Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1876.djvu/10

VI concentration of Indians friendly to each other, and while the plan is not free from difficulty, and may take a long time before all can be brought together in the Indian Territory or upon some three or four large reserves, yet it has been demonstrated that every step taken in that direction is beneficial, and I do not doubt the feasibility of the plan. If, as the Commissioner recommends, the President were authorized by law to remove, whenever in his judgment it might be deemed practicable, any tribe or band, or a portion of a tribe or band, to the Indian Territory, or to either of two prominent reservations—and he names the White Earth in Minnesota and the Yakama in the southern part of Washington Territory—and suitable appropriation placed at his disposal to enable him to do so, there is no doubt that the success of such removals would be apparent within the next two or three years. Many of the present reservations are entirely unfit for cultivation, and the disappearance of game, which is rapidly growing scarce, leaves their occupants solely dependent upon the care of the Government for their support; and this condition cannot be improved till they are located upon soil suitable for agriculture and stock-raising.

Some few of the reservations located on mineral lands are or will be subject to the same conditions with which we have lately had to contend in the case of the Black Hills. In the past the inevitable result of the discovery of rich mineral deposits has been the possession by the miners of the locality hi which it is found. If upon Indian ground, great trouble must ensue unless the Indians are powerless to resist the aggression and protect their rights, which in any event are lost sight of.

Briefly, the arguments are all in favor of the consolidation; expensive agencies would be abolished, the Indians themselves can be more easily watched over and controlled, evil-designing men be the better kept away from them, and illicit trade and barter in arms, ammunition, and whisky prevented; goods could be supplied at a great saving; the military service relieved; the Indians better taught, and friendly rivalry established among them, those most civilized hastening the progress of those below them, and most of the land now occupied as reserves, reverting to the General Government, would be open to entry and sale.

As soon as the Indian is taught to toil for his daily bread and realize the sense of proprietorship in the results of his labor, it cannot but be further to his advantage to be able to appreciate that his labor is expended upon his individual possessions aud for his personal benefit. As long as the land is cultivated and the products owned in common, the homely truth that what is every man's business is no one's, will generally prevail, and the agent with his employes do the most of the farming. The Indian must be made to see the practical advantage to himself of his work, and feel that he reaps the full benefit of it. Everything should teach him that he has a home, not only in common with his tribe, but a hearth-stone of his own around which he can gather his family, and in its possession be entirely secure and independent.