Message of the 
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MESSAGE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE PRESIDENT, 
 
 AXD REPORT OF 
 
 ALBERT PIKE, 
 
 COMMISSIONER OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES TO THE 
 INDIAN NATIONS WEST OF ARKANSAS, 
 OF THE RESULTS OF HIS MISSION. 
 
 RICHMOND: 
 
 ENQUIRER BOOK AND JOB PRESS. 
 TYLER, WISE, ALLEGKE & SMITH. 
 
 ISftl. 
 
MESSAGE. 
 
 EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, 
 
 Richmond, Dec. 12, 1861. 
 
 To the Congress of the Confederate States : 
 
 I submit for your constitutional action, treaties recently 
 made with the Chickasaw and Choctaw, Creek, Seminole 
 and Cherokee Tribes of Indians. 
 
 In pursuance of a resolution passed by Congress the 5th 
 day of March, 1861, I appointed Albert Pike, a citizen of 
 Arkansas, Commissioner of this Government to all the In- 
 dian Tribes West of Arkansas and South of Kansas. His 
 powers and duties were not defined in that resolution, but 
 on the 21st of May, 1861, Congress passed an "Act for 
 the protection of certain Indian Tribes," by which the gen- 
 eral policy of Congress, in reference to those tribes, was 
 more fully declared. Considering this act as a declaration 
 by Congress of our future policy in relation to those Indians, 
 a copy of that act was transmitted to the Commissioner, 
 and he was directed to consider it as his instructions in the 
 contemplated negotiations. The general policy of that act 
 is the basis of the Treaties herewith submitted ; but, in re- 
 lation to pecuniary obligations, there is a material departure 
 which will be more fully referred to in its appropriate con- 
 nection. 
 
 The general provisions of all the treaties are similar, and 
 in each, the Confederate States assume the guardianship 
 over the tribe and become responsible for all the obligations 
 to the Indians, imposed by former treaties on the Govern- 
 ment of the United States. Important modifications arc 
 proposed in favor of the respective local governments of 
 these Indians, to which your special attention is invited. 
 
That their advancement in civilization justified an enlarge- 
 ment of their power in that regard, will scarcely admit <>f a 
 ■doubt, hut whether the proposed concessions in favor of their 
 local governments are within the bounds of a wise policy, 
 may well claim your serious consideration. In this cornier 
 tion, your attention is specially invited to the clauses, giving 
 to certain tribes the unqualified right of admission as a State 
 into the compact of the Confederacy, and. in the mean 
 time, allowing each of these tribes to have a delegate in 
 Congress. 
 
 These provisions are regarded not only as impolitic, but 
 unconstitutional, it not being within the limits of the treaty 
 making power, to admit a State or to control the House of 
 Representatives in the matter of admission to its privileges. 
 I recommend that the former provision be rejected and that 
 the latter be so modified as to leave the question to the fu- 
 ture action of Congress, and, also, do recommend the rejec- 
 tion of those articles in the treaties which confer upon In- 
 dians the right to testify in the State Courts, believing that 
 the States have the power to decide that question, each for 
 itself, independently of any action of the Confederate 
 Government. 
 
 The pecuniary obligations of these treaties are of great 
 importance. Apart from the annuities, secured to them by 
 former treaties, and which we are to assume by those now 
 submitted, these tribes have large permanent funds in the 
 hands of the Government of the United States as their 
 Trustee. These funds may be divided into three classes. 
 
 1st. Money, which the Government of the United States 
 stipulated to invest in its own stock or stocks of the States, 
 and which has been partly invested in its own stocks, and 
 partly, uninvested, remains in its treasury, but upon which 
 it is bound to pay interest. 
 
 2d. Funds, invested in the stocks of States not members 
 of this Confederacy. 
 
 3d. Money, invested in stocks of States now members of 
 this Confederacy. 
 
 These three classes include all the important pecuniary 
 obligations involved in these treaties, except interest, col- 
 lected by the Federal Government and not paid over to the 
 Indians, and arrearage of annual payments, due under ex- 
 isting treaties, to which exceptions a further notice will be 
 given. By the treaties, now submitted to you, the first and 
 second class are absolutely assumed by this Government ; 
 
but this Government only undertakes, as Trustee, to collect 
 the third class from the States which owe the money, and 
 pay over the amounts to the Indians when collected. 
 
 It is fortunate for the Indians and ourselves that the 
 amounts, embraced in classes one and two, are relatively 
 small, and the obligations incurred by their assumption can- 
 not be onerous, as the amount, due by States of the Con- 
 federacy on account of investments in the funds of Northern 
 Indians, considerably exceeds the amount to be assumed 
 under this provision of the treaties. We thereby have the 
 means to compel the Government of the United States to do 
 justice to the Indians within the jurisdiction of the Confed- 
 erate States, or to indemnify ourselves for its breach of 
 faith. 
 
 By the treaty with the Cherokecs, we undertake to ad- 
 vance one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and the inter- 
 est of fifty thousand dollars for educational purposes, on 
 what are known as the Cherokee neutral lands, lying between 
 the State of Kansas and the Cherokee Territory, for which 
 the Indians paid the United States Government five hundred 
 thousand dollar.-, and which lands we guarantee to the In- 
 dians against the hazard of being lost by the fortune i 
 or ceded by treaty of peace. 
 
 I herewith sttibmit to you estimates of the entire pecu- 
 niary obligations assumed by these treaties, in tabular 
 exhibits, " A and B.*' They arc generally stated with great 
 minuteness in the treaties, but I have caused them to be ab- 
 stracted and put in tabular form for more convenient refer- 
 ence. I also submit to you the report of Albert Pike, the 
 Commissioner, which contains a history of his negotiations 
 and submits his reasons for a departure from his instructions 
 in relation to the pecuniary obligations to be incurred. 
 
 In view of the circumstances by which we are surrounded, 
 the great importance of preserving peace with the Indians 
 on the frontier of Texas, Arkansas and Missouri, and not 
 least because of the spirit these tribes have manifested in 
 making common cause with us in the war now existing, I 
 recommend the assumption of the stipulated pecuniary ob- 
 ligations and, with the modifications herein suggested, that 
 the treaties submitted, be ratified. 
 
 JEFFERSON DAVIS. 
 
REPORT OF ALBERT PIKE 
 
 Commissioner of the Confederate States to the Indian 
 
 Nations West of Arkansas — of the 
 
 results of his 7nission. 
 
 The. President of the Confederate States : 
 
 Sir : Early in May of the present year, I received your 
 letter of 9th March, tendering to me the appointment of 
 Commissioner to the Tribes of Indians West of Arkansas, 
 and commissioning me to convey to them assurance of the 
 good will of the Confederate States towards them. 
 
 I had previously been indirectly informed of my appoint- 
 ment ; had accepted, by letter to the Secretary of State, and 
 had been directed by him, to act on your letter at my dis- 
 cretion, until further instructions. 
 
 On the 16th of May, the Secretary of State directed me 
 by telegram to proceed to the Indian country and embody a 
 Regiment of Choctaws, one of Creeks and one of Chero- 
 kees, to which it was promised arms, &c, would be fur- 
 nished. 
 
 Before proceeding to the Indian country, I desired to go 
 to Montgomery, obtain funds to defray my expenses, and 
 receive full instructions in regard to my powers and 
 duties. 
 
 But the great apprehension existing on the frontier of 
 Arkansas, in regard to the temper of the Indians, the fear 
 of hostilities on their part, and the number of letters re- 
 
8 
 
 ceived by mo, urging me to hasten to the Cherokee country, 
 lest I might be too late, induced me to change my purpose, 
 and proceed to that country at once, instead of first going 
 to and treating with the Choetaws and Chickasaws, who had 
 declared their independence of the Northern States, and their 
 readiness to treat with tnc Confederate States ; which 
 I wished to do, and next to treat with the Creeks and Semi- 
 noles, for the moral effect which treaties with them would 
 produce on the Cherokees. 
 
 On the 21st of May I left Little Hock by steamboat for 
 Fort Smith, which place I reached on the 24th. 
 
 The only funds received by me from the Government of 
 the Confederate States, for the purposes of my mission, 
 until after it was ended, and in the latter part of October, 
 were sixty dollars, which I received from an agent of the 
 Commissioner of Indian affairs, in the latter partof June. 
 The Convention of the people of Arkansas having request- 
 ed me to act as Commissioner of that State also, advanced 
 me for my expenses the sum of five hundred dollars, which, 
 as I did not act in that capacity, I have repaid to the Treas- 
 ury of the State, since my return. 
 
 At Fort Smith, I procured from the Brigade Quartermas- 
 ter of Gen. McCulloch, an ambulance and four mules for 
 transportation of the baggage and provisions of myself and 
 party; which I thought would perhaps be sufficient, and 
 with which I could travel more rapidly than with a wagon. 
 I found this impracticable afterwards, and had to procure at 
 the North Fork of the Canadian, about the middle of July, 
 a wagon and four mules with a driver in addition. 
 
 It being in the highest degree important that the commu- 
 nication of our Government with the Indian nations and 
 tribes should be at once placed on the same footing with that 
 before maintained by the Government of the United States, 
 and that the change of Government should not be accom- 
 panied by any change of Agents, that might tempt the In- 
 dians to take sides against us upon a collateral matter, I 
 requested Elias Hector, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, 
 to continue to execute his powers and perform the duties of 
 his office, under the Confederate Government ; and sent the 
 same request by letter to John Crawford, Agent for the 
 Cherokees, Samuel M. Rutherford, Agent for the Seminolcs, 
 Douglas H. Cooper, Agent for the Choctaws and Cliicka- 
 saws, and Matthew Leeper, Agent for the Wichitas, Coman- 
 ches and other lleserve Indians, thus virtually assuming the 
 
9 
 
 responsibility of continuing these gentlemen in their several 
 offices ; and supposing that William H. Garrett, Agent for 
 the Creeks, had resigned, and that William Quesenbury, 
 who had been appointed in his place, had qualified and was 
 in office, I requested the latter to act as Agent for that Na- 
 tion. It was subsequently ascertained that Mr. Garrett had 
 not resigned, and he consequently remains in office, Mr. 
 Quesenbury declining to interfere with him by accepting 
 it. 
 
