprese~i.tt he policy of the Gover~l-meut, and to keep alive the hostility and suspicionof the savages; and, lastly, from the extreme untrnfitworthiriess of ma,lly of the iliterpreters on whom the Government is obliged to rely for bringing its iuteutioos to the knowledge of the Indians: that by the joiut effect of all these ob-stacles, many tribes and bauds uould colne very slowly to hear. compre-hend, ind t&st the professions and prornises of the G6vernmelit. - Such being the sentiment of the get~eralc ommunity, that forhearance was due to the Indians on accouut of past wrongs; and such the knowl-edee on the Dart of the Government of dlffioulties to be encountered in fuEy acquai;ting these people with its benex,olent inteutions, all the re-sources of exl~ostulation aud conciliation hare been exhausted L~efore the aid of the militarv arm has been invoked. It is not a matter tor wonder or blame th& communities which sneer, rneauwhile, from the continuaace of the evil should complain bitterly aud accuse the GOV-ernment of inaction, withonvinquiring very closely whether the evil is not the result of a previous wrong on the part of those to whose evil as to whose good things they succeed alike, or wbetl~er their prevent troubles are not the waves of a storm that is orer and past. But it is the duty of the Government to aot in the premises with a somewhat broader view and more philosophical temper than is to be expected of those who are actnally smarting in their families and their property from the Roourge of Indian depredations. The patience and forbearance exercised have been fully justified in their fruits. The main body of the roving Indians have, with good grace or with ill grace, submitted to the reservation system. Of those who still remain away from the assigned limits, by tiar the greater part are careful to do so with as little offense as possible; and when their range is such as for the present not to bring them into annoying or dangerons contact with the whites, this Ofice has, from motives of economy, generally been disposed to allow them to pick up their own living still by hunting and fishing, in preference to tying them up at agencies where they would require to be fed mainly or wholly at the expense of the Government. THE IXPLAOAB-L ES. There is a residue whose disposition and behavior certainly give little enoouragelnent to fnrther forbearance. The nunlhers of the actually hostile and depredating bands of to-day probably do not exceed in the aggregate eight thousand. Among these are several bands of Apacties in Arizona, principally the Tonto Apaches, the Quakacia Comauahes, and th3ir coufederatesof the Staked Plains, west 01 the Indian Coluitry, |