106 GIVING OF PRESENTS. 



consist of a few articles of small value, such as tobacco, paint, knives, 

 calico, wampum, beads, &c, &c, which are of the utmost importance 

 to the Indians, and which, if necessary, they will make great sacrifices 

 to procure ; but as they have no commodity for exchange that the 

 traders desire except horses and mules, they must necessarily give these 

 for the goods, and large numbers are annually disposed of in this manner. 

 As 1 have before mentioned, nearly all these animals are pilfered from 

 the Mexicans; and as the number they traffic away must be replaced by 

 new levies upon their victims, of course all that the traders obtain 

 causes a corresponding increase in the amount of depredations. Should 

 the government of the United States feel disposed to make the prairie 

 Indians annual donations of the same description of articles that the 

 traders now supply them with, (which I am most happy to learn is now 

 contemplated,) upon the express condition that they would continue 

 only so long as they adhered strictly to all the requirements of the 

 agents, it would in a measure obviate the necessity of their making 

 long expeditions into Mexico, and would most undoubtedly have the 

 effect of depreciating the value of the merchandise to such a degree 

 that the traders would no longer find the traffic profitable. The Indians 

 of the plains are accustomed, in their diplomatic intercourse with each 

 other, to exchange presents, and they have no idea of friendship unac- 

 companied by a substantial token in this form : moreover, they measure 

 the strength of the attachment. of their friends by the magnitude of the 

 presents they receive ; and I am firmly convinced that a small amount 

 of money annually expended in this way, with a proper and judicious 

 distribution of the presents, would have a very salutary influence in 

 checking the depredations upon the Mexicans. In a talk which I held 

 with a chief of one of the bands of prairie Indians, I stated to him that 

 the President of the United States was their friend, and wished to live 

 in peace with them. He replied that he was much astonished to hear 

 this ; for, judging from the few trifling presents I had made his people, 

 hj was of opinion that the "Big Captain" held them in but little 

 estimation. Trained up, as the prairie Indians have been from infancy, 

 to regard the occupation of a warrior as the most honorable of all others, 

 and having no permanent abiding-places or local attachments, they can 

 without inconvenience move all their families and worldly effects from 

 one extremity of the buffalo range to the other. With their numerous 

 and hardy horses they travel with great rapidity ; and possessing as 

 intimate a knowledge as they do of the localities, it would give them a 

 great advantage over any body of troops who should pursue them into 

 the country. War would not, therefore, be as great a calamity to them 



