IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.

JANUARY 26, 1867.-Ordered to be printed.

Mr. DOOLITTLE submitted the following
REPORT.

The Joint Special Committee of the two Houses of Congress, appointed under the joint resolution of March 3, 1865, directing an inquiry into the condition of the Indian tribes and their treatment by the civil and military authorities of the United States, submit the following report, with an appendix accompanying the same:

At its meeting on the 9th of March the following subdivision of labor was made: To Messrs. Doolittle, Foster, and Ross was assigned the duty of inquiring into Indian affairs in the State of Kansas, the Indian Territory, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah.

To Messrs. Nesmith and Higby the same duty was assigned in the States of California, Oregon, and Nevada, and in the Territories of Washington, Idaho, and Montana.

To Messrs. Windom and Hubbard the same duty was assigned in the State of Minnesota and in the Territories of Nebraska, Dakota, and upper Montana. The result of their inquiries is to be found in the appendix accompanying this report.

The work was immense, covering a continent. While they have gathered a vast amount of testimony and important information bearing upon our Indian affairs, they are still conscious that their explorations have been imperfect.

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As it was found impossible for the members of the committee in person to take the testimony or from personal observations to learn all that they deemed necessary to form a correct judgment of the true condition of the Indian tribes, they deemed it wise, by a circular letter addressed to officers of the regular army, experienced Indian agents and superintendents, and to other persons of great knowledge in Indian affairs, to obtain from them a statement of the result of their experience and information; which, with the testimony taken by the various members of the sub-committees, is also to be found in the appendix. The committee have arrived at the following conclusions :

First. The Indians everywhere, with the exception of the tribes within the Indian Territory, are rapidly decreasing in numbers from various causes: By disease; by intemperance; by wars, among themselves and with the whites; by the steady and resistless emigration of white men into the territories of the west, which, confining the Indians to still narrower limits, destroys that game which, in their normal state, constitutes their principal means of subsistence; and by the irrepressible conflict between a superior and an inferior race when brought in presence of each other. Upon this subject all the testimony agrees. In answer to the question, whether the Indians "are increasing or decreasing in numbers, and from what causes," Major General Pope says:

"They are rapidly decreasing in numbers from various causes: By disease; by wars; by cruel treatment on the part of the whites-both by irresponsible

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persons and by government officials; by unwise policy of the government, by inhumane and dishonest administration of that policy; and by steady a resistless encroachments of the white emigration toward the west, which every day confining the Indians to narrower limits, and driving off or killing the game, their only means of subsistence."-(See appendix, page 425.) To the same question, General John T. Sprague gives the following answer : "The Indians are decreasing in numbers, caused by their proximity to the white man. So soon as Indians adopt the habits of white men they begin to decrease, aggravated by imbibing all the vices and none of their virtues. Other causes exist, too numerous to be detailed in this paper.”—(Appendix, 228.) The following is the answer of General Carleton to the same question: "As a general rule, the Indians alluded to are decreasing very rapidly ir numbers, in my opinion. The causes for this have been many, and may be summed up as follows:

1st. Wars with our pioneers and our armed forces; change of climate and country among those who have been moved from east of the Mississippi to the far west.

2d. Intemperance, and the exposure consequent thereon.

3d. Veneral diseases, which they are unable, from the lack of medicines and skill, to eradicate from their systems, and which, among Indians who live near est the whites, is generally diffused either in scrofula or some other form of it: taint.

4th. Small-pox, measles, and cholera-diseases unknown to them in the early days of the country.

5th. The causes which the Almighty originates, when in their appointe time He wills that one race of men-as in races of lower animals-shall disap pear off the face of the earth and give place to another race, and so on, in th. great cycle traced out by Himself, which may be seen, but has reasons too dee to be fathomed by us. The races of the mammoths and mastodons, and th great sloths, came and passed away: the red man of America is passing away!' (Appendix, 432–3.)

General Wright gives his testimony to the same point as follows:

“The Indian tribes are rapidly decreasing in numbers, especially west of th Rocky mountains, caused in some measure by the wars waged against them and more particularly by the encroachments of the whites upon their hunting grounds and fisheries and other means of subsistence, and by the readines with which they adopt the vices of the whites rather than their virtues; henc their numbers are rapidly diminished by disease and death."-(Appendix, 440. These officers have had large experience in Indian affairs, and they are sup ported by the concurrent testimony of many other of the most experience officers and civilians, to be found at length in the Appendix.

The tribes in the Indian Territory were most happily exempted from thi constant tendency to decay up to the commencement of the late civil war Until they became involved in that they were actually advancing in popula tion, education, civilization, and agricultural wealth.

Their exceptional condition may be attributed to the fact that, from thei earliest history these tribes had, to a considerable extent, cultivated the soil an kept herds of cattle and horses; that they were located in a most fertile terri tory and withdrawn from the neighborhood and influence of white settlements and to the legitimate influence of education and Christianity among them.

The war has made a terrible diminution of their number, and brought diseas and demoralization in its train. A full account of the condition of the Chero kees will be found in the reply of the Hon. J. Harlan, agent of the Cheroks (See Appendix, pages 441-50.) The recent treaties with the tribes in