WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1860
42
in the reserve, but as Major Neighbors informed me was sub- sequently driven away by an agent who was discharged at the instance of General Rusk. This Indian, since he left the Reserve, has sent me the most friendly messages, and I am satisfied, if I were again to meet him and the various bands of the Prairies, I could restore peace to our frontier and maintain it. It is proper here to remark that the sum total appropriated for Indian purposes and plans at the disposition of the Executive was only ten thousand dollars per annum. Now at this day a treaty concluded with those different bands and an annual expenditure of ten thousand dollars for presents distributed among them would make peace, and the only additional expense above the annuities would be the pay of their agents which comes within my plan. From our Mexican border to the Witchita agency, a distance of at least six hundred miles, there is not an agent, a trading house, or station of troops who can act to repel or subdue the Indians. This va~t space is open to constant inroads and depredations. No kindly influences can be exercised, nor commerce of any kind, so as to enable the Indians to obtain the indispensables necessary for their condition. They must have them! They want a market for their buffalo robes and peltries of every description. Now, they are compelled to trade to the waters of the Arkansas, where our horses are taken and sold. From the mouth of the Big Witchita in Texas to the Canadian, where traders are established, from the best information I can obtain the distance is only 120 miles. Since this and the Brents Fort are the most convenient points for those Indians to trade and obtain supplies, Texas has suffered. Of late we hear of no Indian troubles on the frontiers of Mexico, but instead they enjoy peace, rest and security. Why? Because the Comanches and other tribes have only to travel with their stolen property 120 miles instead of six hundred. If trading houses are established, one in the Indian territory fifteen or twenty miles from the mouth of the Big Wichita, one on the Red Fork of the Colorado, and another at the San Pedro, or Devil's river, with a company of Infantry, or even a half company, and such sup- plies as the Indians now have to get from the Canadian and other points distant from their buffalo, you may rely on it, that with from five to seven hundred dollars worth of presents distributed at each of these points, in twelve months thereafter, we will neither lose a human life, nor a horse on our borders, nor in our settlements. This plan will save millions to the United States
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