Page:A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, Including the Diplomatic Correspondence, 1861-1865, Volume I.djvu/179

Rh $150,000, and the interest of $50,000 for educational purposes on what are known as the Cherokee neutral lands, lying between the State of Kansas and the Cherokee Territory, for which the Indians paid the United States Government $500,000, and which lands we guarantee to the Indians against the hazard of being lost by the fortune of war or ceded by treaty of peace. I herewith submit to you estimates of the entire pecuniary obligations assumed by these treaties, in tabular exhibits A and B. They are generally stated with great minuteness in the treaties, but I have caused them to be abstracted and put in tabular form for more convenient reference. I also submit to you the report of Albert Pike, the commissioner, which contains a history of his negotiations and submits his reasons for a departure from his instructions in relation to the pecuniary obligations to be incurred. In view of the circumstances by which we are surrounded, the great importance of preserving peace with the Indians on the frontier of Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri, and, not least, because of the spirit these tribes have manifested in making common cause with us in the war now existing, I recommend the assumption of the stipulated pecuniary obligations, and, with the modifications herein suggested, that the treaties submitted be ratified.

 December 16, 1861. To the Hon. President of the Congress. Sir: I herewith transmit to the Congress the report of the Hon. Secretary of War, with accompanying papers.

 To the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States.

I herewith transmit a copy of a communication from Mr. William S. Ashe urging the completion of certain railroads as necessary for the proper transportation of troops and military stores in the exigencies of the present war. I also transmit a copy of a communication from Mr. E. Fontaine, President of the Central Railroad of Virginia, urging the completion of twenty miles 