Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1879.djvu/16

14 in the government’s service as scouts or policemen. By the present administration of Indian affairs the Indian traders, as well as all other persons on Indian reservations, have been strictly prohibited to sell arms or ammunition to the Indians, and that prohibition has been rigorously enforced. The only way in which Indians can obtain fire-arms and ammunition is by purchase from persons outside of the reservations, over whom the Indian service has no control. There is nothing in the way of legislation prohibiting this obnoxious trade except a joint resolution passed by Congress in November, 1876, authorizing and requesting the President “to take such measures as in his judgment may be necessary to prevent metallic ammunition being conveyed to hostile Indians of the Northwest and to declare the same contraband of war in such district of country as he may designate during the continuance of hostilities,” and a proclamation of the President issued in pursuance thereof prohibiting the sale of fixed ammunition in any district of the Indian country occupied by hostile Indians or over which they roam, and declaring all such fixed ammunition introduced into such country and liable in any way to be received by such hostile Indians contraband of war, to be “seized by any military officer and confiscated”; this prohibition to apply “during the continuance of hostilities” to all Indian country, or country occupied by Indians or subject to their visits, within the Territories of Montana, Dakota, and Wyoming, and the States of Nebraska and Colorado.

It is evident that this prohibition, in which the sale of arms is not mentioned at all, is confined to the sale of fixed ammunition only during the continuance of hostilities in certain districts, when such fixed ammunition shall be seized and confiscated by military officers, and that it leaves the sale of arms and ammunition in any quantity to Indians outside of the reservations, where the Indian service has no authority in ordinary times, entirely free. If this trade is to be stopped, a more stringent and sweeping statute is absolutely required.

Last spring a movement was organized in some of the Western States for the invasion and occupation by unauthorized persons of certain lands in the Indian Territory, which had been ceded by the Cherokees to the government for the purpose of settlement by other Indian tribes. A large number of people, mostly from the States surrounding the Indian Territory, were discovered in the act of entering the Territory for the unlawful object stated. On the 20th of April last the President issued a proclamation warning all persons who were intending then to invade the Indian Territory against attempting to settle on any lands therein, and those who had already so offended, that they would be removed, if necessary, by military force. At the same time corresponding instructions were given to the Army, and with the diligent assistance of the