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PAPERS OF MIRABEAU BuoNAPARTE LAMAR
river be navigable to Pasigono it will reduce the land travel three hundred miles. These are facts not generally known, and which ought to be properly examined by the Engineers of the government. The control of the trade of New Mexico(which is estimated by our friend Wm ·P. Hill Esq. of this place, who has visited Santa Fe., at twenty five or thirty millions, of dollars) would give us better credit abroad than any political expedient which can be resorted to for the procurement of a loan adequate to the demands of the government. The taxes alone imposed for the protection of this trade would yield an immense revenue to our Treasury & leave the agricultural interests entirely unencumbered with exactions for the support of government. With a view to the immediate diversion of this trade to the Colorado 1 would suggest the early establishment of a trading house at the highest point on the river known to be navigable, say at the junction of the Pasigono & Colorado, with a small armed force to protect it. Th'e military road ordered to be laid out from the Nueces to the Red River will necessarily run below the moun- tains and most probably by the new seat of government, which will allow you the use of the companies on the Colorado Station for the protection of the trading post at·the junction of the two rivers just mentioned. The distance from that point to Santa Fe certainly does not exceed two hundred & fifty miles. Doubting as I do the practicability of driving the Prairie Indians from the limits of our Republic, some mild course should be pursued to establish peaceful relations and I believe that the most feasible as well as the most humne method to tame their savage natures and to secure their 'friendship will be to establish trading houses among them, under the direct control of the government. With proper restrictions upon the agents no evil but great good must result from the introduction of trading houses. It is the difficulty of obtaining articles, suibtable to their fancy, such as red-blankets & parti- colored beads, which superinduces the thieving habits of those Indians. By such intercourse as would necessarily exist between the ·whites & the Indians the earliel;;t & most certain information could be obtained of the views & haunts of the hostile Indians, and the government may thus save millions of blood and treasure in in the protection of the frontier. The Comanchie Indians may be bribed to pursue any course of conduct, which the policy of the government shall render necessary: and altho' it would be dangerous to undertake to purchase their friendship, yet it would be both wise & safe to secure their knowledge of the tribes of their own Nation by judicious· largesses. As the government of Texas claims to extend its territory to the utmost limits of Santa Fe, it is desirable that the people should be brought under our direct political eontrol. The great distance of Santa Fe from the government of Mexico has left that territory entirely dependent upon itself for protection, and the people only feel the authority of the political power thro' the weight of taxation imposed by the central head. They are prepared to unite with us, and this is the favorable moment to cement the friendship they have
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