rations back beyond their knowledge were
born and lived upon its soil, and that they finally acquired
a complete and perfect title from the Government by a treaty
made with the "Great Father" at Washington, which they claim
made it as legitimately theirs as is the home of the white man
acquired by gift or purchase.

* * * * *

The subject was again referred to in similar terms in the annual
report of the Interior Department for 1878, in the reports of the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs and of the agent for the Poncas, and in
1879 the Secretary of the Interior said:

That the Poncas were grievously wronged by their removal from
their location on the Missouri River to the Indian Territory,
their old reservation having, by a mistake in making the Sioux
treaty, been transferred to the Sioux, has been at length and
repeatedly set forth in my reports, as well as those of the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs. All that could be subsequently
done by this Department in the absence of new legislation to
repair that wrong and to indemnify them for their losses
has been done with more than ordinary solicitude. They were
permitted to select a new location for themselves in the
Indian Territory, the Quapaw Reserve, to which they had first
been taken, being objectionable to them. They chose a tract of
country on the Arkansas River and the Salt Fork northwest of
the Pawnee Reserve. I visited their new reservation personally
to satisfy myself of their condition. The lands they now
occupy are among the very best in the Indian Territory in
point of fertility, well watered and well timbered, and
admirably adapted for agriculture as well as stock raising. In
this respect their new reservation is unquestionably superior
to that which they left behind them on the Missouri River.
Seventy houses have been built by and for them, of far better
quality than the miserable huts they formerly occupied in
Dakota, and the construction of a larger number is now in
progress, so that, as the agent reports, every Ponca family
will be comfortably housed before January. A very liberal
allowance of agricultural implements and stock cattle has been
given them, and if they apply themselves to agricultural work
there is no doubt that their condition will soon be far more
prosperous than it has ever been before. During the first
year after their removal to the