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Uncle Sam, Trustee That by this act Congress took over the Indian lands on terms of its own, which were never submitted to the Indians for their approval.

That Congress alleged an agreement with the Indians as a basis for the act when no such agreement existed, for the studied purpose of covering up the confiscation of nearly one million dollars of Indian land value.

To prove the truth of these accusations one need not go beyond the range of facts easily accessible, but their serious nature compels a discussion of this one event in the affairs of the Rosebud Indians, to the exclusion of a more general history of the tribe.

As a premise it will be sufficient to say that the Rosebud Sioux, numbering about five thousand, occupy a large reservation in the southeast corner of the original great Sioux reservation. For a considerable distance its eastern boundary is—or was, until the act of 1904 moved it westward—the Missouri River; Nebraska lies on the south, the Pine Ridge reservation joins it on the west, and to the northward is the great cattle range country of South Dakota.

It was to the Rosebud country that the great Sioux Chief Spotted Tail led his dissatisfied people, when, in 1878, he evacuated the Ponca homes so kindly placed at his disposal by the Government. For the accommodation of Spotted Tail the Rosebud agency was established, and a large portion of 263