The Removal of the Poncas
of state. "'T is not the Czar—look to the bureaucracy."
But as an apologist Secretary Schurz lapses into the mediocre. Of that terrible winter for the Poncas, when an inquisition of months wrung "consent" from one hundred and seventy of them, he says:
"As to the measures taken by Mr. Kemble to obtain what he represented as the consent of the Poncas to the relinquishment of their lands and their removal to the Indian Territory, it may be said that he followed a course which unfortunately had been frequently taken before him on many occasions. Having been a man of military training, he may have been rather inclined to summary methods; moreover, it is probable that as the Ponca reserve had been ceded to the Sioux by the treaty of 1868, and as Congress had provided also that the Sioux should be removed to the Missouri River, and the Sioux were the same year to occupy that part of the country, the removal of the Poncas may have appeared to Mr. Kemble a necessity, in order to prevent a collision between them and the Sioux which would have been highly detrimental to both."
As it was the pre-arranged intention to remove the Black Hills Sioux directly into the Ponca houses, an inspector even less astute than Mr. Kemble might have perceived the "necessity" of getting the Poncas out of the way. It was his business to gain, not ask for, the Indian consent.
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