Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/87

Rh standing that the final details of the transaction should be completed at Washington after the selection of lands in the Indian Territory had been made. He forwarded, also, the minutes of that council, from which it appeared that the consent he claimed to have been given consisted in speeches made by the chiefs, but not in a formal relinquishment on paper with their signatures. However, Inspector Kemble reported it as a conclusive consent. A delegation of Ponca chiefs went with him to the Indian Territory where they had hoped to find a home among the Osages, whom they believed to be similar to them in language and habits. But when the delegation arrived at the Osage agency the head chiefs as well as the agent were absent; the Ponca delegates were inhospitably received and poorly provided for, and the weather being inclement, were detained in uncomfortable quarters for several days. Most of the delegates became disheartened at the outset and refused to consider other desirable locations which were shown them, and on reaching Arkansas City eight of them left in the night without the knowledge of the inspector, and started on foot for the Ponca agency, which they reached, after a tedious and difficult journey, in forty days. The other two, with the inspector, their agent and the Rev. S. D. Hinman, continued their inspection and pronounced in favor of the northeast quarter of the Quapaw reserve as a location for their tribe.

Thus the removal was initiated, and the preliminary measures carried out, before the present Administration came into power. Reports made to the Indian Office were to the effect that on their return to their people the Ponca chiefs found the tribe divided in sentiment, the opposition to removal being constantly strengthened by the influence of outside parties; that the jealousies and animosities which had always prevailed among the different bands of the tribe were so intensified by those differences of opinion