will, except in a few individual cases, to be able to take care and provide for themselves in future.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

A. M. ROBINSON, Esq.,

M. C. DICKEY, United States Indian Agent.

Superintendent Indian Affairs, St. Joseph, Mo.

No. 44.

OSAGE RIVER AGENCY, Paola, Kansas, August 21, 1860.

SIR: Since my last annual report, nothing has transpired in this agency requiring a labored or lengthy report.

For the past year the general health of the Miami and confederate tribes has been better than usual.

The confederate Kaskaskia, Piankeshaw, Peoria, and Wea Indians have manifested an industry, a skill, and taste in the improvement of their homes worthy of much commendation. Nearly every one who occupies a head-right has inclosed, broke, and planted a new field, or made an addition to one already cultivated. Not less than twelve new and comfortable frame dwellings have been erected during the past year, or are now in the process of construction.

With an ordinary season, the crop planted would have afforded an abundant supply for the Indians, besides a handsome surplus for traffic; but owing to the present drought, the yield will not average over a half crop, and perhaps not so much.

Three new frame school-houses of a size and finish suited to the wants of the different settlements are now under process of erection, and will probably be completed in time for a winter school.

Since the instructions authorizing Indians to sell head-rights, a large quantity of that class of land has been disposed of. Many of the Indians abandon the forty-acre reservation, reinvest their money in land, and again settle within a few miles from the first head-right. They want to live in communities of their own; they feel more secure in their persons and property in their own neighborhoods, and can better enjoy the society of each other than of white people. Those who are successful in agricultural pursuits will ultimately live together in Indian settlements. The head-rights were generally selected by the Indians in view of the beauty and value of the land, but their settlements in view of their personal convenience and comfort.

In answer from the department to the prayer of the chiefs and head men of the Indians of this agency, the Miami reservation, consisting of over twenty thousand acres, and the Wea ten sections, have been appraised, preparatory to a sale. The Indians now feel partially relieved from the annoyance occasioned by frequent trespasses and depredations perpetrated by the whites on their lands. Those occupying these lands, in violation of treaty stipulations, now look forward

to the time when they can hold their respective claims by honorable purchase, and in the meantime, will feel interested in protecting their respective claims from the intrusion of others. The public mind is, in a great measure, calmed in regard to the trespasses on these lands, and. the Indian complaints of intrusion and thefts less frequent; still, acts. are often perpetrated which are nothing less than a repetition of the old offenses.

The continued trespass, by the destruction of timber on the headrights, and thefts perpetrated, continue to be a source of much annoyance. Those engaged in the unlawful traffic of intoxicating liquors. have generally been able to resort to some expedient to avoid the penalties of the law. One of the great inconveniences is the great distance from the points at which the offenses are committed to the court where the law is administered.

The sale of these lands will relieve the Indians from many cares, in the use of means to protect their lands; and the proceeds arising from. the sales, if properly taken care of and applied, will be of far more practical utility to the Indians than the land.

A. M. ROBINSON, Esq.,

SETH CLOVER,

Indian Agent.

Superintendent Indian Affairs, St. Joseph, Mo.

No. 45.

OFFICE SUPERINTENDENT INDIAN AFFAIRS,

Southern Superintendency, Fort Smith, September 24, 1860. SIR: I have the honor to transmit for your consideration my third annual report.

I deem it unnecessary to bring to your notice the reports made to me by the agents of the several tribes in this superintendency, which accompany this report, otherwise than by a reference to them, and by the general remarks that here follow.

The lapse of a single year makes so little difference in the condition, prospects, habits, and degree of civilization of the apathetic and indolent Indian, that there is, in these respects, nothing to be added to what I have already said in my former reports. I have not had occasion, nor seen reason, to change any of the opinions heretofore expressed in regard to the prospects and condition of improvement of the tribes under my charge.

The Neosho agency is the only one in this superintendency that I have not visited within the past year. Nothing has occurred in connection with it to merit particular notice; and for all the information which I possess in regard to the local affairs, schools, and condition of the small tribes, and fragments of tribes, under the agent, Andrew J. Dorn, I refer to the report of that very faithful and intelligent officer.、 I cannot report any improvement in the condition or prospects of the Cherokees. There has been much disturbance among them during the past year, and great strife and contention; hostile parties have been organized, and, it is said, an extensive secret association formed among

the full-bloods. Murders are continually committed, and other outrages perpetrated. Great excitement now exists among them; and the cause of all this trouble, anger, excitement, and violence, is believed to be the intermeddling, by the missionaries among them, headed by Evan and John Jones, with the institution of slavery.

The crops have almost wholly failed the present year in a large portion of the nation, and the Indians must suffer much for want of bread.

The Cherokees are not improving in morals, nor is the cultivation of the soil increasing among them. There are many lawless and vicious men among them, and much gambling and dissipation prevails; there will be no improvement until peace and order are restored, and that will not be until a military post is established in or on the edge of their country, with a sufficient force stationed there to keep down violence, suppress outrages, and make the agent something more than a man of straw.

I have already, over and over again, urged the establishment of such a post at Frozen Rock, on the Arkansas river. It is useless for me to repeat what I have already said on the subject, and I can add nothing to it.

The report of the agent for the Cherokees gives, as usual, all the necessary information as to their schools and domestic affairs.

The Creeks are peaceable and quiet. They adhere to their old system of government, by national and town chiefs, and their laws are respected and obeyed by the people. I imagine that no great advance is to be looked for among them; there is an aggregate of several different tribes and portions of tribes, and most of the Yuchis and Upper Creeks speak no English, and have intermixed very little. with the whites. They are an agricultural people, and live in houses, but have not the most remote idea of a constitutional government, and, I should think, will not have in many years.

