WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1855
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to the uniform which he wears and the earth upon which he treads! It will be recollected that the Delaware Indians own one million eight hundred thousand acres of land. They ceded one million three hundred thousand acres to the Government of the United States for 10,000, reserving to themselves the land on which the city referred to has been laid out on the banks of the Missouri. They confided five hundred thousand acres to the Government of the United States, as they could not themselves dispose of it except to the Government; and, believing that it would be a source of wealth and independence to them, they have granted it to the Government, in trust, to be sold by it, the right of possession remaining in them until it should be disposed of. It appears, from the Commissioner's report, that persons had gone and taken possession of this land. If they have not done so, they ought to be vindicated against the charge. I regard it as authentic and official, and until it is controverted I have nothing to extenuate, nor do I set down ought in malice. Justice requires me to state the facts. Mr. President, I said to the Senate, on a former occasion, that eighteen tribes of Indians had been located by this Government within the limits of the present Territories of Nebraska and Kan- sas, and that most of them had been removed there from the east of the Mississippi. They were located there under the faith of solemn pledges, that while grass grew or water ran, or the earth brought forth its fruits, they should remain on the lands assigned to them unless they chose to abandon them, and that they should not be included within the boundaries of any State or Territory. Notwithstanding this, these Indians were em- braced within the Nebraska and Kansas bill. They were taken in-yes, sir, as strangers are sometimes "taken in." What is now their condition, and what must it be in after-time? On this point let the Commissioner of Indian Affairs speak. In his recent report he says, in reference to the Nebraska and Kansas Indians: [The quotation from the Commissioner pleads with the Gov- ernment to observe its Indian treaties.] Sir, it is the violation of treaties, and the bad faith of the white man and his aggressive course, that cause the inquietude of the Indian, and we feel it very much in the section of country in which I live. There is a remedy, and that remedy must be applied, or the Indians exterminated, at an expense ten times
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