Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 1, 1879

No. 225.
Mr. Seward to Sir Edward Thornton.

Department of State,
Washington, July 3, 1879.

Sir: I have the honor to submit herewith, for your information, a copy of a letter of the 16th ultimo, addressed to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs by W. L. Lincoln, United States Indian agent, Fort Belknap, Montana Territory, which has been received from the honorable Secretary of the Interior, narrating the invasion of the territory of the United States by several tribes of British Indians and half-breeds, and to request that you will invite the attention of the Canadian authorities to the fact complained of in Agent Lincoln’s letter, with a view to their adopting proper precautionary measures for preventing a similar recurrence thereof in the future.

I have, &c.,

F. W. SEWARD,
Acting Secretary.

[Inclosure.]

Mr. Lincoln to Mr. Hayt.

Fort Belknap Agency, Montana,
June 16, 1879.

Sir: I have the honor to report that the Gros Ventres, Assinaboine, and Crow Indians belonging to this reservation have all come in from their hunt, having been frightened away from the buffalo by the presence of hositle Indians. In fact, the Gros Ventres had a skirmish with them, in which the Gros Ventres lost one killed, and the hostiles three. My Indians were badly frightened, and stampeded for the fort as fast as they could, throwing away in their flight most of the meat they had secured.

They claim to be short of ammunition; that the hostiles were in heavy force, and that they could not fight them with any hope of success.

The Crows are badly demoralized, and desire to get back across the Missouri River.

The Lower Milk River country, besides being covered with Sioux, is also overrun with British Blackfeet, Bloods, and Piegans. In fact, there have been within the last ten days 50 lodges of foreign Indians at this post on their way to the buffalo country. There are also about 100 lodges of British half-breeds in the same neighborhood, who may be considered as semi-hostile to the United States authorities, and it is really a fact that our own agency Indians are practically debarred from hunting on their own territory from the presence of hostile British Indians.

I feel this to be a great wrong to our Indians, and the more so since the subsistence furnished by the government is only sufficient to feed them but a portion of the year, so that an actual necessity compels them to secure with the rifle the game necessary to subsist them through the year, and it seems to me that it is quite time that British subjects should be made to remain upon their own territory, and cease to dominate upon territory belonging to the United States, and set apart for the Indians of this agency.

I am, &c.,

W. L. LINCOLN,
United States Indian Agent

Hon. E. A. Hayt,
Commissioner Indian Affairs, Washington, D. C.