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Show REPORT OF THE COMMI8SIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. LXV absent. Of the fifty-eight chiefs, headmen, and male adults, therefore, thirty-seven are in favor of removal to the Indian Territory. Several protests against the proposed sale and removal have been received on the ground that minors and orphans having improvements on the presentreservation, and desiring to remain, are unprovided for in the Act, so that they will be compelled to remo$e against their will or lose their land. They ask that action be delayed until Congress can remedy the defect in the law. The matter will soon be reported foryour determination. THE NON-RESERVATION PIUTES IN NEVADA AND OREGON. $here are several bands of Piute Indians in Northern Nevada and Southern Oregon whu have no reservation, and on account of their determined opposition to the reservation system havenever been forced to settle upon one, although frequent attempts have been made to in-duce them to do so. A few support themselves by cultivating small patches of ground, or by laboring for wages among the whites, but by far the greater nomber are found hanging about the settlements aud military posts in a state of idleness and beggary. It is my desire and intention to adopt some plan for bettering their condition, and to that end a spekfial agent recently visited the& under my instructions; but as yet no definite steps have been decided upon. . They are sadly in need of help, and it is to be hoped that some way may be found to rescue them from their impoverished condition, and tosave them from t,he de-grading influences by which they are now surrounded. PUEBLO INDIANS OF NEW MEXIOO. My attention has recently been called to tlie auomalous condition of the Pueblo 111dians of New Mex~co. TheseIndiaus number about9,OOO souls,and occupy some twenty different pueblos or villages in the north-west portion of the Territory, containing in the aggregate about 700,000 acres of land, confirmed to them by United States patents in 1864, un-der old Spanish grants. They, with the Moquis Pueblos of the Navajo Agency, constitute the remnant of a once powerful tribe found in Mex-ico by the Spaniards over three centuries ago, and live now, as they did then, in villages built of adobe, subsisting on the products of the aoil and their herds. The principal difficulty encountered lies in the disputed question whether these Pueblo Indians-whose allegiance was transferred from Mexico to the UuiLed States under the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, Febn~ary 2, 1848 (9 Stat., 922), by which, inter alia, the region of country now known as New Mexico was acquired-are or are not citi-zens of the United States. The lim~ts of this report preclude any lengthy discussion of the subject. I shall therefore confine myself to h brief reference to judicial decisions affecting he case, and the action 5067 IND-V |