This treaty, concluded April 29, 1868, (15 Stat., 639-640,) may be regarded as having laid the foundation for the civilization of the wild and intractable Sioux tribes. The sixteenth article of this treaty stipulates that the country north of the North Platte River and east of the summits of Big Horn Mountains shall be considered as unceded Indian territory; that no white person shall be permitted to settle upon or occupy any portion of the same, or, without the consent of the Indians first obtained, to pass through the same. A large portion of the territory embraced within this provision is in the state of Nebraska, and the time has arrived when it should be open to settlement and cultivation by the white man. It is not needed for Indian purposes, nor is it desirable that it should be longer considered and held as unceded Indian territory. The eleventh article of the same treaty secures, to the Indians who were parties to it, the right to hunt on any lands north of the North Platte and on the Republican Fork of the Smoky Hill River, so long as the buffaloes range thereon in such numbers as to justify the chase. It is not believed that buffaloes range any longer on the territory thus described in numbers sufficiently large to justify the chase, nor is it desirable that these Indians should longer enjoy the privilege of hunting buffaloes within this territory. . . .