After this we find in the Official Reports no distinctive mention of the Delawares by name, except of a few who had been for some time living in the Indian Territory, and were not included in the treaty provisions at the time of the removal from Kansas. This little handful—eighty-one in number—is all that now remain to bear the name of that strong and friendly people to whom, a little more than one hundred years ago, we promised that they should be our brothers forever, and be entitled to a representation in our Congress.
This band of Delawares is associated with six other dwindled remnants of tribes—the Caddoes, Ionies, Wichitas, Towaconies, Wacoes, Keechies, and Comanches—on the Wichita Agency, in Indian Territory.
They are all reported as being “peaceable, well disposed,” and “actively engaged in agricultural pursuits.”
Of the Delawares it is said, in 1878, that they were not able to cultivate so much land as they had intended to during that year, “on account of loss of stock by horse-thieves.”
Even here, it seems, in that “Indian country south of Kansas, where” (as they were told) “white settlers could not interfere with them,” enemies lie in wait for them, as of old, to rob and destroy; even here the Government is, as before, unable to protect them; and in all probability, the tragedies of 1866 and 1867 will before long be re-enacted with still sadder results.
