to the United States; and the Government
guaranteed to protect and defend them in the peaceable possession and
enjoyment of their new homes.

I have no positive information that any considerable number of these
Indians removed to the lands provided for them within the five years
limited by the treaty. Their omission to do so may have been owing to
the failure of the Government to appropriate the money to pay the
expense of such removal, as it agreed to do in the treaty.

It is, however, stated in a letter of the Secretary of the Interior
dated April 6, 1878, contained in the report of the Senate committee to
whom the bill under consideration was referred, that in the year 1842
some of these Indians settled upon the lands described in the treaty;
and it is further alleged in said report that in 1846 about two hundred
more of them were removed to said lands.

The letter of the Secretary of the Interior above referred to contains
the following statement concerning these Indian occupants:

From death and the hostility of the settlers, who were drawn in that
direction by the fertility of the soil and other advantages, all of the
Indians gradually relinquished their selections, until of the Indians
who had removed thither from the State of New York only thirty-two
remained in 1860.

And the following further statement is made:

The files of the Indian Office show abundant proof that they did not
voluntarily relinquish their occupation.

The proof thus referred to is indeed abundant, and is found in official
reports and affidavits made as late as the year 1859. By these it
appears that during that year, in repeated instances, Indian men and
widows of deceased Indians were driven from their homes by the threats
of armed men; that in one case at least the habitation of an Indian
woman was burned, and that the kind of outrages were resorted to which
too often follow the cupidity of whites and the possession of fertile
lands by defenseless and unprotected Indians.

An agent, in an official letter dated August 9, 1859, after detailing
the cruel treatment of these occupants of the lands which the Government
had given them, writes:

Since these Indians have been placed under my charge, which was, I
think, in 1855, I have endeavored to protect them; but complaint after
complaint has reached me, and I have reported their situation again and
again; and I hope that it will not be long when the Indians