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70 pancy of the soil was instinctively recognized. The Secretary of the Interior, in his report for 1849, says: “The wild tribes of Indians who have their hunting-grounds in the great prairie through which our emigrants to California pass, have, during the year, been more than usually pacific. They have suffered our people to pass through their country with little interruption, though they travelled in great numbers, and consumed on their route much grass and game. For these the Indians expect compensation, and their claim is just.”

The Secretary, therefore, concurs in the recommendation of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs that treaties be negotiated with these tribes, stipulating for the right-of way through their country, and the use of grass and game, paying them therefor small annuities in useful articles of merchandise, and agricultural implements, and instruction. “The right of way”—“through their country.” A great deal is conceded, covered, and conveyed by such phrases as these. If they mean anything, they mean all that the Indians ever claimed.

The Indians were supposed to be influenced to this peaceableness and good-will more by a hope of rewards and gifts than by a wholesome fear of the power of the Government; and it was proposed to take a delegation of chiefs to Washington, “in order that they may acquire some knowledge of our greatness and strength, which will make a salutary impression on them, and through them on their brethren,” and “will tend to influence them to continue peaceful relations.”

It begins to dawn upon the Government's perception that peace is cheaper as well as kinder than war. “We never can whip them into friendship,” says one of the superintendents of the Upper Missouri Agency. A treaty “can do no harm, and the expense would be less than that of a six months’ war. * * * Justice as well as policy requires that we should make some remuneration for the damages these Indians sustain in consequence of the destruction of their game, timber, etc., by the whites passing through their country.”