 The gentlemen a,bove named were all well known to me as 
 loyal to the Confederate States. Mr. Crawford is a citizen 
 of Arkansas, and his appointment was procured by Senator 
 Johnson, of Arkansas, for that reason. Mr. Garrett is a 
 citizen of Alabama, Col. Cooper, of Mississippi and Messrs. 
 Rutherford and Leeper are citizens of Arkansas. 
 
 On the 7th of October, I authorized Andrew J. Dorn, a 
 citizen of Missouri, and Agent for the Osages, Quapaws, &c, 
 at the time of the secession of the Confederate States, to 
 continue to act as such Agent. 
 
 All these gentlemen consented to act, and have been en- 
 gaged, since their appointments, in the discharge of the 
 duties of their offices; and it becomes necessary to 
 provide the means of payment for their services, for 
 which they have as yet received nothing from the Confederate 
 States. 
 
 I left Fort Smith for Tahlequah in the Cherokee nation, 
 on the 28th of May. The part}' consisted of myself, Mr. 
 William Quesenbury, whom I had employed as my Secreta- 
 ry, Mr. William H. Faulkner, a young gentleman of Little 
 Rock, and my son, Walter L. Pike. At the Creek Agency 
 I was also joined by Capt. Win. Warren Johnson, now my 
 Aid-de-camp. Three servants and the driver I afterwards em- 
 ployed, completed the party. An escort of a company of 
 xVrkansas mounted State troops, commanded by Capt. Thos. 
 Lewis, accompanied me, furnished by Brig. Gen. McCul- 
 loch, who also caused me to be furnished with partial subsist 
 tence supplies for thirty days. 
 
 In addition to the labor performed by my secretary, I 
 found it necessary, on account of the pressure caused by the 
 copying of treaties and the multiplicity of accounts and 
 ■acts, to avail myself of the very valuable and constant 
 services, as a skilful accountant and copyist, of Capt. Johnson, 
 and of those of Mr. Walter L. Pike, (for whose labor I have 
 allowed no charge to be made,) as a copyist. 
 
10 
 
 I reached Tahlequah on the 4th of June, and on the 5th 
 had an interview with the Principal Chief of the Cherokee 
 Nation, the Hon. John Ross. He had already publicly de- 
 clared it to he his determination to remain neutral, and had 
 recommended that policy to his people, the majority of whom 
 sustained him in it; and in the interview I had with him, he 
 declared that he adhered to that policy, and that he would 
 make no treaty with the Confederate States ; since that would 
 be in violation of the treaties of the Cherokecs with the 
 United States ; and he protested against any occupation of 
 the Cherokee country by our troops, while declaring that he 
 w r as in sentiment and feeling a Southern man, born in the 
 South, and the owner of slaves ; for, he said, the Cherokee 
 people were few in number, and if they took up arms, their 
 country would be overrun, and the Nation ruined. 
 
 Gen. McCulloch, who had gone to Tahlequah from Fort 
 Smith bv a different route, and met me at the Chief's resi- 
 dence at Park Hill, five miles distant, was present at this 
 interview, and informed the Chief that he would respect his 
 neutrality, but that if any Northern troops entered the 
 country, or if the Southern party in the Nation were op- 
 pressed, he should himself occupy it at once. 
 
 On the 6th of June I sent to Mr. Ross the letter, of 
 which a copy is submitted with this report, marked A ; an 
 answer to which, enclosing his reply to a letter from the 
 Commissioner of Indian Affairs was received by me at the 
 Creek Agency some weeks afterwards, repeating his deter- 
 mination to remain neutral. That answer I transmitted to 
 the Secretary of State. I shall hereafter speak of the ob- 
 stacles that impeded our negotiations among all the princi- 
 pal Indian Nations, of the inducements that tended to per- 
 suade them to adhere to the Northern government, and of 
 the reasons for suspicion on their part in respect to our- 
 selves. 
 
 There were other difficulties and troubles, in addition, 
 among- the Cherokecs. From a period at least as remote as 
 the year 1835, two parties had existed in that Nation — o::e 
 headed by Mr. Ross, and in which much the larger portion 
 of the full-bloods was included, opposed to the treaty made 
 in that year ; and the other, composed of those who made 
 that treaty, and their adherents, including most of the half- 
 bloods. Many acts of violence had been committed, and the 
 most bitter feelings had all the time prevailed ; but Mr. 
 
11 
 
 Koss had been regularly and continuously elected Principal 
 Chief, up to the time when our troubles commenced. 
 
 The party opposed to Mr. Ross had taken open ground 
 in favor of the seceding States ; and it was alleged that on 
 the other side a secret society existed, of which nearly all 
 the full-bloods were members, founded under the auspices 
 of certain missionaries, alleged to be abolitionists, held to- 
 gether by stringent oaths, and used for purposes of violence 
 and outrage towards the half-breeds. Attempts to raise 
 secession flags had been prevented by the interposition of 
 large bodies of armed men, and the Southern Rights men in 
 the Nation were greatly apprehensive of danger to them- 
 selves. 
 
 Some of the leaders of this party had called on General 
 McCulloch and myself at Fort Smith ; and before leaving 
 that place I sent a messenger to six of the most influential 
 men of the party, residing in different parts of the Nation, 
 requesting them to meet me at the Creek Agency, after I 
 should have seen Mr. Ross, on a day which I fixed ; my in- 
 tention being to enter, upon his refusal to treat, into a con- 
 vention with them, guaranteeing protection to themselves, 
 and its rights and privileges to the Nation. The fear of 
 consequences, and other causes, prevented the attendance of 
 any of them. They were a minority of the Nation, and 
 could not venture to raise companies for our service, though 
 some were organized for self-defence ; nor did General 
 McCulloch think it best to call upon them at that time, to 
 raise and furnish troops. 
 
 On the 6th of June I left Tahlequah, and reached the 
 Creek Agency on the 7th. I had sent an invitation to the 
 Creek Chiefs, who were personally known to me, to meet me 
 at North Fork Village on the 7th ; but the high waters had 
 prevented my reaching that place in time. The Chiefs now 
 represented that it would be necessary to call a General 
 Council of the Nation, in ord.r that whatever was done 
 might receive the sanction of the whole people. Two Dele- 
 gates had gone to Richmond, and to give time for their re- 
 turn, until which I found nothing could be effected, I fixed 
 the 25th as the day for the meeting of the Council. This 
 was agreed to, and notice sent to the different towns. 
 
 I remained at the Agency until the 22d of June. A day 
 or two previous, I sent Captain Lewis' company back to 
 Fort Smith, and had no other escort afterwards except the 
 Indian company hereafter mentioned. 
 
12 
 
 Soon after reaching the Agency, I received the letter 
 from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, which is marked B, 
 and the copy of his instructions from the Secretary of War, 
 which is marked C. Some two weeks afterwards I received 
 the letter from the Secretary of State, marked D, dated the 
 25th of May, with a copy of "An Act for the protection of 
 certain Indian Tribes," approved the 21st of May, 1861. 
 
 The Act of Congress in question, while declaring the ex- 
 tension of jurisdiction and control over the Indian country, 
 enacted by it, to be subject to all the rights, privileges, im- 
 munities, titles and guarantees, with each of the Indian 
 tribes, under treaties and statutes, had proceeded to pro- 
 vide that nothing therein contained should be construed to 
 commit the Government of the Confederate States to any 
 obligation to pay any moneys due from the Government of 
 the United States to the said Indian tribes, or to discharge 
 any obligations contracted by the Government of the United 
 States to the said Indian tribes, which would involve an ex- 
 penditure of money by the Government of the Confederate 
 States. 
 
 This act, the Secretary of Sta,te advised me by his letter, 
 would be my guide in any undertaking with the Indians. 
 " This being the law," he said, " it is not in the power of 
 the President to vary it. Congress did n.t know the extent 
 of the obligations, and would not adopt them blind." 
 
 The Secretary at War wished the Indians to be informed 
 of the earnest desire of the Confederate States to protect 
 them against the rapacity of the Northern States, and that 
 those States would undoubtedly free their slaves and seize 
 their lands. He desired them to call out their warriors and 
 take the field in the service of our Government, by Which 
 they should be armed and paid. He said, " In addition to 
 those things, regarded of primary importance, you will, 
 without committing the Government to any especial conduct, ex- 
 press our serious anxiety to establish and enforce the debt 
 and annuities due to them from the Government at Wash- 
 ington, which otherwise they will never obtain ; " and he 
 directed the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to communicate 
 to the Indians " the abiding solicitude of the Confederate 
 States to advance their condition in the direction of a proud 
 political society, with a distinctive civilization, and holdiag 
 lands in severalty, under well defined laws, by forming them into 
 a Territorial Government" but that he should give them no as- 
 surance of State organization and independence, as they 
 
13 
 
 still required the strong arm of protecting power, "and 
 might probably always need our fostering care." 
 
