Arable land.—The arable land in this upper country is confined almost entirely to the small streams, although further observation may prove that many of the extensive rolling prairies are capable of producing wheat. They can become inhabited only by cultivating timber; but the rich growth of buffalo grass upon them will ever furnish an inexhaustible supply for innumerable herds of cattle and sheep. I know of no country in the world so well adapted to the herding system. Cattle, sheep, and horses are invariably healthy, and produce rapidly; sheep usually twice a year. The herding system adopted, the country at first put under regulations adapted to the scarcity of habitable places (say that no settlers shall be allowed to take up over twenty acres of land on the streams), and the country without doubt will sustain a great population. I am happy to feel assured that the United States government have no other thoughts than to regard the rights and wants of the Indian tribes in this country.
And while the agency of Indian affairs in this country remains in the hands of the present agent, I have the fullest confidence to believe that the reasonable expectations in reference to the intercourse between whites and Indians will be fully realized by every philanthropist and every Christian. But as the Indian population is sparse, after they are abundantly supplied, there will be remaining country sufficient for an extensive white population.
The thought of removing these tribes, that the country may come wholly in possession of the whites, can never for a moment enter the mind of a friend of the red man, for two reasons, to name no other: First, there are but two countries to which they can be removed, the grave and the Blackfoot, between which there is no choice; second, the countless millions of salmon which swarm the Columbia and its tributaries, and furnish a very great proportion of the sustenance of the tribes who dwell upon these numerous waters, and a substitute for which can nowhere be found east or west of the Rocky Mountains, but in herds or cultivating their own land.——
Your humble servant,
H. H. Spalding.
Dr. White,
Agent for Indian Affairs west of the Rocky Mountains.
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Department of War,
Office of Indian Affairs, Nov. 25, 1844.
Communications have been received from Dr. Elijah White, sub-agent for the Indians in Oregon Territory, dated, severally, November 15, 1843, and March 18, 1844.——They contain much of interest in considerable detail. The establishment of white settlements from the United States, in that remote region, seems to be attended with the circumstances that have always arisen out of the conversion of an American wilderness into a cultivated and improved region, modified by the great advance of the present time in morals, and benevolent and religious institutions. It is very remarkable that there should be so soon several well-supported, well-attended, and well-conducted schools in Oregon. The Nez Percé tribe of Indians have adopted a few simple and plain laws of their code, which will teach them self-restraint, and is the beginning of government on their part.
It is painful, however, to know that a distillery for the manufacture of whisky was erected and in operation west of the Rocky Mountains, which, however, the sub-agent, sustained by the resident whites, broke up and destroyed. There was, in February last, an affray between a very boisterous and desperate Indian and his party and a portion of the settlers, which ended in the death of several of the combatants. This unfortunate affair was adjusted, as it is hoped, satisfactorily and permanently, by the sub-agent, though he seems to apprehend an early outbreak. I trust he is mistaken.