[...] It is proper however here to state that before signing this, it was fully understood that a treaty of purchase for the extinguishment of their title to the lands claimed by them should immediately follow the treaty of peace. And in accordance with this understanding we met in council on the 10th day of Sept. and agreed on the terms of purchase.
It was doubted whether according to an Act approved Febry 27th 1851 providing "that such Officers and Agents in the Indian Department as the President of the United States may designate shall hereafter hold treaties with the Indian tribes," we were warranted in assuming that power, as no person now engaged in the Indian Department in this Territory has been designated in accordance with this act. But the necessity of some immediate and permanent arrangement by which the citizens as well as the Indians could hope to be secure in the possession of life and property, demanded, if not warranted by any existing statute, according to the great law of humanity, in consonance with which our Government has ever professed to act in her intercourse with the Indians, an assumption of power somewhere, to effect such an arrangement. It was believed that a treaty of peace, without extinguishing the Indians title to the country, would fail to restore and preserve it, as treaties of a similar nature had formerly been intered into with this tribe without any permanent good effect. Nothing short of the purchase of their entire country and assigning to them of a certain district for their temporary residence until a permanent home shall be provided for them in common with other tribes, could procure this desirable object. There is no doubt that the failure heretofor on the part of the Agents of the Government, & others assuming to hold treaties with these Indians and other tribes, to comply with the stipulations of such treaties [...]