 If the Secretary at War had desired to take the most cer- 
 tain means of making it impossible to effect a treaty with 
 the Cherokees, Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws and Chicka- 
 saws, he could have found none so perfect and complete as 
 to have communicated to them these instructions. Of two 
 things, above all others, these tribes, and all their people to 
 a man, are afraid : One, that their lands will be parcelled 
 out in severalty without their consent ; another, that they 
 will be compelled to receive a Territorial organization. By 
 promising these two things, and cutting off all hope that 
 they could ever become a State, he would with the greatest 
 ease have rendered all attempts to treat with them nugatory, 
 and driven every one of them to take up arms against us. 
 Fortunately, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs did not 
 enter the Indian country, and these instructions remained 
 unknown. When some of the Choctaw and Chickasaw 
 Delegates desired to transfer the negotiations to Richmond, 
 a perusal of them ended that notion at once. 
 
 Before I had received the copy of the act of Congress and 
 the letter of the Secretary of State, I replied to the letter 
 of the Commissioner. A copy of my reply Avas forwarded 
 by me to the Secretary of State, and no copy was retained 
 by me. 
 
 I had been informed by Capt. Johnson, that the Secretary 
 of State had, in his presence, informed the Hon. Robert W. 
 Johnson, of Arkansas, whom I had desired to ascertain 
 what my powers were, that I had all the powers cf a Min- 
 ister Plenipotentiary, with military powers superadded. I 
 had not received, and never have received any official definition 
 of my powers, nor any other instructions than those already 
 quoted. Supposing myself to be acting by authority from 
 the Department of State, I therefore informed the Commis- 
 sioner, that if I considered myself bound by the instructions 
 of the Secretary at War, I should at once resign and return 
 home ; and that I should give the Indians guarantees directly 
 contrary to those instructions. If I had then received the 
 letter of the Secretary of State, and the copy of the act of 
 Congress, I think I should have resigned. Whether it was 
 fortunate or unfortunate that I did not, will depend on the 
 Government's approval or disapproval of my acts. 
 
 I also endeavored to show why I could not accept and act 
 upon the instructions of the Secretary of War, in regard to 
 
14 
 
 the debts and annuities due the Indians. The reasons which 
 I thus gave seemed sufficient to myself, as was natural, since 
 I had formally proposed to the Chief of the Cherokees to do 
 that which the Secretary at War directed should not be 
 done. 
 
 But when, afterwards, I received the copy of the act of 
 Congress, and the consequent directions of the Secretary of 
 State, I found myself placed in a position of great difficulty. 
 That letter virtually directed me not to assume the pay- 
 ment, on the part of the Confederate States, of any annui- 
 ties or other moneys due any of the Indians. The instruc- 
 tions of the Secretary at War to the Commissioner of Indian 
 Affairs were directly to the same effect. On the other hand, 
 without assuming these debts, no treaty was possible with 
 any of the tribes, and the gravest consequences would result ; 
 and, in the meantime, it was necessary to act at once. 
 
 It was useless to tell these Indians that they had nothing 
 to fear from the love of land of the people of the Southern 
 States, but that the States of the North would inevitably rob 
 them of these lands. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs 
 was desired by the Seceetary at War to impress this on the 
 Indians, and the Commissioner particularly urged me to do 
 so. He did it himself, in his letter to John Ross, the able 
 and astute Chief of the Cherokees, who quietly replied that he 
 believed no foot-tracks of the Red men were now to be seen 
 on the Tennessee any more than on the Ohio. The com- 
 pleteness of the response leaves little to be added to it. All 
 these Indian tribes originally lived within the limits of what 
 are now the Confederate States — the Cherokees in North 
 Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee; the Creeks and Seminoles 
 in Georgia, Alabama and Florida ; the Choctaws and Chick- 
 asaws in Alabama and Mississippi ; and all their lauds had 
 been yielded up on the demand of these States. Most of 
 them had been removed west of the Mississippi under cir- 
 cumstances of peculiar hardship, so much so that in conse- 
 quence of the removal, more than a fourth of their number 
 perished. Their just claims for damages caused by gross, 
 repeated and inexcusable violations of treaties had been dis- 
 regarded, in some cases for more than a third of a century, 
 and inadequate compensation finally made for part, in some 
 cases, on condition that they would release the rest ; and the 
 reluctance of many Southern Senators to do them justice, 
 their open opposition, indeed, in some cases, had forced 
 
15 
 
 them too often to appeal to others, to whom they ought never 
 to have been led to look for justice long denied. 
 
 Some of the most influential Creeks had been taken west 
 in irons ; and among the Seminoles were many who were in 
 arms against us only a few years ago. 
 
 There being no taxation known in any of these Nations, 
 nor any other mode of raising revenue, they were wholly de- 
 pendent on their annuities and annual payments for means 
 to support their Government, educate their children and pay 
 the mechanics employed in the public service ; and as among 
 some of them, annuities were distributed per capita, all the 
 people looked to these as the chief means by which they 
 could procure such articles as they needed from the stores. 
 
 The Federal Government had withheld these annuities 
 from them for the year 1801, in order by means of the hold 
 so gained upon them, to keep them loyal. To some, arrear- 
 ages still further back were due. Of half a million of dollars 
 appropriated for the Choctaws, only a small part was paid, 
 and of the check on a bank in New York, given for another 
 portion, payment was stopped, that the fear of loss might 
 prevent an alliance on their part with the South. 
 
 Among the five principal tribes there is no lack of shrewd, 
 capable and well informed men. These not only knew that 
 treaties made within six years had been grossly violated, 
 almost as soon as the ink was dry upon them, but they also 
 knew that the Northern States greatly outnumbered us in 
 population, had a far greater command of means, and held 
 by far the largest share of the property of the Union. To 
 them the contest seemed, at the best, a very doubtful one, to 
 engage in which on their part was most dangerous. 
 
 The Cherokee county extends to within a short distance of 
 the Kansas line, and between it and them were the Osages, 
 long their enemies, and who own no slaves, and would pro- 
 bably side with the North. Missouri, Maryland and Ken- 
 tucky, the principal men knew, had refused to side with the 
 Confederate States ; and among the Indians themselves, not 
 one in fifty owns a slave. 
 
 We wished these people to separate from the Northern 
 States and unite themselves with us. We proposed to ask 
 them to throw away all chance of ever receiving a dollar of 
 the moneys due them from the North, while we should de- 
 cline to assume those debts ourselves. We proposed to ask 
 them to put their lands, their slaves, their very national ex- 
 istence on the hazard of the die, and take up arms for us, 
 
16 
 
 while we should decline to assume to pay them what we and 
 the North together justly owe them. 
 
 Their treaties, I was urging on these Indians, were made 
 with us, as well as with the North, and therefore they would 
 not violate those treaties, made with the United States, by 
 entering into an alliance with us. Surely it followed, if we 
 were the party of the first part to those treaties for that pur- 
 pose, we were so for all purposes ; that if they were to be 
 asked to abide by their treaties in our favor, we could not 
 refuse to do so in their favor. 
 
 It seemed to me that it needed no new agreement on our 
 part to charge ourselves with all the debts due them by the 
 United States. The new Government, claiming their alle- 
 giance or adhesion, succeeding to the rights of the old Gov- 
 ernment, succeeded also to its liabilities ; and on no other 
 ground than that of succession is it possible to maintain the 
 validity or propriety of the act of Congress extending our 
 jurisdiction over the Indian country. We take the place 
 of the United States ; and w T e cannot take it for one purpose 
 and not for all. 
 
 I hope the President will not consider this argument as 
 out of place. Upon its validity depends the propriety of my 
 action, and perhaps the fate of the treaties themselves, the 
 peace of the Indian country, and its gain or loss to us. 
 
 It w r as forced upon me to decide at once what I would do. 
 It was very clear that if the Indian tribes were not concilia- 
 ted and treaties made, they would be confederated against us 
 in ninety days. A Council of Creeks, Seminoles, Shawnccs, 
 Cherokees, Delawares and the Indians of the prairie, was 
 then being held, high up on the North Fork of the Canadian, 
 to form a confederation for the purpose, in pretence, of main- 
 taining neutrality, but in reality for that of siding with the 
 North. An agreement to that effect was in fact made there. 
 Vague ideas of independence, of a union of all the tribes, 
 and of thus gaining great privileges, by seizing the advan- 
 tages offered by the troubled state of our affairs, were afloat 
 all through the Indian country. An emissary from Kansas 
 was among the Creeks. The Shawnecs, Delawares and 
 Kickapoos, residing there, were disaffected; not a few men, 
 whites and Indians, were mischievously disposed ; and Mr. 
 Ross was counselling the influential Creeks to adhere to his 
 policy of neutrality. Ben Marshall, a Lower Creek, owning 
 a hundred negroes, was opposed to making a treaty ; and so 
 was Hopoi-ilth-thli-Yahola, an Upper Creek, formerly Na- 
 
17 
 
 tional Speaker, end brought out of Alabamain 1S36 in chains; 
 one of the men who killed Gen. William Mcintosh, Principal 
 Chief of the Creeks, for making the treaty of 1827. 
 
 There was no time to wait to receive further instructions 
 from the Government, If I returned home, seventy-five 
 hundred fighting men, who could be made our allies, might 
 become our enemies, and part of them certainly would. 
 
 In that event, the whole force of Gen. McCulloch would 
 be required in the Indian country, millions of money be ex- 
 pended in subduing the Indians, aided as they would he by 
 Northern troops, and the whole Western frontier of Arkan- 
 sas would be ruined, if we did not ultimately lose that very 
 finest portion of the southern country, a loss equivalent to 
 that of at least any one of our States. 
 
