not be moved back to their old lands without a previous agreement with the Sioux. While it is said that the latter are now more favorably disposed toward the Poncas, and while the conduct of that branch of the Sioux Nation is now very satisfactory, yet it is also a matter of experience that old grudges among Indians, although smoothed over, are apt to be revived by reckless individuals among them, in which case the Poncas, numbering only a few hundreds, would be at a great disadvantage compared with their powerful neighbors. Moreover, Congress had granted neither authority nor money for the removal of the Poncas back to Dakota. I should willingly have recommended the passage of a law and appropriation to that end, there being no interest nor any pride of opinion in the Department that could possibly have prevented such a step—for in the very first report rendered by me after the removal of the Poncas, and after I had become fully aware of the whole character of the transaction, the wrong done to them was frankly acknowledged—had there not been other considerations of superior weight against it. The principal injury suffered by them immediately after their removal, by disease and the death of many of their people, could not be repaired. When they were once settled in the Indian Territory upon land which is acknowledged to be excellent for agricultural and herding purposes, and had made new beginnings in civilized pursuits and the promotion of their well-being, those beginnings would have been destroyed by a second removal, and the whole operation would have had to be repeated. It is but natural that frequent removals of an Indian tribe should have a disastrous effect upon their advancement in civilization and prosperity.
According to the latest reports, their condition is now very much improved. How much better they are situated in a sanitary point of view than immediately after their arrival in the Indian Territory appears from the fact that, according to the returns for the year just passed, there were during that year eleven deaths and fifteen births in the tribe, so that the Poncas have been actually increasing in numbers. Most of them are now living in houses, are tilling the soil, and have been provided with stock cattle for herding. They have school facilities for the education of their children. Their progress would have been greater had they not been kept in a state of restlessness by reports from the outside that they would soon be returned to Dakota, and that therefore they need not apply themselves to the improvement of their condition on the soil they occupy in the Indian Territory. Instead of benefiting them, such reports have evidently inflicted upon them an injury. Nothing would have been more apt to improve their health, raise their spirits, and promote their well-being than steady and fruitful work. That the Poncas feel this themselves appears from a petition which on the 29th of October they addressed to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and in which they say “that their young men are unsettled while they think they have a right to their land in Dakota,” and that “their tribe will not be finally settled until they have a title to their
