Owing to the extremely dangerous state of political affairs in Missouri especially along the line of the H. & St. Jo. RR., I have refrained from writing to you.... Although the Delawares were not especially refered to in my instructions yet I visited the Mission & Agent as it was quite convenient ... and ascertained to my complete satisfaction ... that they were a wealthy tribe and that although many of their individual members were necessitous yet they were not of the destitute kind contemplated by your department: 2d. that the new agent who had heard of this movement towards relief was very anxious to make it appear that his tribe was very needy & to have large amounts of relief furnished at his residence on the Missouri River away from the agency & also from a central point....
I next visited the Osage River Agency and ascertained that all of the tribes belonging to that Agency were in rather a destitute condition, they having used and still (are) using their school fund in buying provisions: the Miamis of that agency I found to be the most needy & it might be said that they were suffering to some extent....
... In reference to the Neosho Agency, as that was such a long distance I engaged three trains of wagons before leaving Leavenworth....
Whitney speaks harshly of the Osages as lazy vagabonds and continues,
... The general famine throughout Kansas had but little to do with their sufferings as they cultivate nothing of consequence ... and therefore ... they are not morally & strictly proper objects of government charity....
... Systematic and well planned solicitations had been and are being made by Missourians to them to take up arms against the borderers to which the people throughout this entire section feared they might be induced on account of the neglect of Government [and because the whites steal their ponies]—Land Files, Central Superintendency, 1852-1869, W223.
Note that Whitney thought the reports of border ruffian inducements, though true in a measure, had been exaggerated. On the eighth of June, he reported again,
When I got within reach of the H. & St. J. R. R. it became apparent that my produce would be at best somewhat exposed to seizure by the secessionists and that such hazard would be very greatly enhanced if it was known to be government property and especially if it should be known to be going to the Indians whom the Missourians were even then as was reported upon authority endeavoring to excite against the borderers....—Land Files, Central Superintendency, 1852-1869, W223.
Slaughter had less to report; but even he, on the twenty-first of June, said, while insisting that the reports had been exaggerated,
I have no doubt overtures have been held out to them [the more northern tribes], but whether from authorized parties from [the] South no one can tell. It is all matter of conjecture. A general council of the tribes it is understood has been solicited by some of the Southern Indians, but I doubt whether it will be held.—General Files, Central Superintendency, 1860-1862, S404.