present reservation and have relinquished all right to their Dakota land.” They therefore earnestly request that they be given an opportunity for “signing away all their right to all lands in Dakota and to obtain a title to their present reservation.” They desire to visit Washington for the purpose of “convincing the government that it is their intention to remain where they are, and requesting the aid of the government in obtaining more teams, wagons, harness, and tools with which to work their land.” This petition is signed by all the chiefs and headmen of the Ponca tribe, and it would seem to show that the Poncas themselves understand their own interests better than they are understood by some of their sincere but ill-advised friends. Their request “that the chiefs of the Ponca tribe be permitted to visit Washington the coming winter” for the purpose indicated in their petition has been complied with, and it is hoped that arrangements generally satisfactory will be arrived at.
But there is another reason why I could not conscientiously recommend the return of the Poncas to their old reserve in Dakota, and that reason is perhaps less appreciated by the general public than it is by those who bear the responsibility for the whole management of Indian affairs at large, and who have to take care of the welfare not of the Poncas alone, but of all the Indian tribes, of whom the Poncas form only a very small part.
It is a well-known fact that the Indian Territory is exposed to constant invasions on the part of white people who strive to possess themselves of certain unoccupied lands therein, which are held for Indian settlement in the future. To defeat such invasions, and to maintain the integrity of the Indian Territory, has been a subject of constant solicitude by the government; it required the greatest watchfulness and energy on the part of officers and troops of the United States in arresting and turning back the invaders, to prevent the success of those lawless attempts. Whatever the ultimate fate of the Indian Territory may be, it would be a great disaster to the Indians now inhabiting it, were the stream of immigration, which is constantly threatening to break its barriers, permitted to enter before the Indians are settled there in severalty, with such individual title to their lands as will stand under the protection of the laws and courts of the country in the same light and with the same security as the land titles of white people. The tracts in the Indian Territory mainly coveted by those who strive to enter without warrant of law, are held against intruders on the ground that they are reserved for Indian occupation according to the original intention. What the consequence would be if, just at the time when the struggle for the integrity of the Indian Territory is on our hands, the government itself organized an emigration of Indians from the Indian Territory, and from the vicinity of the same lands that are held for Indian settlement against intruders, it is easy to conjecture. If the Poncas were removed back to Dakota, nothing is more certain than that this very fact would make other Northern Indians who have been taken into the Indian Territory, restless with a desire to follow their example, such as the Northern Cheyennes,
