Daily press and Dakotaian. [volume] (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1875-1880, 1879-07-21


admiration as he contemplates the touching
tale of the Pioneer.Press Under other cir
cumstances We might be 10th to assume the
role Of destructive iconoclast by confront.
ing these fancies with a recital of the facts.
The books at Grow Creek agency will show
that the Drifting Goose band Of Indians
draw their rations and their annuities with
great regularity at that agency. Instead Of
possessing farms on the James river which
'rapacious white men would banker after
they had not, all told, more than ten acres
under cultivation and those were titled in a
rude sort Of a way by a few squaws Who
made small crops Of squaw corn. The new
dirt lodges inhabited by these Indians were
placed upon section twenty-five Of township
n hundred and twenty, range sixty.three.
1t is a rich, heavily timbered bottom, en-
closed on three sides by a river bend. The
old lodges occupied by these Indians until
within a few years were located in
township n hundred and seven
teen, and consisted Of cloth tepees given
the Indians BY the government. About
them there never we're any evidences Of
agricultural operations. The Indians did
not till a foot of ground, but subsisted en-.
tirely on government charity. Attic new
camp, in township one hundred and twenty,
they have five or six cabins covered with
earth, q number of cloth toepes and the ten
acres Of cultivated ground above mentioned.
These are the facts 10 regard to the con-
dition of this "wrnnged"band of Indians, to
which we desire to add the further fact that
they are all carried on the rolls at Crow
Creek agency and have their legal homes
upon that reservation. In the face Of these
circumstances, a half a dozen speculative
white men, who aim TO secure ultimate COZ
troll of the land thus set apart, have pre-
vailed upon the pre~sidentrto Issue the fol-
lowing order: q
Executive Mansion, June %, '79.-It 10
hereby ordered that. townships 119, 100 and
121 north, of range 60 west, in the territory
of Dakota, be, and the same are hereby set
apart as Q reservation for the use ofthe Maya
bodies. or Drifting Goose, band of Yankto-
nais Sioux Indians. r B HAYES.
Two Of the townships above named are
located in Sphinx county and one in Brown
county, and all three include within their
limits the rich bottom lands of the James
river and several heavily timbered patches.
Nearly every claim IN the three townships
was filed upon by actual settlers before the
executive order was issued and it is not
probable that bona tide white settlers will be
quietly dispossessed oftheir rights. The land
10 question does not belong to the govern
ment and We fail to see how the govern
ment can parcel 1t out to a band of lazy In
dians, whose support is already provided
for. The Pioneer Press errs 10 its estimate
OF character when it asserts that "a gang of
rapacious white men" seek to rob "the more
civilized red man" of his Cultivated corn
fields" The men who have occupied the
three townships named in the order above
quoted are respectable. hard working citi-
zen farmers, who have gone into the wilder.
ness to develop its resources and there
creste for themselves permanent homes.
The three townships which the president
says shall be given over to the abode Of.
forty or fifty renegade Indians (oucks,
squaws and pappooses) are capable of main
tanning q community Of four hundred white
farmers. The government should certainly
60 no further than to accord to these In
dams equal rights with whites. Give them
homestead. pre- emption and timber claim
privileges along with the whites, but do not
commit the injustice contemplated In this
executive order.