Not much headway was made with Indian treaty-making in 1862.[658] In March, 1863, an element

[Footnote 654:  Indian Office Consolidated Files, Kickapoo, I 655 of 1862 and I 361 of 1864.]

[Footnote 655:—­Ibid., B 355 of 1863 and I 361 of 1864.]

[Footnote 656:  Albert W. Horton to Pomeroy, June 20, 1863 and O.B.  Keith to Pomeroy, June 20, 1863, Indian Office Consolidated Files, Kickapoo, G 59 and P 64 of 1863.]

[Footnote 657:  Lane and A.C.  Wilder requested the Interior Department, September 1, 1863, “that no rights be permitted to attach to R.R.  Co. until charges of fraud in connection with Kickapoo Treaty are settled.”  Their request was replied to, September 12, 1863 [Interior Department, Register of Letters Received, January 2, 1862 to December 27, 1865, “Indians,” no. 4, 361].]

[Footnote 658:  Dole, however, seems to have become thoroughly reconciled to the idea.  He submitted his views upon the subject once more in connection with a memorial that Pomeroy referred to the Secretary of the Interior “for the concentration of the Indian tribes of the West and especially those of Kansas, in the Indian country ... " [Dole to Smith, November 22, 1862, Indian Office Report Book, no. 12, pp. 505-506; Department of the Interior, Register of Letters Received, vol.  D, November 22, 1862]. (cont.)]

conditioning a greater degree of success was introduced into the government policy.[659] That was by the Indian appropriation act, which, in addition to continuing the practice of applying tribal annuities to the relief of refugees, authorized the president to negotiate with Kansas tribes for their removal from Kansas and with the loyal portion of Indian Territory tribes for cessions of land on which to accommodate them.[660] As Dole pertinently remarked to Secretary Usher, the measure was all very well as a policy in prospect but it was one that most certainly could not be carried out until Indian Territory was in Federal possession.  Blunt was still striving after possession or re-possession but his force was not “sufficient to insure beyond peradventure his success."[661]

Scarcely had the law been enacted when John Ross and other Cherokees, living in exile and in affluence, offered to consider proposals for a retrocession to the United States public domain of their Neutral Lands.  The Indian Office was not yet prepared to treat and not until November did Ross and his associates[662] get any

[Footnote 658:  (cont.) December 26, 1862, Dole wrote to Smith thus:  “...  It being in contemplation to extinguish the Indian title to lands ... in Kansas and provide them with homes in the Indian Territory ...  I would recommend that a commissioner should be appointed to negotiate ...  I would accordingly suggest that Robt.  S. Corwin be appointed ...” [Indian Office Report Book, no. 13, pp. 12-13].  Now Corwin’s reputation was not such as would warrant his selection for the post.  He was not a man of strict integrity.  His name is connected with many shady transactions in the early history of Kansas.]