DEWDNEY, Indian Commissioner to the Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs, March 27, 1882

Mr. Dewdney to the Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs.

Sir: I have considered the dispatch and the accompanying papers forwarded to me in your letter of the 20th of March, No. 28748, relative to the incursion of Canadian Indians into the United States and American Indians into Canadian territory.

I feel very confident that for the future our Indians will not cross the boundary in anything like the number they have hitherto done, and had not the American traders on the Missouri River held out inducements to our chiefs to come south, very few could have done so this winter.

The suggestion made by his excellency the Governor-General to grant permits to Indians who wish to cross the border would, I think, answer well in treaty No. 7.

Previous to the establishing of the international boundary, the Piegan, Blood, and Blackfeet Indians occupied the country of Northwestern Montana in United States territory and Fort McLeod in Canadian territory.

The Indians living north and south of the boundary are intermarried and are continually visiting each other. It would be considered a great hardship were we to forbid them continuing their visits.

It has come to my knowledge that the south Piegans have invited our Indians to join them in the hunt, both in the fall of 1881 and 1882, and as the United States Piegans obtain permission from the Indian agent to leave their reserves, I should not think the American authorities would object to our Indians joining them for the same purpose, or to their visiting their friends, provided they were furnished with a permit from the person authorized to issue such on this side. This system would answer for the Assiniboines, who also have relations living south of the line.

With the Crees it is different. The only object they can have for going south is to hunt or steal horses, and, with buffalo so scarce, I think there would be no object in giving them permits.

I think if an arrangement could be made with the United States Government in the direction suggested by his excellency the Governor-General, and the Indians were formally notified of it, it would assist us in inducing a large number of Crees to go north, as they would have to understand that any found in United States territory without the required permission would be arrested.

At any rate I think it would be more advisable to endeavor to bring about an arrangement of this nature with the American Government than to assent to the proposition made by the minister at Washington, through Mr. L. S. Sackville West, to his excellency the Governor-General, which I am convinced is impracticable.