they might take that rest so much required for the recuperation of their physical natures.” Now let us see what provision the Government had made for that “rest” and “recuperation,” surely “much required” and fairly earned. Not one dollar had been appropriated for establishing them in their new home; not one building had been put up. This people was set down in wilderness without one provision of any kind for their shelter.
“It is a matter of astonishment to me,” says Agent Howard (p. 100 of this “Report”), “that the Government should have ordered the removal of the Ponca Indians from Dakota to the Indian Territory without having first made some provision for their settlement and comfort. Before their removal was carried into effect an appropriation should have been made by Congress sufficient to have located then in their new home, by building a comfortable home for the occupancy of every family of the tribe. As the case now is, no appropriation has been made by Congress except of a sum little more than sufficient to remove them; and the result is that these people have been placed on an uncultivated reservation, to live in their tents as best they may, and await further legislative action.”
This journal of Mr. Howard's is the best record that can ever be written of the sufferings of the Poncas in their removal from their homes. It is “highly colored;” but no one, however much it may be for his interest to do so, can call it “a sensational fabrication,” or can discredit it in the smallest particular, for it is an “official record,” authorized and endorsed by being published in the “Annual Report” of the Secretary of the Interior.
The remainder of the Ponca tribe is still in Indian Territory, awaiting anxiously the result of the efforts to restore to them their old homes, and to establish the fact of their indisputable legal right to them.[1]
- ↑ See Appendix, Art. II., for later facts in the history of the Poncas.
