14 C. F. COAN
to become citizens of the United States. In order to accom- plish this they should be provided with reservations of good lands of sufficient size to allow each head of a family a home- stead. The Indians should be supplied with farms, and farmers to instruct them in agriculture. Many bands should be concentrated on one reservation in order that the control of the government over them might be more easily effected. The authority of the chiefs of the tribes should be increased so that they could be held responsible to the government for the conduct of their bands. The Indians should not be ex- cluded from the fisheries. This plan of concentrating the Indians was probably the best but was difficult to effect with- out the use of force, as Stevens must have known. 32 In the previous year, while among the Pend d'Oreille, he had been told of the effort of the Jesuit missionaries to persuade the Indians to move to a better region, and of their refusal on the ground of ancestral ties to their own country. 33
Thus, during 1853 and 1854, as a result of the increased settlements in Washington Territory, the Indian service had been organized ; appropriations had been made for making treaties with the Indians ; and Indian policy recommendations had been made by the superintendent of Indian affairs for Washington Territory. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs, November 25, 1854 and the superintendent of Indian Affairs, for Washington Territory, February 28, 1854, expressed the belief that the time had come for the final settlement of the Indian problem in Washington. 34
The Negotiation of the Treaties. We have seen that during 1853 and 1854 a policy of making treaties with the Indians had, for the second time, been adopted. The two* differences that marked the later from the early policy were : the absence of any plan for a general removal of the Indians to an "Indian Country" and the inclusion of the whole area of the Pacific Northwest in the plan for the extinguishment of the Indian title. Between November 1854 and January 1856, fifteen treaties were made which extinguished the Indian title to all
32 Stevens to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Sept. 16, 1854, C. I. A., A. R. Nov. 25, 1854 (Serial 746, Doc. i), p. 421.
33 Stevens to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Sept. 16, 1854, ibid., p. 450.
34 The Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual Report, Nov. 25, 1854 (Serial 746, Doc. i), p. 223; Stevens to the Legislative Assembly, Feb. 28, 1854, ibid., p. 15.
