CHAP. XI.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-UNION.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF NEW MEXICO, Santa Fe, N. Mex., December 1, 1861.

ASSISTANT ADJUTANT-GENERAL, Headquarters Western Department, Saint Louis, Mo.:

SIR: I have the honor to report that our relations with the Indians in this department are daily becoming more unsatisfactory. The depredations of the Navajoes are constant. The Mescalero Apaches are becoming more daring in their inroads, and incursions have been made by the Kiowas and Comanches, ostensibly in pursuit of the Utes, but their depredations have not been confined to them. Between the Navajoes and people of New Mexico a state of hostilities, with occasional intervals of peace, has existed almost since the first settlement of the country. Each party claims that the treaty of peace has been broken by the other, and it is impossible now, even if it were profitable, to inquire which is in the right. Each successive war has reduced the Navajoes in strength and wealth, and has, by reducing them to poverty, added to the strength of the ladrones, or war party. There is no doubt that many of these difficulties, if not caused, have at least been greatly aggravated, by the illegal acts of a portion of the Mexican people, and in some cases have been the direct cause of the difficulties that immediately followed them. The consequence of these acts have almost invariably fallen upon that portion of the Navajoes known as the peace party and upon those of the inhabitants who have property to lose, while the aggressors profit by the sale of their booty and captives. These acts are not restrained by the moral sense of the community, and so long as these marauders find a ready sale for their plunder and for their captives, it will be impossible to prevent these depredations and the consequent retaliations by the Indians.

These remarks apply more particularly to the Navajoes, but they are pertinent to our relations with all the surrounding Indians; and unless measure can be adopted by which this system, encouraged by the sympathies of the people and fostered to some extent by the Territorial laws, can be broken up, the country will be involved in interminable evils. Recent occurrences in the Navajo country (see report of Captain Evans, inclosed herewith)* have so demoralized and broken up that nation, that there is now no choice between their absolute extermination or their removal and colonization at points so remote from the settlements as to isolate them entirely from the inhabitants of the Territory.

Aside from all considerations of humanity, the extermination of such a people will be a work of the greatest difficulty. The country they inhabit is impracticable and destitute of resources for military operations to a degree that can only be realized from personal observation. The Navajoes are too cowardly to fight in number, but are adroit robbers, and any operations that may be carried on against them will ultimately resolve itself into a chase of individual thieves, and will be procrastinated indefinitely. As a question of economy and expediency, I have determined, in concert with the superintendent of Indian affairs for this Territory, to establish such of the Navajoes as have heretofore acted in good faith in communities, where they can be isolated and protected until some permanent arrangement can be made by the Government. The policy of settling them on reserves, removed from the Mexican population, protecting and assistant them until they are able to sustain themselves as heretofore-repeatedly recommended by the superintendent of Indian affairs and the commanders of this depart-

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*Not found.

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