32 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 195 



The following spring Agent Gregory, in a rather weak move to 

 placate the Ponca, requested that a part of the Ponca annuity be 

 used to purchase a small fieldpiece for purposes of self-defense. He 

 also asked for "large and small flags for the chiefs and soldiers" 

 and a "chief's dress" for the head chief. Again that year the Ponca 

 were driven from their hunt with great loss of horses and provisions. 

 That fall Agent Gregory, in an endeavor to halt Dakota depreda- 

 tions on the Ponca, traveled to the Sioux country and counciled with 

 the Brule. Arrogantly, the Brule promised to leave the Ponca alone 

 the following season, as they expected "to be fully employed carrying 

 on hostilities against the Omahas and Pawnees." 



In 1861 Agent Gregory was replaced by J. B. Hoffman. As one 

 of his first projects, Hoffman organized a constabulary recruited 

 from among the warriors of the Ponca tribe. This group, which 

 numbered 50, were outfitted in blue coats and gray trousers. In order 

 to secure better protection the tribe's supplies were stored in a ware- 

 house near the agency office. The following year a manual labor 

 school was established on the Ponca Reserve, the first of its kind in that 

 part of the country. 



The agent's reports from this period reveal the progressive ac- 

 culturation of the tribe since they had first been exposed to 

 European trade items. In 1863, for example, the Ponca chiefs and 

 headmen complained about the type of goods they were sent. No 

 amnmnition had been received for their rifles, no snaths with the 

 scythes, and no thread with the dry goods. Agent Hoffman also 

 reports that "half axes and squaw hatchets," once much desired by 

 the Ponca, were by that date a comparatively worthless article. Fish- 

 hooks and lines also were of no value to them. Likewise the small 

 round trade mirrors, once treasured as items of dance regalia, were 

 no longer valued; after they had been distributed they could be 

 found lying aromid the agency warehouse where they had been pur- 

 posely dropped, and were picked up only by children to play with. 



Poor as the situation of the Ponca was at this time, it was soon 

 to get worse. In 1868 a United States commission sent to negotiate 

 with the Dakota, through an inexplicable and almost criminal blun- 

 der, ceded to the Teton Dakota a tract of land which included all 

 of the Ponca land, ceded and unceded. Now the Teton war parties 

 had a perfect excuse for their raids on the Ponca — the Ponca were 

 trespassers on Teton territory ! The Federal Government made no 

 effort whatever to correct this fantastic error or to protect the Ponca 

 against their enemies as promised in the treaty of 1858, though they 

 were frequently called upon to do so. 



This lamentable condition of affairs was to continue for 8 years 

 without correction or redress, the Government seeming to consent to 

 the sacrifice of the rights and peace of a tribe that had never made 



