Mexico. Much of our trouble with these tribes could have been averted, had we shown what would appear to them as a spirit of justice and fair dealing in this negotiation. It is hard to make the average savage comprehend why it is that as soon as his reservation is found to amount to anything he must leave and give up to the white man. Why should not Indians be permitted to hold mining or any other kind of land? The whites could mine on shares or on a royalty, and the Indians would soon become workers in the bowels of the earth. The right to own and work mines was conceded to the Indians by the Crown of Spain, and the result was beneficial to both races. In 1551, the Spanish Crown directed that "Nadie los impidiese que pudiesem tomar minas de Oro, i Plata i beneficiarlas como hacian los Castellanos."—Herrera, Decade, VIII., lib. 8, cap. 12, p. 159. The policy of the American people has been to vagabondize the Indian, and throttle every ambition he may have for his own elevation; and we need not hug the delusion that the savage has been any too anxious for work, unless stimulated, encouraged, and made to see that it meant his immediate benefit and advancement.
During the closing hours of the year 1875 the miners kept going into the Black Hills, and the Indians kept annoying all wagon-trains and small parties found on the roads. There were some killed and others wounded and a number of wagons destroyed, but hostilities did not reach a dangerous state, and were confined almost entirely to the country claimed by the Indians as their own. It was evident, however, to the most obtuse that a very serious state of affairs would develop with the coming of grass in the spring. The Indians were buying all the arms, ammunition, knives, and other munitions of war from the traders and every one else who would sell to them. On our side the posts were filled with supplies, garrisons changed to admit of the concentration of the largest possible numbers on most threatened localities, and the efficient pack-trains which had rendered so valuable a service during the campaign in Arizona were brought up from the south and congregated at Cheyenne, Wyoming. The policy of the Government must have seemed to the Indians extremely vacillating. During the summer of 1876 instructions of a positive character were sent to General Crook, directing the expulsion from the Black Hills of all unauthorized