 Still, even these considerations would not have induced 
 me to act in direct contravention of a prohibition contained 
 in an act of Congress. Perhaps that would not be justified 
 in any case. But I could not see that the act in question 
 did more than declare that the Congress declined to assume, 
 by any exercise of the Legislative power, the annuities and 
 debts due the Indians. It was, to my mind, simply the ex- 
 elusion of a conclusion. It did not assume to prohibit the 
 assumption of part or the whole of those debts and annui- 
 ties by the legitimate exercise of the Treaty-making power : 
 and certainly no such intention to prohibit that assumption 
 in the proper mode, could be implied, or be attributed to 
 the Legislature, unless the language admitted of no other 
 construction. 
 
 Finding in the act no limitation of my powers, and in my 
 instructions nothing beyond a reference to that act and its 
 supposed meaning, and knowing that it would be a great wrong 
 and a great mistake to refuse to assume those debts, and 
 that without such assumption no treaty could be made, I 
 determined to assume the responsibility of doing so, and if 
 it proved to be an error, to abide the consequent censure of 
 my Government. 
 
 There was still another reason. The moneys due the 
 Cherokees, Choctaws and Chickasaws, with part of those 
 due the Creeks, amounting in the aggregate to quite a large 
 sum, were invested in stocks, chiefly of individual States of 
 the Confederacy. The interest on these moneys, by the act 
 of Congress, the Confederate States proposed only to en- 
 deavor to collect ; and it was, therefore, more imperative that 
 they should agree to pay oth?r moneys, due by the United 
 9 
 
18 
 
 States, including the Confederate States, and by individual 
 Northern States, to agree to endeavor to enforce payment 
 whereof would he a mockery. 
 
 If I should fail to convince the President and Congress 
 of the propriety of the conclusion to which I came, 1 can 
 only plead in excuse the exigencies of the occasion, the 
 grave interests at stake, and the sincerity of my convic- 
 tions. 
 
 On the 25th of June I reached the North Fork village, 
 on the North Fork of the Canadian River, and found the 
 Creek Council not yet assembled. The Delegates of the 
 Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, thirty-one in number, had 
 also repaired to the Ncrth Fork, and desired there to nego- 
 tiate a treaty. The Principal Chief and some of the lead- 
 ing men of the Seminoles were also present, by my invita- 
 tion ; and all met me in the most friendly spirit. 
 
 On the 27th of June I atttended the Council of the 
 Creeks, and made them the talk which is herewith submit- 
 ted, marked E. This was carefully interpreted, and the 
 next day I presented them with the draft of a treaty, and 
 also about the same time submitted the draft of the Choctaw 
 and Chickasaw Treaty to the Delegates from those Nations. 
 Hopoi-ilth-thli Yahola opposed making a treaty, and 
 though he had a long and friendly conference with me, 
 finally retired with his young men from the Council of the 
 Creeks, which then determined by unanimous vote to join 
 the Confederate States, and appointed a committee to ex- 
 amine into the proposed treaty, and definitely settle its pro- 
 visions. 
 
 Some delay intervened in consequence of the settlement, 
 as a preliminary measure, of a convention of amity between 
 the Creeks, and the Choctaws and Chickasaws ; and, in 
 addition to the efforts of mischievous persons, not members 
 of either nation, to defeat the negotiations, some of the 
 delegates themselves labored to the same end, urged by 
 private motives. Some desired to go to Richmond, and 
 make a treaty there ; and there were other motives on the 
 part of some, not necessary to be any longer remembered. 
 It may be added, also, that an Indian has no idea that time 
 is of any value; and, therefore, patience is a peculiarly 
 necessary virtue in dealing with them. 
 
 On two points only, I encountered serious difficulty. All the 
 three nations were desirous to treat as independent nations, 
 and to conclude a treaty of alliance and friendship, only. 
 
19 
 
 They were opposed to assuming the state of Wards, and to 
 accepting the Protectorate of the Confederate States. I 
 found the same objection among the Cherokees, who re- 
 garded those terms as recognizing the correctness of the 
 decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the 
 Cherokee case, so defining the relation between the United 
 States and the Indian tribes. That point I could not yield; 
 and it was finally conceded by the Indians, upon my expla- 
 nation of the meaning of the terms, and that their meaning 
 va3 limited by the provisions of the treaties, y>hile the 
 terms themselves were indispensable. 
 
 The leading half-breeds among the Creeks had also made 
 up their minds to have no Agent of the Confederate States 
 among them, and desired to argue the point; but that I 
 declined and they yielded. 
 
 In other matters the Choctaws, Chiekasaws and Creeks 
 asked only such additions and change- as were right and 
 fair, and these I readily conceded. So that at length the provi- 
 sions of both treaties were settled to the entire satisfaction 
 of all. 
 
 The treaty with the Creeks was signed on the tenth day 
 of July, and ratified in General Council, on the 2i)th of 
 July, the Chiefs of every town in the nation signing the act 
 of ratification. 
 
 The treaty with the Choctaws and Chiekasaws was signed 
 on the 12th of July, and has since been ratified by the 
 Chickasaw Legislature. I have not yet heard of the action 
 of the Choctaw General Council, whose session commenced 
 on the first Monday of October. 
 
 On the 14th of July, I left the North Fork and reached 
 the Seminole Agency on the 21st. I had sent a request to 
 the Indians living on the reserves in the country leased 
 from the Choctaws and Chiekasaws, to meet me there, and 
 found them in attendance when I arrived. It was not, at 
 that time, my intention to go to the leased country ; and as 
 many of these Indians had left their reserves when the 
 troops of the United States abandoned that country and 
 were succeeded by volunteers from Tex s, I wished to add 
 to my own assurances of our power and disposition to pro- 
 tect them, those of the authorities of the Creek Nation, for 
 whom the more western tribes entertain a great respect ; and 
 I, therefore, induced the principal Chief Moti Kinnaird or 
 A-wa-li-co Chapco, and other influential men of the Creeks to 
 accompany me. John Jumper, or Iliniha Micco, the prin- 
 
20 
 
 cipal Chief of the Seminole*, had hoard the draft of the 
 Creek treat}- interpreted at the Creek Council, and had re- 
 turned home satisfied with its provisions and determined to 
 advise his people to make a similar treaty. Accordingly, I 
 met with no difficulty with the Seminoles. I made them the 
 t ilk which is herewith submitted, marked F, and they 
 promptly decided to join us. I concluded the treaty with 
 them on the first day of August, which, being made by the 
 General Council, needed no ratification. The payment of 
 one just claim is provided for, and an investigation of an- 
 other; and I found it advisable, in order to satisfy this people 
 of our justice and liberality, to provide an additional com- 
 pensation for the delegates, who, in 1857, went to Florida 
 
 to induce the Seminoles in that State to remove to the West. 
 The compensation allowed them was grossly inadequate, and 
 in that or some other form it was necessary to establish our 
 influence on a firm basis, by enlisting the influential men on 
 our side; and I wished to give no gratuities. 
 
 At the Seminole Agency, on my arrival, I found the 
 Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Major Elias Rector, 
 whom I had directed to meet me there, on account of his 
 being known to the Reserve Indians, whom I expected to 
 meet, and for whom he had selected the country which they 
 were now occupying. The delegates of these Bands, on 
 receiving my talk, readily agreed to accept the protection of 
 the Confederate States ; and, being informed by letter from 
 Mr. Vore, an agent whom I had sent to the Wichita 
 Agency, and from other sources of information, that the 
 Chiefs of some of the Bands of the Comanchcs would meet 
 me at that Agency, I determined to go there, in the hope 
 of inducing those Bands to abandon their wandering life, 
 and settle on Reserves. 
 
 On the 3d of August I left the Wichita, Agency, accom- 
 panied by Superintendent Rector and Mr. Leepcr, the Agent 
 for the Reserve Indians, who had come with Major Rector to 
 the Seminole Agency; by a, delegation of Creeks and Semi- 
 noles, headed by the principal Chief of each Nation, and 
 by an escort of 36 Creeks and 28 Seminoles, whom I had re- 
 ceived into the service as a special company for that purpose. 
 
 On the Gth of August I reached the Wichita Agency. It 
 is situated on a small brook, an affluent of the False Washita 
 river, about five miles eastward from Fort Cobb, and a mile 
 or more from the river. 
 
 That portion of the Choctaw and Chickasaw country 
 
21 
 
 which lies west of the 98th parallel of longitude, was leased 
 by the United States from the Choctaws and Chicjtasaws, by 
 the treaty of 1855 ; and in the treaty I had negotiated with 
 those Nations, the lease is continued for the term of ninety- 
 nine years. It was originally procured from them, in order 
 to place upon it, on Reserves with definite limits, the small 
 bands of Comanches and other Indians settled prior and up 
 to the year 1859 on Reserves in Texas. These bands were, 
 the Pencteghca Band of llic Neum or Comanches, number- 
 ing about 320 persons, the Wichitas, or Ta-wai-hash, the 
 Huecos, the Tahuacaros, the Cadohadaehos, Sudi or Nas- 
 sowit, commonly called the Caldos, the Anadaghcos, the 
 Toncawes, the Aionais, the Kichais, and a few Shawnees 
 and Dclawares; altogether being about 2,500 persons. 
 
 The United States had agreed to build them houses, to aid 
 in opening ground for them to cultivate, to feed them until 
 they could support themselves, and to supply them with 
 clothing, cattle and implements of husbandry. When the 
 United States troops withdrew from the country, in April of 
 the present year, the Agent also left the country, and about 
 half of the Indians, alarmed at this and at the stationing of 
 Texan troops there, at Fort Cobb and Arbuckle, fled into the 
 Seminole and Chickasaw country, and had not returned. 
 Those who remained continued to be fed by the contractor, 
 and as he had been paid by the Government of the United 
 States up to the 30th of June only, and was about to abandon 
 his contract, I had directed him to continue issuing rations 
 under it, on account of the Confederate States, until a new 
 contract should be made. This he was doing when I arrived 
 there. 
 
