The Indian Dispossessed
mands that his small remaining patrimony be most conscientiously realized upon, he is deprived of all voice in his own affairs and the disposal of his land goes into the general stock-in-trade of that great political trading-post, Congress.
But over this doubtful course through the congressional clearing-house the South Dakota statesmen hesitated to send the Rosebud bill. There was nothing in it to "justify the Government in disregarding the stipulations of the treaty"; the interest of the Indians was not considered; it was wholly "inconsistent with perfect good faith toward the Indians."
Nothing but an unadorned display of its arbitrary power to "abrogate the provisions of an Indian treaty" would enable Congress to pass this bill. It might as well be labelled, "An act to confiscate all value in the Rosebud lands above four dollars per acre, and deliver it to the Faithful." That would have been an honest title, and the power exists in Congress to pass just that kind of a bill.
The land schemers discarded the open course as too dangerous. Nothing remained but to railroad the bill through under color of the Fort Laramie treaty. In the absence of an agreement with the Indians, it became necessary to allege an agreement, so the discarded agreement of 1901 was resurrected and attached to the bill.
It was a plain agreement to sell the entire tract
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