The crops of the Creeks are generally cut short by the drought, and they will not raise corn enough to furnish bread, so that many of them must suffer.

The report of the agent gives a sufficiently detailed statement as to schools and local affairs.

The Seminoles have not yet all settled in their new country. The, Creeks are dissatisfied that so many of them have not yet removed and have extended their laws over them, which operate oppressively, the existence and nature of these laws not having been known to the Seminoles. It is probably, however, the most effective mode of forcing them to remove; and I believe those yet remaining will do so this fall and during the winter.

The agency buildings and council-house provided for in the treaty have been completed, and they will no doubt, when once finally settled, do well in their new country. But for the drought of the present season, those who had removed would have done well and made good crops; but among them, also, the grain crop has been in a large measure destroyed, and they will suffer for want of bread. I refer to the report of the agent for additional information. The Choctaws and Chickasaws have, during the year, given occasion

for no action on my part. The difficulties among the former, growing out of the adoption of the Scullyville constitution, have been settled by the vote of the people, who decided that a convention should be called to amend and revise the constitution. The party opposed to the Scullyville constitution thus succeeded, and the seat of government has been removed to Doaksville. I believe that all parties have peaceably submitted to this result.

If any Indian tribes on the continent can ever be incorporated into this Union it will be the Choctaws and Chickasaws: always a peaceful and agricultural people, domestic in their habits, not fond of the chase. The experiment of constitutional government among them has been as successful as could be expected. Of course they are plagued with many self-constituted teachers and guardians, who have the greatest regard and the most jealous love for their interests; and who, upon their limited and narrow stage, ape politicians elsewhere, and play the same tricks to gain influence and popularity, in which they are well seconded by the ignorance and simplicity of the mass of the people. I do not know, however, but that their public affairs are conducted with as much honesty and public spirit as those of many more important States and nations: fortunately, few of them can read, and there is but one newspaper in both tribes, few lawyers, no places where liquor is sold, but little politics, and as little sectarian discussion concerning religion; so that, on the whole, they may be regarded as a fortunate people. Indeed, if their lands were partitioned among them in severalty, and they could sell and give complete title, they would be the richest people in the world. But, as they have only the right of usufruct, though deluded by the pretense that they own in fee, because they have no power of disposition, their title is comparatively of little value, since they cannot occupy and use an acre in ten thousand of their lands.

The Choctaws and Chickasaws are, it is believed, the greatest sufferers from drought; their crops have almost wholly failed, and it is thought that many will perish for want of food, unless some provision is made by the government to relieve them. Humanity urges that the department should ascertain their condition and necessities, and that, as we aided in sending food to starving Ireland, so we should preserve from destruction and misery these faithful allies and dependents.

It is a great hardship upon the Choctaws that the money due them under the award of the Senate, made under the provisions of the treaty of 1855, has not been paid them. If the appropriation had been made at the last session it would have saved them from much suffering; and this they keenly feel, thirty years having now elapsed since the treaty was made with them, which was so violated as to have been, to most of the tribe, only an instrument of oppression.

I am glad to see the opinion expressed by distinguished men in the Senate that it is time the system of making treaties with Indian tribes was ended. Certainly, it is time either to cease making them or to cease violating them before the ink with which they are written is dry. The appeal for justice and for the faithful performance of treaty stipulations by an Indian tribe necessarily produces little impression upon a Congress agitated by the passions and strifes of parties, and where

no one feels that the responsibility of denying or delaying justice rests upon himself alone.

It is very desirable that whatever remains due to the tribes in this superintendency should as soon as practicable be paid them; and it will be the greatest of blessings to them, when ceasing to be pensioners on the United States, they shall begin to maintain their own government and their own schools, and thus come to value, as all men will, that which costs something; and when they shall no longer be seduced from labor, no temptation to incur debts on the expectation of money to be paid by the United States, and traders shall not be encouraged to flock thither with goods to be sold at high prices for the shares of Indians in money afterwards to be received.

The Indians removed from the Texas reservations, and the Wichitas and bands affiliated with them, settled last year upon the False Washita river, in the district of country leased from the Choctaws and Chickasaws, were visited by me early the last summer, and are doing well, notwithstanding the constant alarm they have been kept in by the threats and excitement of the people on the frontier of Texas, some of whom, it would seem, regard it as no more a crime to kill an Indian than to shoot a deer, and take a scalp of man or woman with the same sense of exhilaration and triumph with which a free hunter takes the brush of the animal run down by his dogs. Great efforts were made last spring to create the belief that it was these reserve Indians who were committing the greatly exaggerated depredations on the Texas frontier; but it is positively certain that none of them ever stirred from the reserve. They cleared, fenced, and planted about 300 acres of land during the past winter and spring, and the prospects were promising for fine crops until the drought began, and, in the end, entirely destroyed them; they made literally nothing, and must be fed by the government for another year, or starve. I state the alternative simply and plainly.

They deserve to be kept alive, for there never has been anywhere a set of uncultivated and almost wholly uncivilized Indians who have exhibited more industry and a stronger inclination to work and sustain themselves and become possessed of property of their own. If they are justly dealt with, not permitted to be hunted down as game and exterminated, but encouraged and rewarded, they will soon become self-supporting, and triumphantly vindicate the wisdom of the policy of colonization. Many of them have applied to me for the establishment of a school among them, under the supervision and direction of the Catholic Church-the Camanches having had much intercourse with the Mexicans, as have the Tonkahwas and Caddoes, and therefore being inclined towards their religion-I recommend the establishment of such school. I am satisfied that under the direction of the Catholics it would be of great use to the young of those tribes, much more so than if controlled by any other church. The school in the Neosho agency, under Catholic auspices, has done more for the Indian youth than any other school within my superintendency; and such has been the case, I believe, ever since the discovery of the continent, with the Catholic school