Page:1862 Territory of Dakota Session Laws.pdf/4

Rh Dakota extends from Minnesota on the east to the Rocky mountains on the west, and from the Niobrara river on the south to the British possessions on the north, comprising nine degrees of latitude, and thirteen degrees of longitudeupwards of 350,000 square miles of land. Except the ceded lands, this vast tract is occupied and roamed over by dwindling tribes of the red man. With the exception of the Crows of the Yellow Stone, and the Black Feet of the Upper Missouri, these Indians are nearly all known as Dakotas, though divided and scattered into numerous tribes and bands. These Indians, for the most part, still subsist by the hunt. Their hunting-grounds are annually narrowed, and their victims are constantly and rapidly diminishing, though immense herds of buffalo, elk, and antelope still range the prairies. The conviction forces itself upon us that Government must soon make final provision for the maintenance of the residue of its red children. The unoccupied lands of the states, and some of the territories, are already the property of speculators, and squatters are, accordingly, debarred from taking advantage of the recent Homestead law within their limits; thus rendering it necessary that Government should so dispose of the Indians in Dakota, as to enable such as desire, to avail themselves of that liberal and beneficent act. The nation has very little valuable agricultural land outside of Dakota, either subject to preemption or available as homesteads.

The Missouri river is one of the leading features of Dakota. More than four hundred miles of the eastern slope of the Rocky mountains discharges its waters into the Missouri near the base of the mountains at Fort Benton. The early confluence of these innumerable streams and rivers render the Missouri navigable almost from its very