FEDERAL INDIAN RELATIONS PACIFIC NORTHWEST 57
Anson Dart was appointed to the office of superintendent of Indian affairs, which was created by the Act of June 5,
1850. He continued the policy of holding councils with the Indians of the interior, which White and Lane had adopted. The Act which abolished the office of the treaty commissioners, February 27, 1851, transferred the duties of the commission to the superintendent of Indian affairs. In the summer of
1851, he made thirteen treaties with the Indians of western Oregon, in which he allowed the same terms that had been included in the treaties made by the commissioners, namely: a reservation of a part of each cession for the Indians making the sale, and payments in cash and beneficial objects.
The superintendent of Indian affairs for Oregon was in- structed to pay special attention to the work of civilizing the Indians. This was to be accomplished through the encourage- ment of agriculture among the Indians, cooperation between the missionaries and the Indian service, the suppression of the whiskey trade, and the prevention of wars among the Indian tribes. In commenting on the general Indian situation the Commissioner of Indian Affairs wrote: "The rapid increase of our population, its onward march from the Missouri frontier westward, and from the Pacific east, steadily lessening and closing up the intervening space, renders it certain that there remains to the red man but one alternative early civilization or gradual extinction." 27
Anson Dart held three councils in June, 1851, with the Indians of upper Oregon. He had promised some of the Wasco, Klikitat, and Cascade Indians in the fall of 1850 that he would visit them. These Indians had become alarmed on account of the rumor that the western Indians were to be moved into their country, and the beginning of settlements, along the Columbia River. Another source of trouble in the upper Oregon country was the unfriendly relations which ex- isted between the Nez Perces and the Shoshoni. At the council with the Columbia River Indians at The Dalles, June 5, 1851,
27 The Commissioner of Indian Affair* to Anson Dart. July jo. 1850. in C. I. A., A. R., NOY. 27, 1850 (Serial 595. Doc. i). p. U9-