 I found the Chiefs and head men of four Bands of the 
 Comanches of the prairies waiting for me. They had come in, 
 leaving their families near the Antelope Hills, and had with 
 them only a few of their people, one hundred and forty 
 being the whole number present. 
 
 On the 1 2th of August I concluded a convention with the 
 Chiefs and head men of these four bands, the Noconis, 
 Taneiwes, Yaparihcas, and Cochotihcas, by which they agreed 
 to come in and settle on Reserves in the Leased District, and 
 I agreed that they should be fed and assisted like the Re- 
 serve Indians. On the same day I also concluded a con- 
 vention with the Reserve Indians themselves. 
 
 The Comanche Chiefs also agreed to visit the other bands 
 of the Neum, and induce them, if possible, to follow their 
 
o<> 
 
 example, in which they believed they should succeed. These 
 other bands, so far as I could learn their names, are the 
 Mo-eha, the Ke-wih-che-mah, the Tich-aih-ken-c and the 
 Pa-a-bo, and all have the generic name of Ncum, the word 
 
 Comanche, not being used by themselves. 
 
 I was greatly assisted in this negotiation, by the Creek 
 and Seminole delegates, and by the presence of an armed 
 escort of those Indians, serving as soldiers under the Con- 
 federate flag. Their presence gave great confidence to the 
 Comanches, and persuaded them to rely on my promises 
 and good faith; and the Creek and Seminole Chiefs did 
 every thing in their power to gain their confidence, by as- 
 suring them that all the promises I made them would he 
 fulfilled, and hy pointing to the condition of themselves and 
 their own people, as evidence of the good results to be expected 
 fram their adoption of a settled life and the abandonment of 
 their nomadic habits. To their exertions my success is in a 
 gre it measure to be attributed. 
 
 It is especially expressed in the Comanche treaty, that 
 Texas is one of the Confederate States, a party to the treaty, 
 and bound by all its provisions, and that always hereafter 
 peace is to prevail between it and the Comanches. This 
 was necessary, because war had long existed between them, 
 and it had seemed impossible to make the Comanches un- 
 derstand that Texas was a part of the United States. 
 
 I am satisfied that these Indians acted sincerely and in 
 good faith. They seemed very anxious to be allowed to 
 settle on land of their own, and to live in peace. I feel 
 certain that they will do so if no unfortunate collision oc- 
 curs to shake their confidence, and if the Government com- 
 plies promptly and fully with my promises. So far as they 
 are concerned, I am sure that there will be no longer a 
 border war in Texas, annually costing many valuable lives 
 and entailing an immense expense upon the State and 
 Confederate Treasuries. 
 
 In the hope of preventing any attack upon the bands 
 which had treated with me, I gave each of the Chiefs a white 
 flag and letters of safeguard. On their way back they met 
 a detachment of Major Burleson's command of Texan 
 troops, who respected the flag and letters., and thus gave the 
 Comanches assurance that Texas really is a party to the 
 treaty. 
 
 The Cai-a-w r as, a wandering prairie tribe, who have con- 
 tinually associated with the Comanches, and speak their 
 
23 
 
 language as well as their own, refused to come in and make 
 a treaty, quarreled with the Comanches for agreeing to do 
 so, and after murdering a boy, near Fort Cobb, and two or 
 three men of a company of Texan troops, fled with a plain 
 trail direct to the Comanche camp, near the Antelope Hills, 
 in the hope, no doubt, of inducing the belief that the Coman- 
 ches were the murderers, and, by thus causing an attack to 
 be made on them, of breaking off the treaty. Fortunately, 
 Major Burleson, who followed the trail, did not overtake the 
 Comanches, and no collision occurred. 
 
 Soon after the treaty was made, these Cai-a-was declared 
 that as soon as their young men returned from Mexico, 
 where they then were on a marauding expedition, they 
 would come down and attack the Indians on the Reserves, 
 and kill and plunder on the Texan frontier. They drove 
 away from among them the celebrated Comanche Chief, 
 Buffalo Hump, for twenty-five years the active enemy of 
 Texas, telling him to return to his people, the Peneteghcas, 
 who were friends of the whites, and prepare for war, since 
 there was no longer any friendship between the Comanches 
 and themselves. That Chief accordingly left them, and 
 came to the Wichita agency, desiring to have a house built 
 for him that he might settle with his people. 
 
 I have no doubt that the acts of hostility lately complained 
 of in Texas, have been committed by the Cai-a-was, and they 
 arc, of course, charged to the account of the Comanches, 
 none of whom are now hostile. I have just learned, by 
 letter from Fort Smith, that seven thousand Comanches were 
 encamped a short distance from Fort Cobb, waiting for the 
 leaves to fall that they might come in and meet me and 
 settle ; that all the Comanches had determined to do so, and 
 that the Cai-a-was had, with the exception of about twenty, 
 received the wampum I sent them, and likewise agreed 
 to come in and make a treaty. 
 
 I had promised the Comanches to meet them at the Agency 
 at the falling of the leaves, and to bring with me the goods 
 promised as presents ; and I had sent by them to the Cai-a- 
 was the wampum of peace and a bullet, with a message tell- 
 ing them to take their choice, and that if they should choose 
 war, I would send a thousand Creeks and Seminoles after 
 them, and wipe them out. The Comanche Chiefs thought 
 that this would induce them to treat; and their judgment 
 seems likely to be confirmed. 
 
 The person with whom I effected a contract to continue to 
 
24 
 
 feed the Reserve Indians for a year. has made ample ar- 
 rangements to supp'y all the wild Indians who come in and 
 settle; and I have sent a message to them that I have been 
 unexpectedly delayed, but will soon come or Bend the Super- 
 intendent to assign them lands and deliver their presents. 
 
 If these Indians should abandon their nomadic life, and 
 settle on Reserves, it will be found much cheaper to feed 
 them for a time, supply them with animals forjwork, build them 
 huts, and help them to open and cultivate farms, than to 
 maintain two or three regiments in order to kill them; since 
 the cost of that has certainly not been less than fifty thou- 
 sand dollars a head, for men^women and children; and since 
 so few have been killed in twenty years, as in no wise to have 
 diminished their capacity to do injury. 
 
 The Comanches arc a brave, frank, and intelligent people, 
 far superior to most of the other tribes. Their language is 
 a fine and sonorous one, resembling in its terminations that 
 of the Nachis or Natchez. I was favorably impressed by 
 them, and am satisfied that they will easily become reconciled 
 to a settled life and the cultivation of the soil. Those of the 
 Peneteghca band, who have been several years on Reserves, 
 are entirely peaceful and quiet and have shown a commend- 
 able industry. They need more houses ; and those that have 
 been built for them are very miserable huts, while their 
 tents are worn too thin to protect them against the cold. 
 They have this year cultivated a considerable field of corn, 
 and if they had had the assistance promised them and pro- 
 vided for them, would now be in a very comfortable condi- 
 tion. When they were driven from Texas, they left behind 
 them good houses and large numbers of cattle, for which 
 they ought to be remunerated; and far better care ought to 
 be taken of them and the Reserve Indians than has been 
 hitherto, f only for the sake of common humanity and 
 decency. 
 
 The Reserve Indians are all returning to the Reserves, 
 ■where, if they had remained, they would this year have made 
 good crops of corn. Their alarm and consequent removal 
 was natural enough, when they saw the troops and Agent 
 leaving, and Texan troops entering the country on the heels 
 of the former. Huts have been built for some of them, of 
 such a sort that few will live in them ; and the Toncawes have 
 none. A large sum of money was expended in the purchase 
 of clothing for them ; but now they are nearly naked. To 
 this, however, the Cadohadachos, Shawanos and Oponaghkcs 
 
or Delawares, are exceptions. Among all the bands the 
 chiefs are intelligent men. Some of them as much so as any 
 Indians I have ever seen. My camp was continually filled 
 with them and the Comanches, for ten days, and we lost not 
 a single article of any kind, even of the slightest value. 
 Some of them are quite industrious ; and if they are properly 
 encouraged, will soon raise crops of corn and vegetables suf- 
 ficient for their support. 
 
 The Cai-a-was are a people of Northern origin, who came 
 down many years ago into the prairie with dog trains, from 
 the Northwest, having no horses. Now they have an abun- 
 dance. They are inveterate horse-thieves, and always at 
 war. I do not know and cannot learn their number. A 
 large number, it is said two thousand of them, and the Ara- 
 pahos, were not long since gathered at Fort Wise, on the 
 Arkansas, expecting their presents from the Northern Gov- 
 ernment, which, it was said, they would not get. Arms have 
 been given them by that Government; rifles, revolvers and 
 Minie ammunition. I have seen the rifle, made at Lancas- 
 ter, in Pennsylvania, taken from one of them, whom the Cad- 
 dos killed, a little while before I was at the agency; and those 
 who killed the Texan soldiers had ammunition boxes marked 
 with the initials U. S., and Minie cartridges. It will l>3 
 well to remember this, when we arc reproached with the en- 
 listment of civilized and christian Indians. 
 
