It will be perceived, therefore, that a multitude of objects thus rest
upon the success of this one treaty, now submitted for examination and
approbation.

Of the Sioux Indians I will but remark that they occupy an immense
country spreading from the Mississippi north of the neutral ground west
and northwest, crossing the Missouri River more than 1,200 miles above
the city of St. Louis. They are divided into bands, which have various
names, the generic name for the whole being the Dahcota Nation. These
bands, though speaking a common language, are independent in their
occupancy of portions of country, and separate treaties may be made with
them. Treaties are already subsisting with some of the bands both on the
Mississippi and Missouri. The treaty now submitted is believed to be
advantageous, and from its provisions contemplates the reduction of
those wandering Indians from their nomadic habits to those of an
agricultural people.

If some of the provisions seem not such as might be desired, it will be
recollected that many interests have to be accommodated in framing an
Indian treaty which can only be fully known to the commissioner, who
derives his information directly from the Indians in the country which
is the object of the purchase.

It is proper to add that I had instructed the commissioner expressly not
to take into consideration what are called traders' claims, in the hope
of correcting a practice which, it is believed, has been attended with
mischievous consequences; but the commissioner has by a letter of
explanations fully satisfied me that in this instance it was absolutely
necessary to accommodate those claims as an indispensable means of