Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/94

60 more the victims of unfortunate circumstances than of evil designs on the part of anybody connected with the Interior Department? And if your meeting was called in the interest of justice, would it not have been just to the officers of the Government connected with this affair to take these circumstances into account?

But more remains to be said. It was reported in several speeches in your meeting that now at last that great wrong to the Poncas has been “unearthed.” I beg your pardon, it is by no means now that it has been unearthed. It was fully disclosed and published three years ago. And who did it? Not you, Governor, nor Mr. Tibbles, nor Senator Dawes, nor Mayor Prince. But I did it myself. In my annual report of 1877, my first report after the removal of and after my meeting with the Poncas in Washington, three years ago, I made the following statement:

Congress at its last session made provision for the removal of the Poncas from their former reservation on the Missouri river to the Indian Territory, resolved upon for the reason that it seemed desirable to get them out of the way of the much more numerous and powerful Sioux, with whom their relations were unfriendly. That removal was accordingly commenced in the early summer. The opposition it met with among the Poncas themselves and the hardships encountered on the march are set forth at length in the report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The Poncas, about 700 in number, were taken to the Quapaw reservation, in the northeastern corner of the Indian Territory, with a view to permanent settlement. But the reluctance with which they had left their old homes, the strange aspect of a new country, an unusually large number of cases of disease and death among them and the fact that they were greatly annoyed by white adventurers hovering around the reservation, who stole many of their cattle and ponies, and smuggled whisky into their encampments, engendered among them a spirit of discontent which threatened