Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 6, 1880
No. 319.
Sir Edward
Thornton to Mr. Evarts.
Sir: With reference to Mr. Seward’s note of the 9th of August last relating to the incursions, attended with murder and robbery, said to have been made across the United States border by Indians from Canadian territory, I have the honor to transmit herewith copy of an approved report of the committee of the privy council of Canada, which I have received from the govern or-general of the Dominion.
It will be seen that this report expresses concurrence in a memorandum by the acting minister of the interior, who caused full inquiry to be made into the allegations set forth, and failed to discern evidence in support of the conclusions arrived at by the United States authorities.
I have, &c.,
Copy of a report of a committee of the honorable the privy council, approved by his excellency the governor-general in council, on the 9th October, 1879.
The committee of council have had under consideration a dispatch from Sir Edward Thornton, dated August 13, 1879, covering copy of a communication dated 9th of same month from Mr. Seward, acting Secretary of State, Washington, relating to incursions, attended with murder and robbery, said to have been made across the United States border by Indians from Canadian territory, and expressing the wish of the American Government that the Indians alleged to have been guilty of the crimes in question may be returned to the United States for trial and punishment, and that the stolen property may be restored to its owners, if it can be found.
They have also had before them a memorandum, dated September 9, 1879, from the honorable the acting minister of the interior, to whom said dispatch with inclosure has been referred, and they recommend said memorandum for your excellency’s approval, and advise that a copy of this minute, when approved, and of the memorandum, be transmitted to Sir Edward Thornton, for the information of the Government of the United States.
Certified:
Clerk Privy Council for Canada.
memorandum.
September 9, 1879.
The Honorable the Privy Council:
Referring to the dispatch of Sir Edward Thornton of the 13th August, covering copy of a communication dated two days previously from Mr. Seward, Acting Secretary of State, Washington, relating to incursions attended with murder and robbery, said to have been made across the United States border by Indians from Canadian territory, and expressing the wish of the American Government that the Indians alleged to have been guilty of the crimes in question may be returned to the United States for trial and punishment, and that the stolen property may be restored to its owners, if it can be found, the undersigned has the honor to report to council as follows:
1. The undersigned submits that there is no evidence to support the conclusion of Mr. Seward that the perpetrators of the crimes and depredations committed in the Yellowstone Valley were hostiles from the Canadian side of the boundary, nor is there any good reason offered for assuming that either the criminals or the stolen property are in Canadian territory.
2. With respect to the parties guilty of these crimes, the undersigned thinks it improbable that they were composed of hostiles from Sitting Bull’s camp. The enmity existing between the Crows and Sioux will sufficiently account for the attempt of the former to implicate the Northern Indians in those outrages, and the Crows are the only witnesses cited in support of the conclusions on this head at which the communication of Mr. Seward would appear to point.
3. The undersigned is in receipt of a dispatch from Colonel MacLeod, commanding the Northwest mounted police, dated Fort Walsh, August 9, covering three reports from Major Walsh, the officer in charge of the mounted police station at Wood Mountain, dated respectively the 22d, 25th, and 31st July, which prove conclusively that neither the stolen property nor the criminals alluded to were on this side of the line, so far as could be ascertained at the time (July 3) when Colonel Miles wrote the report upon which Mr. Seward’s representations are founded.
From Major Walsh’s reports the undersigned learns that on the evening of the 18th July, Lieutenant Tillson, of the United States Army, accompanied by a Mr. Stearns, arrived at the Wood Mountain police post, with instructions from Colonel Miles to request the co-operation and assistance of the Candian authorities in identifying and procuring the extradition of certain Indians accused of murder on the southern side of the boundary. Major Walsh did everything in his power to forward the object of his visit, and on the 23d of July took Lieutenant Tillson and Mr. Stearns through the whole Sioux camp (then some fourteen miles from the Wood Mountain post), so that they might make whatever investigation they thought necessary, and in order to give the latter an opportunity to search for horses alleged to have been stolen from him, [Page 493] and to see one Johnson, a Nez Percé, said to have been one of the party which attacked Stearns’s house on the Yellowstone. Mr. Stearns failed to find any of his horses in the camp. “I caused Johnson,” says Major Walsh, “to go up and speak to Stearns when he (Stearns) said positively that he was not one of the party who committed the depredations.” Every facility was offered to Lieutenant Tillson for the accomplishment of his mission, and the active assistance and co-operation of the Canadian authorities afforded him; but he returned to his command without having obtained any trace whatever of either the Indians or the property of which he was in search.
4. The undersigned submits that the Government of Canada has hitherto exercised due vigilance to prevent Indians from this side from crossing the border for any other purpose than to secure the necessaries of life, when the buffalo had left our territory. If, however, notwithstanding these precautions, horses have occasionally been stolen by the American refugee Sioux from the Crows and their other Indian enemies or from whites, the animals have invariably been taken possession of by the mounted police and handed back to their owners as soon as identified. The undersigned begs to call the attention of the council to the fact that no attempt whatever is made to prevent raids of this character from the other side of the line. Major Walsh, in his report of the 26th of July, expresses the belief that twice as many horses have been stolen by the Crows from Canadian territory as have been stolen from the United States territory by parties from this side, an assertion which he had made, accompanied with evidence of its truth, to Colonel Miles, on the occasion of having an interview with the latter on the previous day. It is easy to see that, so long as the robbery of horses by Indians from the United States is permitted without any attempt to check it, and only on the Canadian side can horse thieves be punished or stolen horses recovered, the temptations to the Indians north of the boundary to follow their property and possess themselves of it by force will continue to be very great. Major Walsh alone has a record of over one hundred and sixty horses stolen from Canada by Crows and other Indians from the United States, not one of which has ever been returned. This is a state of things to which, the undersigned is of opinion, the attention of the Government of the United States ought to be particularly called, and he has no hesitation in saying that on the United States authorities taking similar steps to those already taken by the Government of Canada to prevent and punish offenses of this character, such offenses will become, if not entirely unknown, at least so rare as to form no reasonable ground of complaint.
All of which is respectfully submitted.
Acting for ths Minister of the Interior.