Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/444

 This is a specimen of the aid and succor afforded by military commanders to the agents to maintain and preserve peace among the Indians. These are the gentlemen to whom the agents look for co-operation in the discharge of their duties, and to afford equal protection to the Indians against aggressions from the whites, as to the whites against aggressions from the Indians. Such a transaction as is here disclosed is an act of unmitigated infamy in the officers who have lent themselves to it. I hope the Executive, in the plenitude of his power, and in the exercise of a wise and just discretion, will erase their names from the records of the country, and redeem our annals from infamy so blackening as this. Think, sir, of an officer wearing an American sword, adorned with American epaulettes, the emblem of office and the insignia of honor and manly pride, degrading himself by a violation of the faith of his Government, rendering him a disgrace to the uniform which he wears and the earth upon which he treads!

It will be recollected that the Delaware Indians own one million eight hundred thousand acres of land. They ceded one million three hundred thousand acres to the Government of the United States for $10,000, reserving to themselves the land on which the city referred to has been laid out on the banks of the Missouri. They confided five hundred thousand acres to the Government of the United States, as they could not themselves dispose of it except to the Government; and, believing that it would be a source of wealth and independence to them, they have granted it to the Government, in trust, to be sold by it, the right of possession remaining in them until it should be disposed of. It appears, from the Commissioner's report, that persons had gone and taken possession of this land. If they have not done so, they ought to be vindicated against the charge. I regard it as authentic a.nd official, and until it is controverted I have nothing to extenuate, nor do I set down aught in malice. Justice requires me to state the facts.

Mr. President, I said to the Senate, on a former occasion, that eighteen tribes of Indians had been located by this Government within the limits of the present Territories of Nebraska and Kansas, and that most of them had been removed there from the east of the Mississippi. They were located there under the faith of solemn pledges, that while grass grew or water run, or the earth brought forth its fruits, they should remain on the lands assigned to them unless they chose to abandon them, and that they should not be included within the boundaries of any State or Territory. Notwithstanding this, these Indians were embraced within the Nebraska and Kansas bill. They were taken in—yes, sir, as strangers are sometimes "taken in." What is now their condition, and what must it be in after-time? On this point let the Commissioner of Indian Affairs speak. In his recent report he says, in reference to the Nebraska and Kansas Indians: "In the recent negotiations for their lands, the Indians dwelt upon the former pledges and promises made to them, and were averse generally to the surrender of any portion of their country. They said that they were to have the land 'as long as grass grew or water run,' and they feared the result if they should consent to yield any part of their possessions. When they did consent to sell, it was only on the condition that each tribe should retain a portion of that tract as a permanent home. All were unitedly and