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I urgently recommend that liberal provision be made to aid them in their new settlement.
In the report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs of the same year you will find that statement amplified with much information in detail. In the report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, presented by me in 1878, the following passage occurs:
It should be remembered that their old reservation in Dakota was confirmed to the Poncas by solemn treaty and at the time of making the treaty they received promises of certain annuities in consideration of the cession to the United States of a large tract of land. That treaty, which is still in force, also recognized certain depredation claims which are still unadjusted. By a blunder in making the Sioux treaty of 1868, the 96,000 acres belonging to the Poncas were ceded to the Sioux. The negotiators had no right whatever to make the cession, and the bad feeling between the Sioux and the Poncas, which had existed for a long time, compelled the removal of the latter to the Indian Territory.
In this removal, I am sorry to be compelled to say, the Poncas were wronged, and restitution should be made as far as it is in the power of the Government to do so. For the violation of their treaty no adequate return has yet been made. They gave, up lands, houses, and agricultural implements. The houses and implements will be returned them; their lands should be immediately paid for, and the title to their present location should be made secure. But the removal inflicted a far greater injury upon the Poncas, for which no reparation can be made, the loss by death of many of their number, caused by change of climate.
Nothing having been done in the previous session of Congress, my report notwithstanding, a bill was drafted in this Department and submitted to Congress during the session of 1878-’9. In that bill provision was made for an appropriation of $140,000, to indemnify the Poncas for the lands and other property given up by them, and to acquire title for them to their new reservation.
In my annual report of 1879 the same subject was again referred to in the following language: “That the Poncas were grievously wronged by their removal from their location on the Missouri river to the Indian Territory, their old reservation having, by a mistake in making the Sioux treaty, been transferred to the Sioux, has been at length and repeatedly set forth in my reports as well as those of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. All that could be subsequently done by this Department, in the absence of new legislation, to repair that wrong and to indemnify them for their losses, has been done with more than ordinary solicitude.”
At the same time I presented the report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs of that year which, as a reminder, contained the text of the bill submitted by the Department to Congress at the previous session and adds: “By the provisions of the above bill it will be seen that everything has been done for the Poncas, so far as this Department can act. Their lands were ceded to the Sioux by act of Congress, and proper reparation can only be made by the same authority.”
You will admit that the language employed in those reports with regard to the wrong done to the Poncas could not have been stronger; there was nothing concealed or glossed over. Three years ago, therefore, the matter was fully “unearthed” and reparation demanded, and
