fulfilment of one of the provisions of the treaty, were nevertheless ordered by the Indian Burean to be “kept as Department stock.” The Indians very naturally held that they had a right to these cows; nevertheless, they continued peaceable and contented, in the feeling that they had “at last found a home,” where they might “hope to remain and cultivate the soil with the feeling that it is theirs, and that their children will not in a few days be driven from their well-tilled and productive lands.” They are, however, “growing exceedingly anxious for the allotment of their lands in severalty.”
In 1869 “preparations” were “being made for allotting the lands to heads of families.”
In 1870 “the allotment of land in severalty to the Indians has been nearly completed, each head of a family receiving eighty acres. * * * The Indians anxiously look for the patents to these, as many have already commenced making improvements. * * * At least thirty have broken four acres of prairie apiece, and several have built houses. * * * Three schools are in operation, and four hundred acres of ground under cultivation.”
In this year comes also an interesting report from the stray Winnebagoes left behind in Wisconsin. They and the stray Pottawottomies who are in the same neighborhood are “remarkably quiet and inoffensive, giving no cause of complaint; on the contrary, the towns and villages where they trade their berries, maple-sugar, etc., are deriving considerable benefit from them: a number have been employed in lumbering, harvesting, and hop-picking. A number of mill-owners and lumbermen have informed me that the Indians they have employed in their business have been steady, good hands. * * * There are nearly one thousand of these Winnebagoes. Some of them have bought land; others are renting it; and all express an anxiety that the ‘Great Father’ should give them a reservation in this region, and allow them to remain.”
In 1871 the Nebraska Winnebagoes deposed their old chiefs,
