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Show XXXVI REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. aspect of savage life, Ouray has shown courage and humanity and vir-tues of the better type, which should somewhat relieve the name of Ute from the odium cast upon it by the northern bands, for whose brutal and barbarous acts, whatever the provocation, no justifidon can be found. In my annual report for 1877 I made the following statement of the case: I recommend the removal of all'the Indians in Colordo and &on& to the Indian Territory. In Colorado, gold and silver mines are scattered over a wide extent of territory, and are to be found in every oanceivable direction, mnoing into Indian re% ervations. Of course miners will follow the various leads and prospect new ones with-out, regard to the barriera set up by an Indian reservation. Hence the sojonru of Indians in this State will be anre to lead to strife, contention, and war, besides entsil-ing m enormous expense to feed and provido for them. Again, there is no hope of oivilizing these Indian8 while they reside in Colorado, aa all. the arable laud in the State is required for its white settlers. A mining population needs in ita immediate vicinity abundant facilities for @rionlture to feed it. The question of feeding the white population of the State .te ison of p&ramount importanoe, and will ceriainly . force itself on the attention of the government. In the Iudian OBee report for 1878 the following extract will be fonud which haa a bearing on the present issue: The Ute reservation covera nearly 12,M)O,WO of acres, and fullyone-thirdof the best arable laud in the State; and it is aituated in the heart of one of the richest mining regions in the United States. The mining population nat~~raUwya nt the arable land to raise food for their support; and as the white population is mpidly sugmenting, their encroachments npon the Indianns will be oonatantly on the inorease; beaides their lands, if put in the market, will readily sell at a fair prioe. These remarks have referenoemshlyto the two southern agenoies. The looation oftheNorthemUtesis not desirable, unless the land shall be found to contain minerals. But all the Ute Indian 8bould be removed at onoe to the Indian Territory, where there is fertile soil an abnndsnoe of wood and rater, and where there need be no white encroachments, 1 The "irrepressible conflictn between the white man and the aborigine may be turned to good account for both parties in the aeeomplishment of desirable results. Let it be fully un.derstood that the Ute Indians have a good and sulllcient title to 12,000,000 acres of la,nd in Colorado, and that these Indians did not thrust themselves in the way of the white people, but that they~were originally and rightfully possessors of the soil, and that the land they occupy has been acknowledged to be theirs by solemn treaties made with them by the United States, and that the white people, well knowing these facts, took all the responsibility of making their settlements ocptiguous to the home of the red man. It will not do to say that a treaty with an Indian means nothing. It means even more than the pledge of the government to pay a bond. It is the most 8olemn declaration that any government of any people erer enters into. Neither will it do to say that treaties never ought to have been made with Indiana That question is not now in order, as these treaties have been made and must be lived up to, whether eonven-ient or otherwise. By begLuning at the outset with the full-aoknowledgment of the abso-lute and iudefeatible right of these bdians to 12,000,000 of acres in |