Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1872.djvu/10

6 ample means of support. When the game shall have disappeared, we shall be well forward in the work in hand.

In the country now occupied by the majority of the tribes of the Dacotah nation, bordering on the Missouri Elver, and by the Rees, Mandans, Gros-Ventres, River Crows, and Assiniboines, near the same river, there is but little land that is available for agriculture, on account of the great dryness of the summers and the intense cold of the winters. Without irrigation nothing can be grown there save in the narrow bottoms skirting the larger water-courses. Some of the tribes there resident are endeavoring to farm, but their efforts have little effect beyond discouraging them from all farming operations. They must have a better location for agricultural pursuits, else but little improvement can be made in their condition.

The Rees, Mandans, and other tribes at Fort Berthold, numbering about 2,500 persons, have been engaged in farming for a number of years. Their efforts have not been attended with encouraging success, for reasons above stated; but they are becoming well convinced that their only hope for the future lies in agriculture, and they are inquiring for a more favorable location for farming. I feel confident that their removal to the Indian Territory south of Kansas can be made with their cheerful assent next year. There their habits of industry, and the knowledge they already possess of agricultural pursuits, will doubtless enable them to make rapid progress in the direction of self support and civilization.

This leads me to allude once more to the subject of a plan for the proper organization and settlement of the Indian Territory lying south of Kansas. The events of the year have seemed to confirm the opinion expressed in my last annual report, that the interests of both Indians and whites will be subserved by organizing that country under a territorial form of government, apportioning the lauds into farms of proper area among the Indians now thereon, and using all proper influences to settle other tribes therein, in the same way.

It is certain that but little progress can be made in the work of civilization while the Indians are suffered to roam at large over immense reservations, hunting and fishing, and making war upon neighboring-tribes. It is only as they are led into habits of industry, and learn the advantages of labor, that anything can be done to elevate them. Industry is the great civilizer; without it no race can be permanently benefited. Efforts should all tend in that direction which will most effectually cultivate those habits. This can best be done by placing them upon farms, and giving them such material aid and practical instruction as wall enable them to cultivate their farms profitably. In proportion as they do this will they learn the advantage of our form of life and abandon their present habits. This must be the work of time; but I confidently believe the result will vindicate the wisdom of the policy in force.