edit. Some of the Indians were actually starving, and one day they
forced their way into a store to obtain food. Taking possession, they
supplied themselves with what they desired. Among other things, they
found whisky, of the worst and most fiery quality. Once intoxicated,
all the bad passions of the savages were let loose. In their drunken
frenzy, the Indians killed one of the traders. The sight of blood made
them furious. Other white men at the Agency were killed, and thus the
contagion spread.

From the Agency the murderers spread through the valley of the St.
Peter's, proclaiming war against the whites. They made no distinction
of age or sex. The atrocities they committed are among the most
fiendish ever recorded.

The outbreak of these troubles was due to the conduct of the agents
who were dealing with the Indians. Knowing, as they should have known,
the character of the red man everywhere, and aware that the Sioux were
at that time discontented, it was the duty of those agents to treat
them with the utmost kindness and generosity. I do not believe the
Indians, when they plundered the store at the Agency, had any design
beyond satisfying their hunger. But with one murder committed, there
was no restraint upon their passions.

Many of our transactions with the Indians, in the past twenty years,
have not been characterized by the most scrupulous honesty. The
Department of the Interior has an interior history that would not bear
investigation. It is well known that the furnishing of supplies to the
Indians often enriches the agents and their political friends.
There is hardly a tribe along our whole frontier that has not been
defrauded. Dishonesty in our Indian Department was notorious during
Buchanan's Administration. The retirement of Buchanan and his cabinet
did not entirely bring this dishonesty to an end.

An officer of the Hudson Bay Company told me, in St. Paul, that it
was the strict order of the British Government, enforced in letter
and spirit by the Company, to keep full faith with the Indians.
Every stipulation is most scrupulously carried out. The slightest
infringement by a white man upon the rights of the Indians is punished
with great severity. They are furnished with the best qualities
of goods, and the quantity never falls below the stipulations.
Consequently the Indian has no cause of complaint, and is kept on the
most friendly terms. This officer said, "A white man can travel from
one end to