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THE INDIAN QUESTION.

Three years ago the Ponca tribe of Indians, seven hundred and fifty in number, a peaceful people, always friendly to the whites, were removed from their homes in Southern Dakota to the Indian Territory, against their consent, in plain violation of law, and, to their own great distress and sorrow. More than two hundred of them died during the first two years. One hundred and twenty-five others have found their way back to the borders of the old reservation, and are living, as best they can, upon the soil. The rest are still in the Indian Territory, some of them patiently waiting for the Government to restore them, others becoming discouraged and indifferent to their fate. 

Those who escaped to the North have made the most of the harvest season, and have provided themselves with food for the winter; but, being separated from their people, and deprived of their share in the annuities belonging to their tribe, they need at once clothes, schools, and means of providing for themselves and their families in the future. 

Since the cause of these people was presented a year ago, a committee of the United States Senate, charged with this investigation, has unanimously reported that the Poncas were robbed of their lands, and were unlawfully held as prisoners in the Indian Territory; and this committee, with a single exception, recommended their immediate return to the old reservation, and their reinstatement, as far as possible, in all their original treaty rights. The United States District Court for Nebraska had already made a similar decision in the case of Standing Bear and others, in the spring of 1879. Nevertheless, the tribe are still deprived of their property, and held as prisoners in what is to them a foreign land. Meanwhile fresh suits at law have been begun in the United States Courts for Nebraska and Dakota, to determine finally the question of ownership; and it is expected that these suits, for which funds were contributed last year, will soon be brought to trial. 

Other Indian tribes are held to have no fee simple in their lands, nor protection for life and property from the law; are denied the benefits of the common school system; are forbidden to engage in the commercial pursuits of civilized life, through the laws regulating the system of traderships; are subject, without redress, to the absolute power of agents appointed over them by a foreign government, and have no appeal except to war. In sympathy with the efforts now making to help a greatly wronged people, not less than to assist in placing our Government right in this matter before