Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1873.djvu/9

Rh to the neighboring bands of Sioux. The valuable services of the former have been recognized by Generals Stanley and Crittenden, but these tribes have suffered in consequence by the depredations of the Sioux. I recommend a careful consideration of this subject as one of the utmost importance, but am not prepared to give it my approval, in view of the fact that its propriety is questioned by many of the most judicious friends of the Indian cause, whose opinions are entitled to great weight. If such enlistments are to be made, however, we should do all that is necessary to strengthen the tribes from which recruits are enlisted by liberal supplies and improved arms, thus enabling them not only to defend themselves more effectually, but to render more efficient service to the Government. The complaint is now made by some of the friendly tribes thus circumstanced, that the bounty of the Government is dispensed in direct proportion to the hostility of a tribe, and that those which have been friendly from their own voluntary choice are left for the most part to their own resources.

The Sioux Nation is almost completely surrounded by tribes that are really friendly to the Government. and at the same time bitterly hostile to the Sioux. If these friendly tribes could be liberally supplied with improved firearms and ammunition, the present supremacy of the Sioux might in a few years be destroyed with but little aid from the Army, and quiet would prevail over the vast extent of country now roamed by that powerful nation.

Attention is invited to the eleventh article of the treaty of 1868 with the Sioux Nation, granting them certain hunting privileges within the State of Nebraska, and without the bounds of their reservation. On account of the violation of the other provisions of that treaty by the Sioux, and the scarcity of game in the country referred to, the Government will, I think, be justified in abrogating that article, and I respectfully suggest such action.

Satisfactory progress has been made within the year in the reduction of the area of existing reservations, in the exchange of reservations lying within the range of advancing settlements and railroad construction for other locations equally desirable for all purposes of Indian occupancy, as well as in bringing tribes upon reservations for the first time, and in the removal of other tribes to the Indian Territory. All this is the legitimate result of the working of the existing policy, and the efforts of the Department in that direction have been unremitting. Several important negotiations have been concluded during the year looking to the change in the location of tribes and the reduction in the area of reservations.

It will be found by an examination of these negotiations that by the treaty with the Crows their reservation has been reduced by 4,000,