The report of the indian commission has reached us in full. It is too long and too worthless to print. As a closely woven tissue of mis-statements and mis-representations, not to say falsehoods, it surpasses anything we have ever seen. It brands Sand Creek as an event which "hardly has its parallel in the history of indian barbarity." Other statements are about on the same order. The report reviews the travels of the commission, describes the various talks, defends their distribution of arms and ammunition at North Platte, makes a number of suggestions to congress, and abounds in finely written eulogies, and scientific analysis of indian character, all of which will form a very valuable addition to the science of phrenology. Viewing the report in this light, the document will be of rare value to future generations, and the student of the twentieth century will have abundant reason to thank the government for having appropriated $450,000 for a scientific expedition, not to make peace with the indians, but to study their physicological characteristics and to furnish them with arms for another year's campaign against the barbarous whites, who now infest Colorado and other western territories. If any glory is to be derived from such a report we yield it with pleasure.

    That learned and itinerant body, whose perambulations, last summer, at the government expense, created so much interest in the west, has at last made a report. Having satisfied themselves that the indians are peaceful, and the whites to blame, and having duly issued to the former the necessary arms, ammunition and supplies for defense against the "fron-toer-set-lahs," the indian commission have at last reported. They find, say the telegrams from Washington, that the primary cause of the war was violation of indian treaties; that Hancock acted on false information when he burned the Cheyenne village; that Mr. Cottrill is worthy of censure for ordering the employees of the United express company to shoot indians on sight; that the whites have been guilty of a long continued series of depredations; that attempts to civilize them be made, and finally the setting apart of two reservations exclusively for indian occupation; that for the southern indians being what is now known as the indian territory, and that for the northern indians being the portion of Dakota territory bounded on the north by the forty-fifth parallel, east by the Missouri river, south by Nebraska, and west by the one hundred and fourth meridian. We breathe freer. We shall still be permitted to occupy our homes. The report does not recommend that we shall be driven from the country. The commission have been kind and considerate. The report, however, suggests that the commission be sent out again next season. Their modesty is as refreshing as their consideration for our feelings. It may be unkind, but we enter into our emphatic protest against continuing so expensive and useless a body. The indians can get sufficient arms and ammunition without paying four hundred and fifty thousand dollars to a commission for the express purpose of distributing them. For the sake of the west, save this money to the government, and abolish the commission.

Source:

Unknown, "The Report of the Indian Commission ....," The Weekly Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Colorado, Wednesday, 22 January, 1868, page 1.