Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1878.djvu/10

VIII thriftless paupers of industrious and hitherto self-supporting tribes. It is difficult to see how they can be placed in the Territory of Arizona elsewhere, without arousing against them fierce opposition on the part of white people. Inspector Watkins was sent to inquire into their condition, and reports in favor of their removal to the Indian Territory, for which, as he thinks, an appropriation of $25,000 will be sufficient. I concur in that recommendation.

The report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs gives an elaborate and very interesting account of the outbreak of the Bannocks last spring. It must be admitted that they were insufficiently supplied with food, which, however, was owing to an appropriation of money by Congress utterly inadequate to their wants. Formerly those Indians had supplied themselves in part by hunting, but in consequence of the Nez Percé war they were kept on their reservation, in order to avoid greater disorders. Thus they were deprived of that resource, and the money available for feeding them amounted only to less than 4½ cents a head per day. This created discontent among them; then a murder of a white man was committed by an Indian; the Indian was arrested, tried, and hung; the discontent grew into excitement; a military detachment attempted to disarm and dismount them, but with only partial success; and finally the events took place which appear in the Commissioner's report in a series of dispatches and letters, giving a full and circumstantial account of the causes, progress, and incidents of the trouble. To this account I would respectfully call your attention.

After a protracted pursuit and several encounters, the hostile Bannocks were dispersed, and most of them surrendered and are now held as prisoners. The military authorities have called upon the Interior Department to take them off their hands, and it is intended to transport them to the Yakama Reservation, and to put them under the charge of Mr. Wilbur, the most successful agent in the service.

Another disturbance was created by a portion of the band of Northern Cheyennes, who, on the 9th day of September last, suddenly left their reservation, in the immediate vicinity of Fort Beno, in the Indian Territory, and marched northward, through Kansas and Nebraska, toward Dakota, committing many murders and other atrocities on their way. The causes which led to this trouble have been made the subject of special inquiry by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and his report is very complete and specific on that subject. It has been stated and widely believed that the Northern Cheyennes were driven to this outbreak by hunger, and that starvation was caused by a neglect on the part of the government officials to furnish them supplies according to treaty. From