Indian dogs, and thus a very important mode of winter transport is
lost to the red man. It is asserted, too, that horses are sometimes
poisoned by eating grasses which have become tainted by the presence of
strychnine; and although this latter assertion may not be true, yetits
effects are the same, as the Indian fully believes it. In consequence of
these losses a threat has been made, very generally, by the natives
against the half-breeds, to the effect that if the use of poison was
persisted in, the horses belonging to the settlers would be shot.

Another increasing source of Indian discontent is to be found in the
policy pursued by the American Government in their settlement of the
countries lying south of the Saskatchewan. Throughout the territories of
Dakota and Montana a state of hostility has long existed between the
Americans and the tribes of Sioux, Black feet, and Peagin Indians. This
state of hostility has latterly degenerated on the part of the Americans,
into a war of extermination; and the policy of "clearing out" the red man
has now become a recognized portion of Indian warfare. Some of these acts
of extermination find their way into the public records, many of them
never find publicity. Among the former, the attack made during the
spring of 1870 by a large party of troops upon a camp of Peagin Indians
close to the British boundary-line will be fresh in the recollection of
your Excellency. The tribe thus attacked was suffering severely from
small-pox, was surprised at daybreak by the soldiers, who, rushing in
upon the tents, destroyed 170 men, women, and children in a few moments.
This tribe forms one of the four nations comprised in the Blackfeet
league, and have their hunting-grounds partly on British and partly on
American territory. I have mentioned the presence of small-pox in
connexion with these Indians. It is very generally believed in the
Saskatchewan that this disease was originally communicated to the
Blackfeet tribes by Missouri traders with a view to the accumulation of
robes; and this opinion, monstrous though it may appear, has been
somewhat terrified by the Western press when treating of the epidemic
last year. As I propose to enter at some length into the question of this
disease at a later portion of this report, I now only make allusion to it
as forming one of the grievances which the Indian affirms he suffers at
the hands of the white man.

In estimating the causes of Indian discontent