and I firmly believe that its execution, if properly aided by Congress and not interfered with by the white population of the Western States and Territories, would, in the course of time, bring forth satisfactory results.

Considerable progress has been made in the execution of the plan above stated, as far as it depends on the action of this department and the officers under its direction. The consolidation of a number of agencies has been undertaken, with a view to a better location of the Indians, which will at the same time simplify the service, render a more efficient supervision possible, reduce the expenses of the government, and lessen the opportunities for fraud and peculation. As far as the appropriations made by Congress would permit, agricultural implements and domestic cattle have been furnished to Indian tribes, to set the Indians to work for their own support and to encourage industrious habits. An Indian police has been organized at twenty-two agencies, and from all of them favorable reports as to the working of the new system have been received. The labor of white men on Indian reservations has as much as possible been supplanted by Indian labor. Instructions have been given to discriminate in the distribution of supplies and annuities, which are not actual necessaries, against individual Indians who show no disposition to work, thus discouraging idleness. Permission to send out hunting parties has been given only where without hunting the Indians would have been exposed to want. The rapid disappearance of game, however, in many parts of the western country will very soon stop this source of sustenance. The allotment of land among Indians on several reservations has been ordered and is in progress. The facilities of education have been extended as much as possible, and proper directions have been given for the instruction of Indian children in practical pursuits. Fifty Indian children, boys and girls, selected from dif ferent tribes, have been taken to the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia, where they will receive an elementary English education and thorough practical instruction in farming and other useful work, to be sent back to their tribes after the completed course. Captain Pratt, who was intrusted with the selection of these children, and who performed his task in a very satisfactory manner, reports that a continually increasing interest in education is shown by the Indians, and that they would have sent thousands of children with him had he been able to receive them. The result of this interesting experiment, if favorable, may be destined to become an important factor in the advancement of civilization among the Indians.

The Indian service has been reorganized in several of its branches. It was found necessary to remove a number of agents on account of improper practices or lack of business efficiency, and great care has been taken in filling their places with new men. Where mistakes were found to have been made in the new selections they have been promptly rectified. Important changes have been made in the contract system and in

the methods of accountability; an active supervision has been exercised by inspectors and special agents; the detection of fraud has been followed by vigorous prosecution; and, on the whole, I feel enabled to say that the character of the service has been raised in point of integrity and efficiency.

I am, however, far from pretending that the present condition of Indian affairs is what it ought to be. The experience gained in an earnest effort to overcome difficulties and to correct abuses has enabled me to appreciate more clearly the task still to be accomplished. In my last annual report I stated frankly, and I have to repeat now, that, in pursuing a policy ever so wise and with a machinery ever so efficient, gradual improvement can be effected only by patient, energetic, and well-directed work in detail. An entirely satisfactory state of things can be brought about only under circumstances which are not and cannot be under the control of the Indian service alone. If the recurrence of trouble and disturbance is to be avoided, the appropriations made by Congress for the support of Indians who are not self-supporting must be liberal enough to be sufficient for that purpose, and they must be made early enough in the year to render the purchase and delivery of new supplies possible before the old supplies are exhausted.

2. The Indian service should have at its disposal a sufficient fund to be used, with proper accountability, at discretion in unforeseen emergencies.

3. The citizens of Western States and Territories must be made to understand that, if the Indians are to cease to be troublesome paupers and vagabonds, and are to become orderly and self-supporting, they must have lands fit for agriculture and pasturage; that on such lands they must be permitted to remain and to establish permanent homes, and that such a result cannot be attained if the white people insist upon taking from them, by force or trickery, every acre of ground that is good for anything.

The first two things can be accomplished by appropriate action on the part of Congress. The difficulties growing out of the continually-repeated encroachments by white people on the rights of the Indians may be lessened by the concentration of the Indians on a smaller number of reservations, but they can be entirely avoided even then only by the most energetic enforcement of the laws on the part of the general and local governments.

To this end it seems desirable that the southwestern tribes, whose present reservations appear insecure or otherwise unsuitable for their permanent settlement, should be gradually removed to the Indian Territory. The climate of the Indian Territory is congenial to them, while it has proved unwholesome to the northern Indians who were located there. The northwestern tribes will, in the course of time, have to be concentrated in similar manner on a few reservations east of the Rocky Mountains and on the Pacific slope.

