of
their claim to the lands ceded to them by the said treaty, and to give
them in lieu thereof a "sufficient and permanent location" upon lands
ceded to the United States by the Creeks and Seminoles in treaties made
with them in 1866. Negotiations to the end proposed were duly entered
into with these tribes unitedly; but, in the course of such
negotiations, it has become the view of this Office that the tribes
should no longer be associated in the occupation of a reservation. The
Arapahoes are manifesting an increasing disinclination to follow further
the fortunes of the Cheyennes, and crave a location of their own.
Inasmuch as the conduct of the Arapahoes is uniformly good, and their
disposition to make industrial improvement very decided, it is thought
that they should now be separated from the more turbulent Cheyennes, and
given a place where they may carry out their better intentions without
interruption and without the access of influences tending to draw their
young men away to folly and mischief. With this view a contract, made
subject to the action of Congress, was entered into between the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs and the delegation of the Arapaho tribe
which visited Washington during the present season (the delegation being
fully empowered thereto by the tribe), by which the Arapahoes relinquish
all their interest in the reservation granted them by the treaty of
1867, in consideration of the grant of a reservation between the North
Fork of the Canadian River and the Red Fork of the Arkansas River, and
extending from a point ten miles east of the ninety-eighth to near the
ninety-ninth meridian of west longitude. Should this adjustment of the
question, so far as the Arapahoes are concerned, meet the approval of
Congress, separate negotiations will be entered into with the Cheyennes,
with a view to obtaining their relinquishment of the reservation of
1867, and their location on some vacant tract within the same general
section of the Indian Territory.

A considerable number of the Arapahoes are already engaged in
agriculture, though at a disadvantage; and, when the question of their
reservation shall have been settled, it is confidently believed that
substantially the whole body of this tribe will turn their attention to
the cultivation of the soil. Two schools are conducted for their
benefit at the agency, having an attendance of thirty-five scholars. Of
the Cheyennes confederated with the Arapahoes, the r