REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, Office Indian Affairs, November 26, 1853. SIR: I have the honor to submit a general view of the present condition of our Indian relations, and statement of the operations of this branch of the public service during the past year. Referring to the accompanying reports of the different superintendents, agents, and other persons employed for the benefit of the Indians, for more detailed and specific information in regard to their present condition and prospects, I would remark, that peace and tranquillity have prevailed generally among the emigrated and other tribes along the extensive inner frontiers, from Lake Superior and our northern boundary to Texas, with whom we have conventional relations and intercourse of long standing. In regard to those more remote, and more recently brought under the supervision of the department, fewer occurrences of a painful nature have been reported than might have been anticipated. The whole number of Indians within our limits is estimated at 400,000. About 18,000 yet linger in some of the States east of the Mississippi river-principally in New York, Michigan, and Wisconsin; the remainder, consisting of Cherokees, Choctaws, and Seminoles, being in North Carolina, Mississippi, and Florida. The number in Minnesota, and along the frontiers of the western States to Texas, comprising mainly emigrated tribes, is estimated at 110,000; those of the plains and Rocky mountains, and not within any of our organized territories, at 63,000; those in Texas at 29,000; those in New Mexico at 45,000; those in California at 100,000; those in Utah at 12,000; and those in the Territories of Oregon and Washington at 23,000. The unfortunate and distracting controversy for some time existing among the Seneca Indians of New York, in regard to their form of government, seems happily to have terminated; the republican system, adopted by the majority in 1848, being apparently now acquiesced in by the remainder, by whom it was long and strenuously opposed. The dictates of humanity and good policy alike require the early and effective interposition of the government in respect to the Indians of Michigan. These Indians, some seven thousand in number, are represented to be divided into more than sixty separate communities; and are to be found in nearly every county of the State. Many of them, being without any settled places of habitation, and gradually imbibing the worst vices of civilization, are becoming vitiated and degraded, a pest and a nuisance to the neighborhoods where they resort. In this unsettled, dispersed, and otherwise unfavorable condition, nothing can be done to reclaim and improve them. Those of their more fortunate brethren, who have enjoyed the advantages of fixed locations, present |