Page:A Century of Dishonor.pdf/259

Rh and self-sustaining. They entered upon their new reservation late last May, and during the present year they have raised at least twenty thousand bushels of corn.”

In 1867 the Commissioner of Indian Affairs says: “The Winnebagoes have a just claim against the Government on account of their removal from Minnesota, the expenses of which were borne out of their own tribal funds. The Government is clearly bound in all honor to refund to them moneys thus expended.”

It would seem that there could have been no question in the beginning as to who should pay the costs of such a removal as that. It should not even have been a tax on the general Government, but on the State of Minnesota, which demanded it—especially as there was no shadow of doubt that the demand was made—not because the citizens of Minnesota had any real fear of the peaceable and kindly Winnebagoes (who were as much in terror of the Sioux as they were themselves), but because they “coveted the splendid country the Winnebagoes were occupying, and the Sioux difficulties furnished the pretext to get rid of them with the aid of Congressional legislation.”

Some members of the tribe who remained in Minnesota still claimed their “allotted” lands; “their share of all moneys payable to the Winnebagoes under treaty stipulations, and that their share of the funds of the tribe be capitalized and paid to them in bulk; their peculiar relations as Indians be dissolved, and they left to merge themselves in the community where they have cast their lot.” The commissioner urges upon the Government compliance with these requests.

In 1868 a school was opened on the Winnebago Agency, and had a daily attendance of one hundred and fifty scholars. The tribe adopted a code of laws for their government, and the year was one of peace and quietness, with the exception of some dissatisfaction on the part of tho Indians in regard to three hundred cows, which, having been sent to the agency in