The Removal of the Poncas
Cloud, the warrior, the gentle arts of the white man.
The Poncas? Some eight hundred of them—what were they compared to the recovery of the Black Hills? The treaty? Hang the treaty!
And the public? What cared the Vociferous Few, so long as the great American people slept on under the delusion that they were really "the people"?
The records show a most careful development of the scheme. During the years 1875 and 1876 there appeared four executive orders, adding to the Sioux reservation on the north a considerable area, and on the east—along the east bank of the Missouri River—a country as large as the state of Massachusetts. These immense additions on the east foreshadowed the removal of the Black Hills section of the Sioux tribes eastward to the Missouri River.
The Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in his report for 1875 to the Secretary of the Interior, suggests the removal of the Poncas to the Omaha reserve, in eastern Nebraska, ending with the naïve remark that "The country where they now are would make a suitable location to which the Red Cloud Sioux could be removed. It is hoped that provision may be made by the next Congress for such removal."
All details having been perfected, the necessary legislation for the whole scheme was secured at one stroke. On August 15, 1876, an appropriation for
153
