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Show The Indians themselves complain of the Government's allowing white men to furnish liquor to their people, and in some cams do sll in their power to cure this evil by severely punishing their own people who indulge in the use of intoxicating Liquors. What most an Indian think of a Government claiming to be governed by the princi-ples of Christianity, and urging them to abandon their heathenish practioes and adopt the white man's ways, which at the same time allows the meanest and vilest creatures in the persons of white men to demoralize and debauch their young men by furnishing them with that which brutalizes and destroys them? What is wanted now i3 a penalty attached to the law for its violation commensnrate with the crime, and I earnestly request that Congress at its next session will, in addition to thegoodworkwhichit has begun by appropriating money fortheprosecu-tion of those who furnish liquor to Indians, also make the penalty for the violation of the law so severe as to make it dangerous for any one to violate it. REMOVALS OF INDIANS. Crows.-Since my last report was made, the Crow Indians, whoseres-ervation in Montana is estimated to contain 4,713,000 acres, have been renioved from their old location in the western part of the reservation to the valleys of the Big Horn and the Little Big Horn Rivers. Mnch difficulty was experienced in making this removal, from the faat that Congress only appropriated $10,000 for this purpose, while the bids re-ceived after advertising twice according to-law, for the constrnetion of the agency buildings, ranged from $43,000 to $70,000. After trying in vain for months to secure the construction of the necessary buildings by this means, it Was decided to send a special agent on to the ground selected for the future home of these Indians, and to constrnct out of the timber growing there the buildings required. The work intrusted to this agent, I am glad to say, has apparently been satisfactorily done, and as a consequence we have to day not only the required agency buildings, for which contractors asked from $43,000 to $70,000, but have also in addition 52 log cabins for Indian dwellings. During the last year 300 acres of land have been broken for cultiva-tion at the new agency, about 100 homesteads taken, and more land cultivated by the Indians than in any previous year of their history. In addition to this a large number of stock cattle have been purchased for them, thus placing them a long way in advance of the position oc-cupied by them one year ago. All this has been done without creating a deficiency iu any branch of the appropriation, and without the viola-tion of any law or regulation of the Department, and thus a long step taken in thedirectionof transforming the '' wild Crows of the monutains" into a peaceable and self-supporting people. Not only has this bee11 done, but it has thus been made possible to add to the public domain at least 3,000,000 acres of this reservation, leaving still all the land necessary for the use and occupancy of thi8 |
