Office Siletz Agency, Oregon
Jan 3. 1872.
Sir
My absence from the Agency collecting fugitive Indians per your instructions prevented me from submitting my monthly report for the month of November, at the proper time. I will therefore include it in this my Dec report. Considerable sickness prevailed among the Indians during the month of November, but no deaths occurred but, in December, a visible improvement in their sanitary condition was observed. Just, at present however, quite a number of chronic cases in the adults, and some few cases of complaints among children exists.
For two weeks past, a greater number of Indians have been upon the Reservation, than at any prior time since I assumed charge. & I am granting passes to quite a number, to go outside & work for the whites during the winter season, also I have given employment to Indians upon the Reservation, to aid in farming, clearing tract land &c. at the several farms, both for the improvement of the Agency, and as a means of subsisting themselves and families & as encouragment for them to remain upon the Agency.
Quite a number have desired their tracts of land allotted, so they could begin improvements, but as no plots or instructions have been received by which I felt warranted in making allottments I have deferred doing so. I think however, it will
been but little or no uniformity heretofore in building, as the sizes of glass sash door &c. comprise nearly all dimensions, hardly any two buildings are alike in this or other repects. In the event that appropriations are made by the present Congress for Mills School houses, Church, Agency buildings &c it might be well purchase written Contracts in San Francisco and ship to the Agency direct, by way of Newport instead of [...] & expensive route by way of Portland and Corvallis.
We are now compelled to supply quite a numner of the destitute Indian families with subsistence, as many of them are without any kind of food and are unable to obtain any thing with which to subsist upon.
Several of the Indians who have raised a surplus of oats & potatoes have desired to sell them at Newport & other places as they usually do in such cases, but as the Agency will need these articles, I have prohibited them from carrying them away, however the absence of funds with which to purchase their products induces them to insist upon their right to sell where they can obtain an equivalent and enable them to purchase in return, such articles as they desire for winter use.
I have during the winter, slaughtered several head of the old and crippled cattle and issued them to the Indians, as they were unfit for service, a number of them being blind & so old they could not masticate dry hay and would inevitaby have perished before spring, and
there are a number of others that can best be used for that purpose, when an emergency requires their issue.
Very Respectfully
Your Obdt Servant
Joel Palmer
U. S. Indian Agent
Hon Commissioner of
Indian Affairs
Wa'gton D.C.