mooset] AFFAIRS IN THE NORTHWEST 709 



under the fostering care of the government until such time as the 

 white man should want them to move on again. 



These matters are treated at length in the annual reports of the 

 Commissioner of Indian Affairs, with the accompanying reports of 

 superintendents and agents in charge of the reservations concerned, 

 from L870 to 1875. With regard to the Umatilla reservation, to which 

 most strenuous efforts were made to remove the ''renegades," as they 

 were called. Agent Boyle reports in LS70 (Comr., 9) that the Indians are 

 '•dispirited . . . in consequence of the oft-repeated theme that their 

 farms are to be taken from them and given to the white settlers." He 

 continues, "It is hardly to be expected that the Indians can retain 

 this reservation much longer unless the strong arm of the government 

 protects them. Daily 1 am called upon to notify the white settlers 

 that they are encroaching upon the Indian lands.'' He advises their 

 removal to a permanent reservation, ''knowing as I do that they must 

 go sooner or later." Again, "The agency has been established for the 

 space of ten years, and 1 regret exceedingly that 1 have been most 

 completely disappointed with what I see about me." In discussing 

 the removal of the Indians to a new reservation. Superintendent 

 Meacham says of a considerable portion of them that it "would suit 

 them better to be turned loose to look out for themselves." {Comr.. in.) 



In 187.'! Agent Cornoyer reported that the Indians numbered S37, 

 by the census of 1S70, which he believes was as correct as could then 

 lie taken, but -this number I think is now too high." He continues: 



Of tin- appropriation of $4,000 per annum for beneficial objects, not one single 

 dollar of that fund has been turned over to me since September, 1871 ; ami of the 

 appropriation for incidental expenses of $40,000 per annum lor the Indian .service in 



this state, only $200 of that appropriation has been tur 1 over to me during the 



same period of two years. ... I would also beg leave to call your attention to 

 that portion of my last annual report wherein I called the attention of the Depart- 

 ment to the unfulfilled stipulations of the treaty of June 9, is;,:., with these Indians. 

 {I'omr.. 11.) 



Commissioner Brunot, in 1871, stated that the estimated number of 

 Indians coming under the provisions of the treaty at the time it was 

 made in 1855 was 3,500, and "by the census taken in 1870 the number 

 was 1,022" — a decrease of nearly one half in fifteen years. Of these 

 only about half were on the, reservation, the rest being on Columbia 

 river. •• never having partaken of the benefits of the treaty." On the 

 next page he tells us what some of these benefits are: "Maladminis- 

 tration of agents, and the misapplication of funds, the failure of the 

 government to perform the promises of the treaty, and the fact that 

 the Indians have been constantly agitated by assertions that the gov 

 eminent intended their removal, and that their removal was urged tor 

 several years in succession in the reports of a former agent, thus tali 

 iug away from them all incentives to improve their lands." (Comr., V.'.) 



In 1871 a commission was sent to Umatilla and other reservations, 

 which gave the Indians a chance to speak for themselves. The Cayuse 



