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WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1858
one hundred and ten miles from our superintendency, whereas it is two hundred and fifty miles from the superintendency on the Red river, at Fort Smith, with Indian nations intervening-at- tached to the Texas superintendency. It is immediately on our borders. The Wichitas and Wacos, and other Indians that inhabit the country where this reserve is, embracing the Wichita moun- tains, have ever been enemies of Texas for the last twenty-five years, to my certain knowledge. They are there yet. They are inter-married with the Indians of Texas who are upon the re- serves, and are being civilized. If intercourse is kept up with them, and they are not under the same superintendency with the Indians of Texas, we shall have no security whatever; we shall be liable, at all times, to inroads from them as for twenty-five years past, and as they have recently made an inroad, in connection with other tribes that Ford had the battle with. I wish to bring these Indians within the control of our agency, which is only a hundred and ten miles from them, to assist them in their intercourse with our Indians, so that they can give to the other reserves intelli- gence of any hostile movements of the Kioways and Comanches, and they will soon become, from their assimilated character, one people, united and in friendship with Texas. How is it now? They are our enemies, and have always been our enemies. Why? They receive their annuities from Fort Smith and other places, and they look upon us as a separate people. They do not depre-· date upon Arkansas, or upon the friendly Indians under the Arkansas superintendency. Why? Because their supplies come through their country, although they are one hundred miles nearer our superintendency. If you bring their supplies through Texas, and up the Red river, and deliver them to them in that way, they will know that they are in connection with the people of Texas; they will look upon us as friends; they will become cor- dial in their feelings towards us. There is no natural connection between these Indians and the superintendency of Fort Smith, two hundred and fifty miles from this tract of country ; and one of them, I venture to say, has never been there. But our superintendency is only one hundred and ten miles from them, about three hundred miles from Bent's Fort: and these Indians have constant intercourse with that. As long as these Indians can come in and rob us of our horses, and sell them in Kansas, the northern bands of the Kioways and Co- manches, united with the Keechieus and other Indians, will pass down through the reserve and make their inroads upon Texas.
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