Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1879.djvu/5

Forestry REPORT

OF

, Washington, November 15, 1879.


 * I have the honor to submit the following report of the operations of this department during the past year and such suggestions as in my judgment will promote the public interest:

INDIAN AFFAIRS.

The elaborate report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, herewith presented, gives an interesting account in detail of the conduct of the branch of the service in his charge and the condition of the Indian tribes.

The difficulties connected with what is called the “Indian problem” have been steadily growing from year to year, as the Western country formerly occupied as hunting grounds by Indians exclusively, is required for agricultural settlement and mining industry. In the same measure as white men and Indians more and more jostled one another their contact has been apt to result in collision. We are frequently told that the method followed by our Canadian neighbors in dealing with the Indians is much more successful than ours, and that we should shape our Indian policy after that model. Those who say so seem to forget that the condition of things in the British possessions on this continent has until recently been in an essential point different from that existing in the United States. In the British possessions the Indians occupied an immense territory, full of game, where they have long been permitted to roam at their pleasure, without being interfered with by the progress of settlement. There was comparatively little necessity on the part of the government of providing for the sustenance of the Indians, because they could almost wholly provide for themselves by hunting. Under such circumstances the Indian problem was very simple, and peace was easily maintained. Of late, however, as settlements spread and game becomes less abundant in their Indian country, our Canadian neighbors, if we may believe recent reports, begin to feel that difficulties similar to those we have so long had to contend with, are gradually coming upon them, and that thus they are just approaching the same Indian problem which has been disturbing us for so long a time in various forms. It is to be hoped that they will succeed in solving it