Page:A Century of Dishonor.pdf/213

Rh this treaty also they waited two years; and in 1867 the Superintendent of the Dakota Territory says: “Schools would have been in operation at the Ponca Agency before this time but for the long delay in ratifying the supplementary treaty of 1865; and now that this measure has fortunately been accomplished, there can be no further necessity for delay, and it is confidently believed another year will witness the foundation and rapid progress of an English school at this agency.”

This superintendent, having been in office only one уeаr, was probably not familiar with the provisions of the treaty of 1859 with the Poncas, in which, by Article three, the United States Government had promised “to establish and maintain for ten years, at an annual expense not to exceed $5000, one or more manual labor schools for the education and training of the Ponca youth in letters, agriculture, mechanics, and housewifery.”

This educational annuity has but one more year to run; whatever may have been done with it up to this time, it really is now being spent on schools, and it seems a great pity that it should soon cease. The Governor of Dakota, in 1868, evidently thinks so too, for he writes to the Department, in the autumn of 1868: “A school has been in successful operation at this agency (the Ponca) for the past nine months, with an average attendance of about fifty scholars, and with every evidence of advancement in the primary department of an English education. But just at this interesting period of its existence we are notified by the agent that with this fiscal year all funds for school as well as for agricultural purposes cease, agreeably to the terms and conditions of their original treaty. This will be a serious and irreparable calamity if not remedied by the most generous action of the Government. If funds for this purpose cannot be otherwise procured, the Poncas are willing and anxious to transfer their old reservation to the Government for a moderate extension of these important and indispensable benefits.”