to support the Indians in their new locations, without any actual drain on the Treasury in the future. * * * The lands belong to the Indians, and they are clearly entitled to receive the full value of the same when sold.”
In this sentence we reach the high-water mark of the sophistry and dishonesty of the Department’s position. “The lands belong to the Indians,” but we will compel them to “restore to the public domain” (i.e., to give up to white settlers) 17,642,455 acres of them. The Indians “are clearly entitled to receive the full value of the same when sold,” but we will compel them to expend that “full value” in removing to a place where they do not want to go, opening new lands, building new houses, buying new utensils, implements, furniture and stock, and generally establishing themselves, “without any actual drain on the Treasury” of the United States: and the Department of the Interior “can see no reason why the Government should not avail itself of these facts.”
All this is proposed with a view to the benefit of the Indians. The report goes on to reiterate the same old story that the Indians must have “a perfect title to their lands;” that they have come to feel that they are at any time liable to be moved, “whenever the pressure of white settlers upon them may create a demand for their lands,” and that they “decline to make any improvements on their lands, even after an allotment in severalty has been made, until they have received their patents for the same,” and that even “after the issue of patents the difficulties surrounding them do not cease.” Evidently not, since, as we have seen, it is now several years since every head of a family among these Winnebagoes, whose “removal” the commissioner now recommends, secured his “patent” for eighty acres of land.
Finally, the commissioner says: “Every means that human ingenuity can devise, legal or illegal, has been resorted to for the purpose of obtaining possession of Indian lands.” Of this
