The animals which they would raise, replacing the buffalo, would insensibly efface its memory amid surrounding plenty. During the last ten years, a great part of the disposable funds of the vice-province of Missouri have been employed in the relief of the Indians. The liberality of the Association for the Propagation of the Faith established at Lyons, and that of our friends, have assisted us powerfully in converting and civilizing the tribes beyond the Rocky Moun
tains. Several of our fellow-members still pursue there the same work of charity, and many of our Fathers and Brothers desire to visit the tribes which I visited last year. An establishment founded among them east of the Rocky Mountains would be most desirable; but the pecuniary means which they have at their disposal are very far from answering to
the work which they contemplate. The lively interest which you take, gentlemen, in the salvation and civilization of so many thousands of men in the wilderness, inspires me with confidence to appeal to your generosity, which alone can furnish the means of conducting to a happy conclusion an enterprise so vast and so eminently Catholic.
There are among these Indians several hundreds of children of mixed blood, whose parents are anxious that means of instruction should be afforded them. To attain this, schools and establishments would be necessary, in which agriculture could be learned; and also many children of pure Indian blood could be received, as the heads of families are desirous of confiding them to the care of the mission aries. A short statistic will give you an idea of the good
which might be done among these Indians. Among the Blackfeet, Father Point and myself baptized more than I,Ioo children; among the Blood Indians, a tribe of Blackfeet, Monseigneur Thibault baptized sixty; the Reverend Monseigneur Bellecourt, of Red river, visited Fort Berthold, on the Missouri, and baptized a good number of the children of the Mandans; all the savages presented him their children for baptism. Father Hoeken, in an excursion made among several tribes on the Missouri, baptized over 4oo