upon the authority of official
reports, it will doubtless appear to every candid reader that the
Cherokees are entitled to be ranked among civilized communities. Their
condition is far better than that of the agricultural classes of
England; and they are not inferior in intelligence or in the ability to
assert their rights.

There are in the Indian Territory several other important tribes, and a
number of small and broken bands, aggregating forty or forty-five
thousand persons, who are in the same general condition as the
Cherokees, and are equally--though not, perhaps, in every case, with
quite as much emphasis--entitled to be called civilized. Nor are the
Indians of this class confined to the Indian Territory so called. They
are found in Kansas and Nebraska, in New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, and
Minnesota, and upon the Pacific coast. The ninety or one hundred
thousand Indians thus characterized will bear comparison, on the three
points of industry, frugality, and sobriety, with an equal population
taken bodily out of any agricultural district in the Southern or border
States. In general intelligence and political aptitude they are still
necessarily below the lowest level of American citizenship, if we
exclude the newly-enfranchised element and the poor white population of
a few districts of the South.

It is just and proper to call an Indian semi-civilized, no matter how
humble his attainments, when he has taken one distinct, unmistakable
step from barbarism; since "it is the first step that costs."

The Sioux of the Lake Traverse agency in Dakota number about fifteen
hundred,--to be exact, fourteen hundred and ninety-six. These were of
the Indians of Minnesota, and escaped to the West after the massacre of
1862, though claiming to have been innocent of participation in it.
They are genuine specimens of the Indian race in its pure form. They
have within three or four years made considerable progress in
agriculture. Nearly all the men have of choice adopted the dress of the
whites. Great interest is manifested in the education of the children of
the tribe: four schools are in operation, with an attendance of one
hundred and twenty-three scholars; and two more schoolhouses are in
course of erection. By the provisions of the treaty of 1867, only the
sick, the infirm, aged widows, and orphans of tender years, are to be
supported by the government. The number thus enrolled for subsistence
during the past year was six h