Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1873.djvu/8

688 a disposition is manifested by an Indian to improve a separate tract of land and secure the comforts of a permanent home, a farm of suitable area should be set apart and secured to him for his exclusive occupancy and improvement, and he should be aided by donations of stock and farming implements, out of the annual appropriations for his tribe.

The first steps toward the permanent settlement of Indians in fixed homes is the establishment and rigid enforcement of regulations to keep them all upon reservations. This can only be done, at present, upon some of the reservations by a display of a sufficient military force near the reservation to punish all violations of such requirements. It is believed that many Indians who are subsisted by the Government persist in making foray upon white settlements and upon neighboring tribes, and then retreat to the refuge of their reservations where they can secure their spoils, and be fed and recuperated for fresh outrages. It will be found to be a measure of mercy to all if such Indians can be punished as they deserve.

Serious complaints are made to the Department relative to the presence, upon Indian reservations, of white men, who go there solely for the purpose of hunting buffalo, which are thus destroyed in large numbers. While I would not seriously regret the total disappearance of the buffalo from our western prairies, in its effect on the Indians, regarding it rather as a means of hastening their sense of dependence upon the products of the soil and their own labors, yet these encroachments by the whites upon the reservations set apart for the exclusive occupancy of the Indian is one prolific source of trouble in the management of the reservation Indians, and measures should be adopted to prevent such trespasses in the future, or very serious collisions may be the result. The Government has a two-fold object in confining Indians to reservations: to prevent their encroachments upon white settlers, and to isolate them as far as possible from association with white people. This cannot be accomplished if whites are allowed to trespass at will upon reservations. These remarks apply with greatest force to the so-called Indian Territory south of Kansas.

The policy of enlisting friendly Indians as scouts and auxiliaries in punishing hostile tribes has obtained for some years in the Army, and Indians so serving have rendered valuable service, and received honorable mention in the reports of military officers, and have even been recommended as worthy of receiving certificates of merit for acts of special gallantry. It has been objected to such enlistments that they tend to intensify and perpetuate traditional inter-tribal feuds, and should, therefore, be avoided. Take for example the Rees and other tribes at the Fort Berthold agency, in the Territory of Dakota, in their relations