 On the 10th of August I left the Wichita Agency, with 
 my own party, our escort of Creeks and Scminoles, and 'about 
 forty Comanches, for the purpose of exploring the Wichita 
 mountains, and learning by actual inspection what extent of 
 fertile land there is among those mountains on which Re- 
 serves might be selected for the settlement of the Comanches 
 or other Indians. By the treaty with the Choctaws and 
 Chickasaws, the Government has the right to place in the 
 Leased District all the Comanches, Shawnees, Delawares and 
 Kickapoos, wherever they reside, and any other tribes whose 
 ranges are not north of the Arkansas river. I intended to 
 offer the Shawnees, Kickapoos and Delawares in Kansas 
 homes in that District, as I have since done ; and 1 wished 
 to know whether there was any country in the mountains, as 
 I have no doubt there is, suitable for settlement by them also. 
 
 After going as far west as the limestone hills on the north 
 of the main Wichita mountains extended, and alono- the 
 north side of these hills, to Otter or Pecan Creek, about°sixty 
 miles from Fort Cobb, I was taken sick, remained so for 
 
26 
 
 eight days, and was compelled to return, without turning 
 the hills as I intended, and exploring the country on the 
 south side of them and among the mountains. 
 
 I readied the Wichita Agency again on the 26th of August, 
 remained there three days, and returning by the way of Fort 
 Arbtickle, reached that post on the 2nd of September, and 
 there discharged my escort. A few miles beyond it, I had 
 met two gentlemen, sent to me by the principal Chief of the 
 Cherokees, bearing the letter from the Qhief and Executive 
 Council, inviting the negotiation of a treaty, which is marked 
 O, and the copy of the address of the Chief and of the reso- 
 lutions of the General Convention of the Cherokee people, 
 which is marked II. 
 
 On the 3rd of September I replied to this communication 
 by the letter marked I, agreeing to enter upon negotiations 
 for a treaty on the 25th of September, and requesting the 
 Chief to procure the attendance at the same time of delega- 
 tions of the Osages, Quapaws, Senecas, and Senecas and 
 Shawnecs. 
 
 My letter to Mr. Ross, mention of which is made in these 
 letters, was written on the 1st of August, the day On which 
 I concluded the Seminole treaty; and a copy of it is marked 
 K. When I received the reply of Mr. Ross to my letter of 
 the 6th of June, I determined to answer it when I should 
 have secured the adhesion of all the other principal 
 tribes, in the hope that it might then either shake his reso- 
 lution to maintain a ({nasi neutrality, or if it did not, that it 
 would serve to open the eyes of the Cherokee people. Ac- 
 cordingly, when I sent this answer to him, on the 1st of Au- 
 gust, I at the same time sent a copy to Fort Smith, to be 
 published there, and also to be printed in pamphlet form and 
 sent into the Cherokee Nation. This was done, and perhaps 
 not without some good effect. 
 
 Being again detained five days by sickness at Boggy De- 
 pot, in the Choctaw country, I reached Park Hill in the 
 Cherokee Nation, on the 24th of September, and there on 
 the 2nd of October concluded a Convention with the Chiefs 
 and headmen of the Great Osage band ; on the 4th of October 
 one with the Quapaws and one with the Seneca tribe and the 
 Shawnecs of the mixed band of Senecas and Shawnecs ; and on 
 the 7th of October, a treaty with the Cherokees. 
 
 Treaties have thus been effected with all the Nations, 
 tribes and bands in what was formerly the Southern Super- 
 intendency of Indian Affairs, that is, in the Indian country 
 
south of Kansas, west of Missouri and Arkansas, and north 
 of Red river, except only the Little Qsage band, numbering 
 about a thousand persons, who will no doubt unite in the 
 treaty made with the Great Osage band, as it is provided 
 thoy may do, and the Senecas of the mixed band of Scnecas 
 and Shawnees, about ninety in number, in whose favor a 
 like provision is made. 
 
 Major Rector, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs who 
 had returned to Fort Smith from the Wichita Agency when 
 the treaties made there were concluded, again met 'me at 
 Park Ihll at my special request, on my arrival there, aided 
 in negotiating the treaties made at that place, and returned 
 with me to Fort Smith, which place I readied again on the 
 11th of October, after an absence of four months and a 
 half. 
 
 In now submitting for your consideration and that of the 
 Congress the treaties concluded by me, I should omit the 
 performance of a simple act of justice, if I failed to bring 
 to the notice of the Government the fair and frank manli- 
 ness and honesty displayed by all these Indians in a very 
 remarkahte degree, in all their propositions and discussions 
 Ibis was not less strikingly the case among the ruder tribes 
 and bands than among the more advanced and civilized na- 
 tions. In negotiating with the Cherokees, I had to deal 
 only with the Chief and Executive Council, who were per- 
 fectly well informed in regard to the condition of our affairs 
 political and military. With all the other nations and tribes 
 or their Delegations, I opened the business in hand by a 
 talk, carefully interpreted to them, and in which I informed 
 them as fully as possible of the fact and nature of the quar- 
 rel between the I nited and the Confederate States of the 
 existence of hostilities, of the interest which they themselves 
 had in the controversy, in common with us, and of the 
 hazards they would incur by uniting with us. [ did this in 
 order to deal fairly with them, and that they might never be 
 able to plead that they had been misled or had embarked in 
 the joint cause for want of proper information, as an excuse 
 tor repudiating their treaties with us. 
 
 The Cherokees were at first divided, and so to some c\ter+ 
 were the Creeks. But they and all the others, when the 
 terms of the treaties came to be discussed, met me in a 
 spirit of the most perfect frankness, never asked for any- 
 thing wrong, illiberal or extravagant, and only desired to 
 have the just claims and rights of their poople recognized 
 
2S 
 
 and secured, and to make such advances towards political in- 
 dependence as they might well ask and we concede. They 
 were well informed as to the condition of our public affairs, 
 carefully considered and weighed and thoroughly understood 
 all the provisions of the treaties, were skilful diplomatists, 
 often surprising me by the acuteness of their perceptions 
 and their clear-sightedness, and know well how important to 
 us their alliance and friendship were; and still I never de- 
 tected the least desire on their part to take advantage of their 
 increased importance to us, in order to extort from us any- 
 thing that the United States when they were most prosper- 
 ous might not have granted. I do not think there is a sin- 
 gle provision in any of the treaties, granting them any right 
 or privilege, recognizing any claim, or providing for any 
 payment, that I would not cheerfully have inserted, if I had 
 been treating with them in behalf of the United States ten 
 years ago. 
 
 The principal features of the treaties, with the Cherokees, 
 Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws and Chickasaws arc the 
 following : 
 
 1st. The Confederate States agree to pay, regularly and 
 annually, hereafter, to each nation, all annuities,jinnual 
 payments, and annually accruing interest on moneys unin- 
 vested, due them by the United States under former treaties ; 
 and to pay, immediately on the ratification of each treaty, 
 all arrearages of the same, for the year 1861, and previous 
 years, due by the United States. 
 
 2d. The Confederate States assume the duty of collecting 
 and paying over to each nation the principal and interest of 
 the stocks or bonds of any of the Confederate States, in 
 which its funds are invested and agree to request such States 
 to pay the same to the Government of the Confederate States, 
 as Trustee for each nation. 
 
 3d. The Confederate States guarantee to each nation the 
 final settlement and full payment, upon and after the resto- 
 ration of peace and the establishment and recognition of their 
 independence, of all moneys belonging to such nation, and 
 invested in United States' stocks or in the stocks or bonds 
 of any Northern State ; and of all other moneys justly due 
 and owing by the late United States, under existing treaties, 
 to such nation, or people, for itself, or in trust for individ- 
 uals : To which end all provisions of former treaties, by 
 which any benefit or privilege was secured to each nation, 
 are declared to continue in force. 
 
29 
 
 4th. The lands owned by each nation under previous 
 treaties, are guarantied to it in fee simple, with power to 
 sell parts of the same to individuals ; with reservation of 
 tracts for the Agencies and for Forts and Military pons, 
 and the right of way for roads ; and with reversion to the 
 Confederate States, if the nation abandons the land, becomes 
 extinct, or sells to any other State, nation or power. 
 
 5th. It is provided that the Choctaws and Chickasaws shall 
 be entitled to a Delegate in Congress; the Creeks and Semi- 
 noles to one, and the Chcrokees to one ; each Delegate to 
 have the privileges possessed by Delegates from Territories, 
 and such compensation as shall be fixed by Congress. 
 
 6th. It is provided that a District Court of the Confed- 
 erate States shall be created for the Choctaw and Chickasaw 
 country, and one for the Cherokee country ; to which latter 
 the Creek, Seminole, Osage, Qua paw, Seneca and Seneca 
 and Shawnee countries may well be attached, as parts of the 
 same District, no Court being provided for in either of 
 these. 
 
 7th. It is provided that the Choctaw and Chickasaw conn- 
 try may be erected into a State, whenever the people of the 
 two nations, by vote' regularly taken, express their desire 
 that this may be done ; and it is further provided that the 
 Creek, Seminole and Cherokee countries may become parts 
 of such State whenever the people desire it. 
 
 On their parts, these different nations accept our Protec 
 torate, become our wards, consent that our intercourse and 
 certain other laws shall be extended over their country, and 
 agree to furnish troops ; and two regiments of Cherokoes, 
 one of Creeks and one of Choctaws are already in our se - 
 vice, while the Creeks and Choctaws each offer another, and 
 the Seminoles and Osages each five hundred men. It is to 
 be regretted that not more than twenty-five hundred of these 
 arc armed, or can arm themselves, with rifles or other fire- 
 arms, and that, as yet, only about seven hundred rifles have 
 been furnished by the Government, and that these are small- 
 bore squirrel guns, of little worth, famished the Choctaw 
 regiment. 
 
