Page:A Century of Dishonor.pdf/429

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
APPENDIX.
411

XIV.

AN ACCOUNT

OF THE NUMBERS, LOCATION, AND SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF EACH IMPORTANT TRIBE AND BAND OF INDIANS WITHIN THE UNITED STATES, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THOSE DESCRIBED IN THE PREVIOUS PAGES.

[From the Report of Francis A. Walker, United States Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the year 1872.]

The Indians within the limits of the United States, exclusive of those in Alaska, number, approximately, 300,000.

They may be divided, according to their geographical location or range, into five grand divisions, as follows: in Minnesota, and States east of the Mississippi River, about 32,500; in Nebraska, Kansas, and the Indian Territory, 70,650; in the Territories of Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, 65,000; in Nevada, and the Territories of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona, 84,000 and on the Pacific slope, 48,000. * * * As regards their means of support and methods of subsistence, they may be divided as follows: those who support themselves upon their own reservations, receiving nothing from the Government except interest on their own moneys, or annuities granted them in consideration of the cession of their lands to the United States, number about 130,000; those who are entirely subsisted by the Government, about 31,000; those in part subsisted, 84,000—together, about 115,000; those who subsist by hunting and fishing, upon roots, nuts, berries, etc., or by begging and stealing, about 55,000.


TRIBES EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.

NEW YORK.

The Indians of New York, remnants of the once powerful “Six Nations,” number 5070. They occupy six reservations in the State, containing in the aggregate 68,668 acres. Two of these reservations, viz., the Alleghany and Cattaraugus, belonged originally to the Colony of Massachusetts; but, by sale and assignment, passed into the hands of a company, the Indians holding a perpetual right of occupancy, and the company referred to, or the individual members thereof, owning the ultimate fee. The same state of facts formerly existed in regard to the Tonawanda re-