The governor also says that in the past year the Poncas have paid out of their annuity money for all the improvements which had been made on lands occupied by certain white settlers, who were ejected from their new reservation by the terms of the last treaty.
In the report for 1869 we read that the Ponca school has been “discontinued for want of funds.” The Department earnestly recommends an appropriation of $25,000 to put it in operation again. The new Governor of Dakota seconds the recommendation, and regrets to say that, “for the enlightenment of the 35,000 Indians embraced in the Dakota Superintendency, there is not one school in operation.”
In 1870 an appropriation of $5000 was made by the Department from a general educational fund, for the purpose of resuming this school. The condition of the Poncas now is, on the whole, encouraging; they are “not only willing, but extremely anxious to learn the arts by which they may become self-supporting, and conform to the usages of white men. With the comparatively small advantages that have been afforded them, their advancement has been very great.”
In the summer of 1869 they built for themselves sixteen very comfortable log-houses; in the summer of 1870 they built forty-four more; with their annuity money they bought cook-stoves, cows, aud useful implements of labor. They worked most assiduously in putting in their crops, but lost them all by drought, and are in real danger of starvation if the Government does not assist them. All this while they see herds of cattle driven across their reservation to feed the lately hostile Sioux—flour, coffee, sugar, tobacco, by the wagon-load, distributed to them—while their own always peaceable, always loyal, long-suffering tribe is digging wild roots to eat, and in actual danger of starvation. Nevertheless they are not discouraged, knowing that but for the drought they would have had ample food from their farms, and they make no attempts to retaliate
