Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/230

212 In order to give the Indians the reservations they desired it was necessary to include some tracts claimed by settlers, which would either have to be vacated, the government paying for their improvements, or the settlers compelled to live among the Indians, an alternative not likely to commend itself to either the settlers or the government.

A careful summing-up of the report of the commissioners showed that they had simply agreed to pay annuities to the Indians for twenty years, to make them presents, and to build them houses, while the Indians still occupied lands of their own choosing in portions of the valley already being settled by white people, and that they refused to accept teachers, either religious or secular, or to cultivate the ground. By these terms all the hopeful themes of the commissioner at Washington fell to the ground. And yet the government was begged to ratify the treaties, because failure to do so would add to the distrust already felt by the Indians from their frequent disappointments, and make any further negotiations difficult.

About the time the last of the six treaties was concluded information was received that congress, by act of the 27th of February, had abolished all special Indian commissions, and transferred to the superintendent the power to make treaties. All but three hundred dollars of the twenty thousand appropriated under the advice of Thurston for this branch of the service had been expended by Gaines in five weeks of absurd magnificence at Champoeg, the paltry remainder being handed over to Superintendent Dart, who received no pay for the extra service with which to defray the expense of making further treaties. Thus ended the first essay of congress to settle the question of title to Indian lands.