 Of the obligation of the Confederate States to pay the 
 debts due by them and the other States of the United States, 
 before the separation, to these nations, I have already 
 spoken. We should be bound to pay them, even without a 
 new promise. We do not and could not repudiate treaties, 
 to which we, as well as the Northern States, were parties, 
 
30 
 
 especially when we ask the other party to annul them as far 
 as the North is concerned, and regard them as if made ex- 
 clusively with us, as the successors of the United States. 
 
 The whole amount of arrearages of annuities, annual 
 payments and interest, provided to be paid upon the ratifi- 
 cation of the treaties, or by the 30th of December next, is, 
 according to the estimate herewith submitted, $265,927 2.3. 
 The whole of this amount, ought to be paid in gold 
 and silver. The Indians have always been so paid, and 
 the evil effect of now, on the first payment, offering them 
 Treasury notes alone, would be very great. Part of the 
 moneys, payable in bulk, to the Treasurers of the Nations, 
 may be paid in Treasury notes, but where they are to be 
 distributed among the people, it is absolutely indispensable 
 that specie should be procured; and I hope the necessary 
 provision may be made for that purpose. For the residue 
 of the moneys payable and to be expended during this year 
 and the half of the next, Treasury notes may be used. 
 
 Even peace with these Nations is well worth all the 
 moneys due them, and what it may cost to procure gold and 
 silver ; and the whole sum payable will be a small mat- 
 ter, in comparison with the expense of the regiments it 
 would have required to overpower them, if they had taken 
 up arms against us. This consideration would be deemed 
 all-powerful, if any other were necessary than this, that the 
 debts are our debts, are eminently just, were chiefly con- 
 tracted on account of lands that we now own, and could not 
 honorably be avoided, evaded or postponed. 
 
 And it only remains to be added, that without assuming 
 these annual payments, and guaranteeing these debts, not a 
 single treaty could have been made, and we should have 
 lost the whole Indian country, or only gained it at enormous 
 expense and loss of life, as prize of war. If the assump- 
 tion and guarantee had not been eminently fit and just, it 
 was imperatively and inexorably necessary. 
 
 The guarantees of title in fee simple to the lands of the 
 different Nations, were hut guarantees to them of what had 
 been granted them by solemn treaties and conveyed to them 
 by patents from the United States, and to both of which we 
 were parties; with the exception of the right of sale or 
 other disposition to individuals, which is inseparable from 
 a title in fee simple, and the withholding whereof from them 
 by the former Government was a fraud. The provisions of 
 the present treaties which allow it, were indispensable if we 
 
31 
 
 would induce them to open their country to settlement, and 
 therefore are more for our benefit than theirs. 
 
 By Article XII. of the Treaty of 28th November, 1785, 
 the absolute right "to send a Deputy of their own choice 
 to Congress" was given to the Cherokees ; and by Article 
 VII. of the Treaty of 20th December, 1835, it was agreed 
 that they should be entitled to send a Delegate to the House 
 of Representatives of the United States, whenever Congress 
 should make provision for the same ; which Congress never 
 was asked by the Executive to do ; and by Article XII. of 
 the Treaty with the Choctaws, of 27th September, 1830, the 
 application of that Nation to be allowed a Delegate in Con- 
 gress, was " presented in the Treaty that Congress may 
 consider of and decide the application ;" which the Execu- 
 tive never asked Congress to do. The degree of civilization 
 and respectability to which these five Nations have attained, 
 entitles them to be heard, at least, in the Councils of the 
 Confederate States; and they eminently deserve this for 
 their loyalty to us in the present crisis. 
 
 It may not be inapposite to remark, that by the Creek 
 Treaty of the year 1836, and the Choctaw Treaty of the 
 year 1831), all the persons of each Nation who chose to re- 
 main, and did for a certain length of time remain east of 
 the Mississippi, became thereby citizens of the United 
 States ; and that large numbers of those now west of the 
 Mississippi became so in that way. If it was thought pro- 
 per thus to make them citizens, it cannot be improper to 
 allow the same people Delegates in Congress. And that 
 there are in each Nation many persons well qualified, by 
 their intelligence and information, to represent their people, 
 and who would icflect no discredit on the Congress itself, 
 no rnc who knows them will doubt. 
 
 To establish courts of justice among them, is but to carry 
 out that provision of the Constitution which guarantees to 
 every man a speedy and impartial trial by a jury of the dis- 
 trict where the offence is committed ; a right which has been 
 habitually denied to these Indians. They have been tried 
 for criminal offences, in courts held in a neighboring State, 
 by juries of another race, ignorant of their nature and 
 modes of thought and springs of action ; so that, from this 
 and other causes, these trials have generally been monstrous 
 acts of cruelty and injustice. 
 
 By the present treaties, all white men who have inter- 
 married in the Indian country, and reside in it, or who arc 
 
32 
 
 allowed to vote at elections, are to be regarded, for the pur- 
 poses of the criminal code, as Indians, subject to the Indian 
 laws, and to be tried by the Indian courts. To this just 
 provision few will, I hope, be found to object; since one 
 who voluntarily becomes a citizen of any country, and one 
 of its people, ought not to be exempt from the operation of 
 its laws, and the jurisdiction of its tribunals. The only 
 ground of objection that can seem reasonable, to the crea- 
 tion of District Courts in the Indian country, is, that white 
 men, only temporarily in the Indian country, and charged 
 
 with the commission there of a grave offence, oun;ht not to 
 
 I'll- 
 
 be tried by a jury of Indians; and this ground of objection 
 
 may be removed by a provision in the act establishing these 
 courts, to the effect, that when a white man is to be tried, 
 he may demand and have a jury of white men, to be sum- 
 moned from an adjoining State. 
 
 To provide a means by which the whole Indian country 
 may ultimately become a State, was the only mode of solv- 
 ing the question as to the destiny of these Nations. With- 
 out a violation of the good faith and honor of the Confede- 
 racy, they cannot be formed into Territories, and much less 
 annexed to a Territory, or to a State, without their consent ; 
 and that consent will never be given. They are obstinately 
 wedded to their system of holding their lands in common, 
 in consequence, chiefly, of their fear that if it is parceled 
 out, speculators will in the end defraud the ignorant, un- 
 wary and improvident out of their possessions. We cannot 
 force them to open their lands to settlement, to accept re- 
 serves and sell the residue, or even to sell portions at their 
 own land offices, without violating the most solemn promises, 
 and doing an act of iniquity. 
 
 In the meantime, each Nation is determined to maintain 
 what it terms its nationality, and no two of them will, at 
 present, consent to form one people. The Choctaws and 
 Chickasaws were under one government, but the latter never 
 rested until this was undone, and separate governments 
 established; and the same was the case with the Creeks 
 and Seminoles. 
 
 To require, as a condition precedent to the admission of 
 part or all of the Indian country, as a State, a population 
 equal to the ratio of representation in Congress, would be 
 virtually to postpone the creation of such a State indefinite- 
 ly. These people increase not at all by immigration, and 
 very slowly by the processes of nature. One plan only is 
 
33 
 
 possible, and that is, to receive them as a State, and thus 
 induce them to sell part of their lands, and permit their 
 numbers to increase by immigration. 
 
 If it should seem to any one that too much is conceded 
 to any of these Indians, let him but learn the great extent 
 and the varied resources of the Indian country, with its fine 
 streams, its splendid scenery, its soil unexcelled in the 
 world for fertility, its vast undulating prairies, on which all 
 the herds of the world could feed, its capabilities to produce 
 grain of every kind, hemp, tobacco, cotton, fruit, wine and 
 wool ; its immense basins of coal, its limestones, marbles, 
 granite, iron, lead and salt, which will make it some day the 
 very finest State of the Confederacy, and he will begin to 
 comprehend that the concessions made the Indians are real- 
 ly far more for our benefit than for theirs ; and that it is we, a 
 thousand times more than they, who are interested to have 
 this country, the finest, in my opinion, on the continent, 
 opened to settlement and formed into a State. 
 
 The President is well aware of the importance of this 
 country, not merely to Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas, but 
 to the whole Confederacy. It is both a military and political 
 necessity that it should form a part of our own country. In 
 all probability many years will elapse before even the Choc- 
 taws and Chickasaws will avail themselves of the provision 
 authorizing the formation of a State Government; and it is 
 very desirable to lead them to look upon it as a thing that is 
 at some day in the future to occur. 
 
 The Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws have regularly 
 constituted governments, constitutions like our own, two 
 Houses of the Legislature, and courts of justice ; and the 
 Creeks have lately adopted a similar constitution. When 
 they once open their country to settlement, its unrivaled 
 fertility and beauty will attract to it a vast emigration, and 
 it will become the great pasture-ground and grain-field of 
 the Confederate States. Its value and importance can hardly 
 be over-estimated ; and I consider the provisions in the 
 Choctaw and Chickasaw treaty, for the surveying of their 
 lands at some future day, and the erection of their country 
 into a State, as the greatest success achieved by these 
 treaties, since heretofore every movement in that direction 
 had been decidedly repulsed. 
 
 To the special provisions contained in the principal 
 treaties, involving expenditure of money, I shall allude in a 
 3 
 
34 
 
 few words only, that this report may not exceed all reasonable 
 dimensions. 
 
 After the terms of the Cherokee treaty were settled, the 
 advance of $150,000, to be used for national purposes, and of 
 $50,000 on which interest is annually to be paid, were asked 
 for by the authorities of that nation, not as a right, but in 
 the way of an appeal to the generosity of the Confederate 
 States. I thought it not wise to refuse to grant what was thus 
 asked, since that nation occupies a country very near to 
 Kansas, and likely to be invaded, and its people had been 
 greatly divided in opinion. The whole amount is but an 
 advance on the price of a tract of country between Kansas 
 and Missouri, for which the treaty agrees to pay, in case it 
 should be lost to them. If it should not be lost, they will 
 dispose of it, and the moneys so to be advanced will be re- 
 paid out of the proceeds of the sale, since we shall undoubtedly 
 hold a lien on the land for such advances. 
 
