NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 196, 29 December 1876, Page 14

NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.

Theee arc at present 312,500 Indians in the United States, of whom 250,000 are settled upon one hundred different blocks of land containing altogether no less than 150,000,000 acres. There are some of these reservations iv New York, Michigan, North Carolina, Miu- ' nesota, and "Wisconsin ; but the great majority of them lie to the ' west of the Mississippi. The principal are as follows : In Minnesota there are eight reservations of altogether 5,000,000 acres, occupied by ' 8,000 Chippewas. Dakota has also eight blocks of about 42,000,000 acres, occupied by about 10,000 Sioux, which tribe includes some . twenty subdivisions, the principal of which are the Olgallalla, the ' Upper Brule Sioux, the Northern Chsye.me, und the Airapahoe.' In Montana there are three reservations of altogether 36,000,000 acres with a population of 2i,000 Indians, of whom 6,000 are Sioux the remainder being Crows, Blackfeet, Piegans, etc. Nebraska contains remnants of the Santee Sioux, Winnebago, Omaha, Pawnee, lowa and Sac and Fox Indiaus, who number altogether about 5,000, and occupy six reservations, with a total extent of 6 000,000 acres. ' Wyoming has but one reservation of 1,500,000, occupied by 2,000 Shoshones and Bannocks. Uiah contains 1,000 [Jte Indians established on one block of 2,000,000 acres ; and 3,000 of the same tribe have two reservations of altogether 12,000,000 acres in Colorado. In New Mexico are found several powerful tribes— the Navaioes, the Pueblos, and Apaches— who, with some remnants of Utes, number about 29,000, and occupy five reservations of altogether 3,000,000 acres. But it is in the so-called Indiau Territory where most of the ' red ined are now to be found, and their condition in this district is said to afford satisfactory evidence that they can be made permanently friendly to the whites. Here are upwards of twenty tribes, the chief ' of which are the Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, Comanches, Cheyennes, Apaches, with remnants of the Sac and ]fox and others —who number upwards of 50,000, and occupy ten reserrations of altogether 20,000,000 acres. Aiizona, California, and Oregon contain altogether fourteen reservations, with a total extent of 10,000,000 acres, and a populatiou of 30,000 Indians. Nevada and ! Idaho have between them seven reservations of altogether 4,000,000 acres, peopled by 11,000 Indiana. Now, the United States Government is at peace with all these one hundred reservations, with the exception of three or four in Dakota, and accordingly only a small fraction of the Indians arc really hostile — a proportion &o small as not to justify the outcry about Indian treachery and tho need of! extermination, which latter notion, indeed, is at once seen to bo ' absurd when the geographical distribution aud numerical strength of the various tribes are fully realised. The inevitable conclusion, from ' the number of Indians still friendly to the whites, is that but for the fradulent practices of the Indian agents, the relations between the ' United States and the Indians could be made to be most harmonious and satisfactory. I