Viewing page 18 of 28

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

10

112

^[[The]] REPORT OF THE OMAHA
PONCA RELIEF COMMITTEE.
^[[We give in full.]]
------------------

The Omaha Ponca Relief Committee, submit herewith to the public, the report of Mr. T. H. Tibbles, who was appointed by them, to visit with Mr. Henry Fontenelle the Ponca Indians, who were wrongfully deprived of their homes, and are now illegally and forcibly detained in the Indian Territory.  Mr. Fontenelle's verbal report to us, agrees with the written report of Mr. Tibbles.  The object of the mission of these two gentlemen, sent under the authority of this committee, was to assure the Poncas of the interest and efforts of humane people all over the country in their behalf, and to notify them that the Omaha Committee were ready to assist them in any practical way to return to their old homes, from which they had been unjustly and inhumanly ejected. 

There are now about 115 Poncas safely back on their old Reservation, who are being judiciously aided in their efforts at self support, through our committee, by the benefactions of generous people.  Less than 400 of them are still imprisoned in the Indian Territory, kept there against their will, by the power of the government; whilst more than 200 of them, who have died in the last three years, sleep in graves dug for them, by the inhumanity of those who should have been their friends and protectors.  We consider the treatment of the Ponca Indians, as one of the most heart-sickening chapters in our national record of Indian wrongs, and we are determined to spare no effort to restore to them, their stolen homes and rights, and to relieve the American people of the stigma of this terrible wrong.

The Senate of the United States during the past winter appointed a select committee "to ascertain and report the circumstances of the removal of the Ponca Indians from their reservation, and whether the said Indians are not entitled to be restored thereto."  This Senate Committee devoted a long time to a thorough and patient investigation of this whole Ponca case, and reported that the Poncas had been "forced without the authority of law,