 I had found it necessary, as it was evidently just, to guar- 
 antee the payment to the Chcrokees of the price paid by 
 them in 1835 for the land in question, with interest at live 
 per cent, per annum from that sale, in case of its loss by the 
 chances of war or the terms of a peace. If we had not given 
 this guarantee, we should have had little right to ask them to 
 enter into an alliance with us ; and our proffered protectorate 
 would have been but a sham. 
 
 So far as I had the data to do so, I have stated the 
 amounts due the different tribes, and the sums invested for 
 them, and in what stocks such investments were made. And 
 where a claim was undeniably valid and just and the amount 
 certain, its payment is absolutely provided for, while in some 
 other cases I provided for an investigation of the claims at a 
 future period. 
 
 Two amounts of $12,000 and $10,300 are thus provided 
 to be paid to the Ckerokees, and one of $5,000 to the Semi- 
 nolcs. Provision is made in the Seminole treaty for inves- 
 tigating a claim of certain Seminoles for services of slaves 
 detained from them, and in a supplementary article of the 
 Creek treaty, for investigating those of the Apalachicola 
 band for losses sustained by their forced removal west. 
 
 In the Choctaw and Chickasaw treaty provision is made 
 for the ascertainment and payment of the value of a tract of 
 country belonging to those nations, now included within the 
 limits of Arkansas. The facts of the claim were too plain 
 to admit of dispute, and the Choctaw and Chickasaw Dele- 
 
35 
 
 gates were unwilling to agree to a treaty, unless some pro- 
 vision was made for settling the matter, in such a way that 
 their people should not be put to the expense of employing 
 counsel or agents to procure its settlement and payment. 
 
 Provision is also made for the settlement of an account of 
 the Chickasaws, in strict compliance with the stipulations of 
 a former treaty hitherto contemptuously disregarded by the 
 United States. 
 
 In the Creek treaty provision is made for the future pay- 
 ment to certain persons who were orphans in 1836, and their 
 descendants, of moneys belonging to them, being the pro- 
 ceeds of certain reservations of lands made for them by the 
 treaty of that year. 
 
 By the article supplementary to the treaty with the Re- 
 serve Indians, provision is made for an investigation, by the 
 President, of the claim of the Wichita Indians, for com- 
 pensation for the country between the False Washita and 
 Red River, which, if their claim be well founded, as I have 
 no doubt it is, was entirely just. 
 
 To the Choctaws, it is agreed that $50,000 shall be paid 
 in advance, on account of moneys due them, and to the 
 Chickasaws $2,000, for the purchase of arms ; but no new 
 annuities are agreed to be paid, nor any moneys not hereto- 
 fore due them to be paid, to the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks 
 or Cherokees. 
 
 In favor of the Seminoles, it is agreed that the payments 
 for educational purposes and blacksmiths, shall be continued 
 for a limited term of years, and that $1,000 shall be given 
 them for the erection of school houses. To this I was in- 
 duced, by the great bravery and the loyalty of this people, 
 many of whom were so lately in arms against us, and who 
 are now all true to the cause of the South ; and because I 
 considered that no object could more commend itself to the 
 President than that of educating the yonng among these 
 tribes. 
 
 The expiration of all annuities payable to the Osages, the 
 utter poverty of the Quapaws, and the wants and good con- 
 duct of the Senecas and Shawnees, induced the new provis- 
 ions in their favor, absolutely necessary to their comfort and 
 advancement. 
 
 xVnd the importance of maintaining peace on the frontier 
 of Texas, by settling all the Prairie tribes on Reserves, 
 will, I hope, be deemed by the President, to have warranted 
 
36 
 
 the provisions made for feeding, clothing and supplying those 
 tribes and bands. 
 
 I have allowed a moderate compensation to the Creek, 
 Seminole, Choctaw and Chickasaw delegates who negotiated 
 their treaties ; but did not find it necessary to purchase the 
 aid of any of the chiefs of any of the tribes, by gratuities or 
 payments to be made to them personally. The only appa- 
 rent exception is contained in the secret article of the Creek 
 treaty ; and what is therein contained was not asked as a 
 condition of loyalty, but only desired as a mark of honor and 
 confidence. 
 
 The whole amount of my expenditures during the five 
 months and more of my absence from home on this service, 
 including provisions furnished Indian Councils, presents to 
 Indians, pay of escort, subsistence, transportation and com- 
 pensation of Secretary and Assistant and of Delegations that- 
 accompanied me, expresses and interpreters, is $18,747 20. 
 
 Of this sum, $6,914 86, were expended for the purchase 
 of provisions supplied to the people at the several councils ; 
 $677 39 for presents to the Indians, made chiefly to the Re- 
 serve Indians and to the Comanches ; $2,992 57 for the pay 
 and allowances of the escort of Creeks and Seminoles ; 
 $2,397 02 compensation of Indian delegates and interpre- 
 ters, and $1,550 compensation of Secretary and Assistant. 
 
 All the supplies furnished by me were purchased on credit 
 or with moneys advanced in the Indian country by the mer- 
 chants, to whose liberality and patriotism I bear willing tri- 
 bute. I did not find one who was not loyal and true, and 
 anxious to aid me by every means in his power. 
 
 In closing this report I hope to be pardoned by the Pre- 
 sident for making one or two suggestions that seem to me 
 to merit consideration. 
 
 To regard an Indian as a creature radically different from 
 a white man is a great mistake. They are a people with 
 the same nature and affections as ourselves, .and controlled 
 by the same motives and springs of action. Nor are they 
 a faithless and treacherous people, nor by nature jealous or 
 suspicious, but trusting, frank and loyal. It is not to our 
 credit that we know so little of them, and it is as little to 
 onr advantage. 
 
 We have made them jealous and suspicious, by the treat- 
 ment they have received at our hands ; and they are natu- 
 rally unforgiving and revengeful, especially never forgetting 
 a broken promise or violated pledge. In addition to the 
 
37 
 
 wrongs done them by treaties, obtained by the bribery of 
 Chiefs, by threats and intimidation, and sometimes written 
 one way and read another, the Agents of the Government 
 have robbed them continually, and denial of justice at Wash- 
 ington has forced the employment, by them, of attorneys 
 at exorbitant compensation, which was shared by clerks in 
 the Indian bureau, and sometimes by members of Congress. 
 Coffee sent to a tribe in the north-west, not many years ago, 
 was exchanged, it is said, sack for sack, for corn. Southern 
 tribes were removed west by contract, at so much per head, 
 and the profits of the contractor were realized from the star- 
 vation of the miserable Indians. Provisions furnished them 
 by contractors were issued by hollow weights, and measures 
 with false bottoms, and large fortunes were accumulated by 
 the practice of these laudable modes of thrift. 
 
 Treaties with them were violated, without scruple, even 
 within the last six years, almost as soon as the ink was dry 
 upon them. Incompetent agents were appointed, to reward 
 political services, and who took the offices in order to share 
 the fees paid by the Indians. These persons, continually 
 absent from their posts, cared little for those under their 
 charge, except as a source of profit ; and the vast extent of 
 newly acquired country had so enlarged our Indian relations, 
 that the system had become too unwieldy to be managed ; 
 and the Indian office was at once the most corrupt and the 
 most incompetent in the Government. 
 
 The laws regulating intercourse with the Indians, enacted 
 at an early day, when all the tribes| were wandering barba- 
 rians, had ceased to suit our Southern tribes, who had es- 
 tablished free governments and cultivated the arts of peace 
 and civilization ; while unreasonable enactments, interpre- 
 ted and applied in a narrow and technical spirit, eternally 
 harassed and annoyed these tribes. 
 
 I earnestly recommend a revision of the laws regulating 
 trade and intercourse with the Indians, that they may be 
 made more to accord with justice and good sense. 
 
 I earnestly recommend an immediate revision of the regu- 
 lations based on those laws. 
 
 I earnestly recommend that all the treaties made by us 
 with the Indian tribes be published in a volume, followed by 
 the new Intercourse Act and Regulations, and by copies in 
 full of all acts of Congress in respect to crimes and offences, 
 that are in force in the Indian country. 
 
 And I especially hope that all Agents for Indian tribes 
 
38 
 
 may be peremptorily required to remain at all times at their 
 Agencies, and be never allowed to be absent without special 
 permission, given for valid and sufficient reasons. 
 
 I most urgently and anxiously entreat that the treaties 
 now made may be speedily ratified, and the moneys due the 
 Indians promptly paid ; and that all the Indians who desire 
 to enter into our service may be received and armed, in 
 order that they may feel that their interests and ours are 
 identical, and that they stand upon an equal footing with 
 ourselves, defending the same rights and receiving the same 
 treatment as their fellow soldiers of our own race. 
 
 If the promises I have made them are faithfully complied 
 with, and they are hereafter treated with justice and gener- 
 ously dealt with, their country is secured to us for all time. 
 And I need hardly say again to the President that even their 
 peaceful inactivity would save us the expense of more than 
 three regiments, and that their co-operation is worth more 
 to us than all the moneys which these treaties bind us to pay 
 them, and which, in the absence of any new promise, we 
 should equally have owed them. 
 
 In the hope that my action may not be disapproved, 
 I am the President's most 
 
 Obedient servant, 
 
 ALBERT PIKE, 
 Commissioner of the Confederate States to the Indian Na- 
 tions West of Arkansas. 
 
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