| PREVIOUS | NEXT | NEW SEARCH |
A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875
U.S. Serial Set --EMIGRATION OF INDIANS, Office Commissary General Subsistence, Oct. 31, 1834.
SIR: I have the honor to state, that, in compliance with a resolution of the Senate, dated the 23d December, 1833, calling upon the Secretary of War to communicate to the Senate the correspondence, &c., in relation to the removal of Indians, and other specified matters connected with Indian affairs, since the 28th May, 1830, I have caused to be copied and arranged for publication every thing in my office contemplated by that resolution; and that, agreeably to a subsequent resolution of the Senate, dated the 30th June, 1834, I have, under your directions, furnished for publication, during the recess of the Senate, all the correspondence, &c., above alluded to.
The papers are arranged in the following order: Part 1st. Letters and instructions to agents and others, chronologically; Part 2d. Letters from agents and others, alphabetically; part 3d. Accounts of disbursing agents, &c.
Part first contains the correspondence of my office on the subject of Indian emigration, since that duty was first confided to me in the winter of 1830-31, to the 27th December, 1833. To this part there is an appendix, containing appointments by you of superintendents and other emigrating agents, with the "regulations concerning the removal of Indians."
Part second contains all the letters originally addressed to my office on the subject of Indian emigration, with such other letters as have, in the course of business, been referred to me from the War Department and the office of Indian affairs.
Part third contains abstracts of the disbursements of the agents employed in the Indian emigration, with other abstracts of expenditures not chargeable to that service, but having been the subject of my supervision, believed to be properly placed among the accounts which I have deemed it correct to present.
From the nature of the duties of the removal of the Indian tribes, and the fact that, at first, they were not so well defined as subsequent experience and the progress of the service have caused them to be, there will not be found in the papers now furnished by Congress from my office, every thing relating to those duties. Much of what is connected with the preliminary steps in 1830 and 1831, will, it is presumed, appear in that part of the correspondence furnished by the office of Indian affairs, where will also appear much of what strictly appertains to Indian removal since that period. It has been somewhat difficult to separate the action of the two offices in regard to this matter; and the letters to the Department of War and the office of Indian affairs, were frequently filled with subjects of various character; some relative to Indian removal, and others to the multifarious operations of our Indian relations. But the great mass of the correspondence, relating to the policy and practical operations of the Government, in regard to the removal of the Indians west of the Mississippi, as based upon the act of Congress of May 28, 1830, has been furnished by me.
The action of my office has not been confined, as will appear by the abstracts of disbursements, entirely to the transportation of the Indians west
Page 4 | Page image
of the Mississippi, and their subsistence twelve months after. Other duties connected with this great and primary one, have been devolved upon it; that of purchasing the various articles to be furnished under treaty stipulations with the emigrating tribes; their transportation (principally from the eastern cities) by water to New Orleans and up the Mississippi river, to the several agencies of the tribes for which they were intended, and thence, by land, to the proper points for distribution; and that of the valuation and sale of cattle under the Choctaw treaty of September, 1830, and the supplying, west of the Mississippi, of other cattle in lieu thereof; besides, there will appear disbursements not pertaining to any of these objects, and of a miscellaneous character.
The abstracts show the purchase of a considerable amount of property. The necessity for the expenditures on this account, will, it is believed, be satisfactorily shown by the correspondence with the agents; but it is proper to remark, that except in cases of unavoidable loss, all the property, with very trifling exceptions, has been sold; and the amounts received form a considerable reduction on the aggregates of the several abstracts.
Respectfully,
Your most obedient servant,
GEORGE GIBSON,
Commissary General Subsistence.
Hon. Lewis Cass, Secretary of War.
PREVIOUS SECTION .. NEXT SECTION .. NAVIGATOR
| PREVIOUS | NEXT | NEW SEARCH |