To keep the Indians on their reservations and to prevent disturbance and conflicts, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs recommends the organization of a mounted body of "Indian auxiliaries," to be drawn from the young men of the various tribes, and to be under the command of the military authorities. I heartily concur in this recommendation. The young men enlisted in such an organization, paid by the government, will be withdrawn from the fighting element of the Indian tribes and be disciplined in the service of peace and order. It is a matter of general experience that Indians so employed can be depended upon as to loyal fidelity to the duties assigned to them. But the principal end of our Indian policy cannot be promoted by police measures alone. That end consists in gradually introducing among the Indians the habits and occupations of civilized life, by inducing them to work for their own support, by encouraging the pride of the individual ownership of property, and by educating the young generation; and no efforts should be spared to bring to bear upon them proper moral influences in that direction. Such efforts should not be sneered at as mere sentimental fancies, nor should they be discouraged by the assertion that success is impossible. The advance made by some Indian tribes is sufficient proof that a similar advance may be made by others. Whatever may be accomplished by the employment of force, it is certain that only as the Indians progress in the ways of civilization they will cease to be a troublesome and disturbing element.

I beg leave to submit the following remarks concerning several tribes whose conduct and condition is of especial interest:

THE SIOUX.

In accordance with the agreement made at the council held by the President with the Ogalalla and Brulé Sioux chiefs in September, 1877, the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail Sioux were permitted to choose locations of their own selection on their great reservation in Dakota. To keep them near the Missouri River would have been convenient for the transportation of supplies and annuities, and, in pursuance of an act of Congress passed at the last session, a commission, consisting of General D. S. Stanley, U. S. A., Mr. J. M. Haworth, and Rev. A. L. Riggs, accompanied by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, was sent to the camps of the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail Sioux for the purpose of ascertaining whether their choice could not be so directed as to bring their selection of their permanent abodes into accord with the convenience of the government. The Indians, however, were found to be quite determined to move westward, and the promise of the government in that respect was faithfully kept. The Spotted Tail Sioux are now located 65 miles west of the Missouri River, at the mouth of Rosebud Creek, while the Red Cloud Indians settled down still farther west, on White Clay Creek, at the mouth of Wolf Creek.

It gives me pleasure to say that these Sioux so far have given evidence

of a loyal spirit, and that the rumors current for some time of a disposition on their part to break out in hostilities, proved entirely unfounded. When some of the Cheyennes who had escaped from the Indian Territory had taken refuge with Red Cloud, he sent word to the officers of this department that he held prisoners belonging to a tribe friendly to him, but hostile to the government, and that he was ready to give them up, which was faithfully done.

Great difficulty was encountered in sending supplies from the Missouri River to the new agencies. In consequence of a combination of transportation contractors to force the government to pay exorbitant prices, their bids were rejected, and the organization of wagon-trains, to be manned by Indians with their ponies, proceeded with, the same experiment having been tried on a large scale at another agency, at an earlier period this year, and having proved successful. The task to be performed by these wagon-trains between the Missouri River and the Sioux Agencies is a much larger and more difficult one, owing to the character of the country, and the circumstance that the grass has been burnt off the plains between the Missouri River and the new agencies, as rumor has it, by evil-disposed persons to bring about the failure of this experiment; but it has so far been successfully accomplished, and it is believed that the new Sioux Agencies will be sufficiently supplied during the winter season in that way.

The peaceful conduct of the Sioux during this year seems to justify the best hopes for the future.

THE PIMAS AND MARICOPAS.

A striking illustration of the perplexities the Indian service has sometimes to deal with is furnished by the present condition of the Pimas and Maricopas, in Arizona Territory. These tribes, numbering over 10,000, were located on a reservation, part of which was irrigated by the river Gila. Making use of the water of that river, these Indians were enabled to raise crops sufficient for their wants, so that the appropriations made by Congress for their support were very light. It may be said that these tribes were really self-supporting by their own labor and industry. Within a few years past mines were discovered on the upper course of the Gila River, and most of the water which formerly served to irrigate the fields of the Pimas and Maricopas was thus diverted for mining purposes, so that the water-supply no longer sufficed for the irrigation of the Indian lands under cultivation. The consequence was a failure of their crops, and, in fact, the impossibility of raising anything. The Indians found themselves compelled to leave their reservation and to seek new fields on the Salt River, where, however, white people set up claims to the land, and now loudly demand their removal. The result is that these Indians will starve on their reservation or be driven away if they attempt to settle down and cultivate the soil elsewhere, unless the government buys supplies to feed them, which would make

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 BANNOCKS.

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 43 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.

THE NORTHERN CHEYENNES.

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 Reno, 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