made at the last session of Congress. Proposals for the construction of the buildings for the latter, however, have been advertised for.

The Forest Grove school, heretofore located near the town of that name in Oregon, is being removed to its new location a few miles from the city of Salem in the same State, the site at that point having been selected by my predecessor as being the most favorable of those offered under the provisions of the act of July 4, 1884, appropriating $20,000 "for the erection of buildings to be located on land to be selected by the Secretary of the Interior, if a suitable location and a quantity of land at Forest Grove or elsewhere in the State of Oregon sufficient for a farm for the use of the school shall be donated for the purpose." The site donated comprises a valuable tract of land containing 178 The enlarged capacity of this school, with the two new schools above referred to, will furnish additional accommodations for about 250 pupils.

acres.

The schools established by the Indians in the territories of the five civilized tribes afford conclusive proof of their capacity to educate their children up to the requirements of an advanced civilization. This home education includes seminaries for pupils of the higher grades, where they receive a liberal academic course of instruction, and a commonschool system in which the children are taught the rudiments of an English course. Many of the teachers are Indians, some of whom are graduates from our best colleges. The schools and many of the pupils are supported entirely from the revenues derived from the United States under the laws that provide for funding the debts due to these several tribes. To their school systems the five tribes look with great interest and pride, rightly regarding their educational institutions as the best hope of their race in the future.

These Indian schools can be employed with great advantage in the education of the children of the Indians who are less civilized, occupying the western part of the Indian Territory. The seminaries are all boarding schools, and are provided with suitable arrangements for the purpose. The children live in them, and are trained in domestic duties and taught the habits and manners of civilized people. In all their appointments, unless it may be in facilities for teaching mechanic arts, these schools are as well adapted to the education of Indian youths as those that are conducted under the authority of the United States. The chief difficulty in gaining the consent of Indian parents to having their children educated in distant schools is their fear that they will be made to perform menial labor for white people. They dread this as a species of slavery, to which they are strongly averse. This feeling would not exist if their children were to be educated amongst the people of a kindred race, where no feeling of caste would depress them or excite their race aversious.

The institution of this system in the Indian Territory would bring the wild Indians into friendly contact with those who are civilized, and

would induce them to adopt the course that has so greatly benefited the five civilized tribes. I therefore recommend that authority be given under which the proper Department, to be designated by Congress, can arrange with any of the five civilized tribes for the education of the children of the Indians of the western reservations in the Indian country; and that a sum of money be appropriated to give this effort a fair trial.

The civilization attained by the Cherokees, which is scarcely more advanced than that of their associated tribes, the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Seminoles, is the highest that any American tribe of Indians has attained. To whatever fact this result is chiefly due, these Indians have been found ready to improve these opportunities to the elevation of their race. They are leading in the most distinguished movement toward a higher destiny that any tribe of American Indians has ever attempted, and their success will so far encourage other Indians to follow their lead that we may hope for the best results from their more frequent and intimate association with the five civilized tribes. Their children will become friends and will grow up with like tastes and aspirations, and the savage instinct of hostility between tribes will yield to the better sentiments that will follow the early associations of the school-house.

LEASES OF INDIAN LANDS.

The policy of allowing the Indians to lease their lands for grazing purposes does not seem to have been announced until April 25, 1883. It however appears that as early as January 8, 1883, the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians had entered into such agreements with seven individuals for the exclusive use and occupation of as many distinct tracts of their reservation. The whole quantity of and embraced within these seven leases amounted to 3,117,880 acres, out of a total area of 4,297,771 acres. A subsequent lease of 714,240 acres reduced the reserved area of their reservation to 465,651 acres.

I found, upon assuming charge of this Department, that not only the large tracts of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Reservation referred to were in the possession of cattlemen, but that other Indian tribes located within the Indian Territory had entered into similar arrangements with individuals and associations of individuals, whereby they were granted the exclusive privilege, under pretended leases, to occupy large tracts of the reservations of the various tribes and to hold their herds thereon for grazing purposes.

These alleged leases were made to cover periods of five or ten years, at yearly rentals varying in rates from 13 cents to 6 cents per acre. The ruling rate appears, however, to be about 2 cents per acre.

The following is a schedule of leases purported to have been made by various Indian tribes of lands in the Indian Territory and Indian reservations for cattle-grazing and other purposes.

Do.

5,000 Unknown... 12 cents per

The privilege of occupying these lands for grazing purposes was not opened to public competition. On the contrary, pretended leases were secured in some cases from the Indians, before the policy of the Department on the subject appears to have been considered or made public. No regulations were made by the Department to guide the Indians, and no steps appear to have been taken to afford them needed assistance in such an important matter.

While the Department declined to approve or affirmatively recognize the pretended leases, it permitted the making thereof by the Indians, who, left to themselves, were easily induced to convey to these lessees profitable privileges at rates far below the real value thereof. If the Department could properly permit the making of such leases by the Indian tribes, it would seem that, as the guardian of the interests of these ignorant and helpless people, it would have been equally competent for it to have regulated the making thereof in such manner and upon such terms and conditions and after such public competition as would have secured a fair and just compensation in each case for the exclusive privilege granted to the lessees.

From all the facts developed on the subject I am convinced that the assistance rendered by the respective Indian agents, in the making of these alleged leases, was directed more for the interest of the cattlemen than that of the Indians placed under their care and supervision. While many of the Indians favor the leasing of their lands for grazing purposes, others opposed and protested against such use and occupation of their reservations, and refused to participate in the making of the alleged leases, or to accept any share of the money received thereunder. Sufficient influence, however, seems to have been brought to bear upon a majority of the respective tribes to induce them to enter into the arrangements made. In my judgment, not the least among such influences were the encouragements and persuasion of the respective Indian agents or some of them at least; and in many instances I fear they have shared in the profits of these speculative transactions.

This question of leasing Indian lands for cattle-grazing was discussed to some extent in the Senate of the Forty eighth Congress.

By Senate resolution of January 4, 1884, this Department was called upon for all the correspondence on the subject, which was furnished January 12, 1884, and printed. (See Senate Ex. Doc. No. 54, Fortyeighth Congress, first session.)

During the last session of Congress the Senate, by resolution of December 3, 1884, directed inquiry to be made into the matter by its Committee on Indian Affairs. A copy of this resolution having been referred by the chairman of the committee to this Department, a reply was made thereto January 3, 1885, with which were furnished copies of such additional papers as had been received on the subject since date of the previous report, all of which is set out in Senate Ex. Doc. No. 17, Fortyeighth Congress, second session.

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