AEMY, UNITED STATES. 



35 



valid military pensioners, whose yearly pen- 

 sions amounted to $7,362,804, and 103,546 

 widows, orphans, and dependent relatives of 

 soldiers, whose yearly pensions amounted to 

 $13,567,679, making the total aggregate of 

 army pensioners 185,125, at a total annual rate 

 of $20,930,483. The whole amount paid during 

 the last fiscal year to invalid military pensioners 

 was $9,383,715, to widows, orphans, and de- 

 pendent relatives, $18,609,153 a grand total 

 of $27,992,868, which includes the expenses of 

 the disbursing agencies. 



With regard to the Indian tribes of the West, 

 no permanent policy has yet been established, 

 They have generally remained peaceful during 

 the year. 



The completion of one of the great lines of 

 railway to the Pacific coast has totally changed 

 the conditions under which the civilized popu- 

 lation of the country come in contact with the 

 wild tribes. Instead of a slowly advancing 

 tide of migration, making its gradual inroads 

 upon the circumference of the great interior 

 wilderness, the very centre of the desert has 

 been pierced. Every station upon the railway 

 has become a nucleus for a civilized settlement, 

 and a base from which lines of exploration for 

 both mineral and agricultural wealth are pushed 

 in every direction. Daily trains are carrying 

 thousands of citizens and untold values of 

 merchandise across the continent, and must 

 be protected from the danger of having hostile 

 tribes on either side of the route. The range 

 of the buffalo is being rapidly restricted, 

 and the chase is becoming an uncertain reliance 

 to the Indian for the sustenance of his family. 

 If he is in want he will rob, as white men do 

 in the like circumstances, and robbery is but 

 the beginning of war, in which savage barbari- 

 ties and retaliations soon cause a cry of exter- 

 mination to be raised along the whole frontier. 



It has long been the policy of the Government 

 to require of the tribes most nearly in contact 

 with white settlements that they should fix 

 their abode upon definite reservations, and 

 abandon the wandering life to which they had 

 been accustomed. To encourage them in civ- 

 ilization, large expenditures have been made in 

 furnishing them with the means of agriculture 

 and with clothing adapted to their new mode of 

 life. 



A new policy is not so much needed as an 

 enlarged and more enlightened application of 

 the general principles of the old one. This 

 policy looks to two objects : First, the loca- 

 tion of the Indians upon fixed reservations, 

 so that the pioneers and settlers may be freed 

 from the terrors of wandering hostile tribes; 

 and, second, an earnest effort at their civiliza- 

 tion, so that they may themselves be elevated 

 in the scale of humanity, and our obligation 

 to them as fellow-men be discharged. In 

 carrying out this policy, a great practical 

 difficulty has arisen from the fact that in 

 most instances a separate reservation was 

 given to each tribe. These reservations have 



been surrounded and gradually invaded by the 

 white settlers, and the Indians crowded out of 

 their homes and forced to negotiate for a new 

 settlement, because their presence, their habits, 

 and their manners, were distasteful to their new 

 and more powerful neighbors. 



The Indians north of the Platte River are not 

 yet prepared for a similar concentration ; but 

 the time cannot be far distant when two or 

 three principal Indian territories may properly 

 embrace all the tribes east of the Rocky 

 Mountains. 



The same policy of concentrating the tribes 

 will apply to the country west of the Rocky 

 Mountains, and will be equally necessary 

 whenever and. wherever the feuds existing 

 among them can be so far settled that they can 

 live together in peaceful neighborhood. 



In the recent organization of the Indian 

 Bureau itself it was deemed advisable to de- 

 part from the usual mode of selecting and ap- 

 pointing the superintendents and agents. The 

 tribes in Nebraska and Kansas, and some of 

 those most recently placed upon reservations 

 in the Indian territory, were placed under 

 control of the members of the Society of 

 Friends ; the others were given in charge of 

 military officers, who were waiting orders 

 under the laws for the reduction of the 

 Army. 



These sweeping changes were made because 

 it was believed that the public opinion of the 

 country demanded a radical reorganization of 

 this branch of the service. The selection of 

 the officers of the Army was made partly for 

 economical reasons, as they were on pay though 

 not on duty, and the salaries of many civil 

 officers could thus be saved ; and partly because 

 it was believed they furnished a corps of public 

 servants whose integrity and faithfulness could 

 be relied upon, and in whom the public were 

 prepared to have confidence. 



The Friends were appointed not because 

 they were believed to have any monopoly of 

 honesty or of good- will toward the Indians, but 

 because their selection would of itself be under- 

 stood by the country to indicate the policy 

 adopted, namely the sincere cultivation of 

 peaceful relations with the tribes, and the 

 choice of agents who did not, for personal 

 profit, seek the service, but were sought for it 

 because they were at least deemed fit for its 

 duties. The two yearly meetings of "Friends" 

 were asked to select men in whom they had 

 confidence, and who might become at once the 

 business agents of the Government and zealous 

 missionaries of civilization. The persons so 

 selected were appointed, and, although it was 

 somewhat late in the season when they were 

 sent to their posts, enough has been seen of 

 their labors to make it certain that the mode 

 of selection was not a mistake. It is due to 

 these societies to say that they have at their 

 own cost sent officers of their own body to in- 

 spect the work of the agents as far as it aimed 

 at the civilization and instruction of the In- 



