St. Louis University, NOV. 24, 1866.
Honorable Sir:
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the " Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the year 1865," which you had the great kindness to forward to me, and for which I return you my most sincere thanks.
I avail myself of the present occasion to lay respectfully before you a little incident of my late missionary visit among the Indian tribes of the upper Missouri. At the special request of Pananniapapi, or " The Man who Strikes the Ree," the head chief of the Yankton tribe and several of his braves who reside at the Yankton Agency below Fort Randa::, I remained some time amongst them. During my whole stay, I found them all very attentive and respectful. Since my first interview with Pananniapapi, in 1843, he had nourished a longing desire, as he expressed it, " to see the old Black-robes (the priests) reside among his people, to instruct the Indian youth and to teach them the saving truths of Christianity." On my recent visit last summer he manifested anew this his old desire with an urgent request to come and locate on the land reserved for his tribe. The chiefs, having made up their minds, in regard to the religious profession of the teachers of their children, had been opposed hitherto to the establishing of schools by teachers of other denominations contrary to their own choice.
I could not give at that time a positive promise to Pananniapapi, the affair having first to be proposed to our own Board of Missions in St. Louis, and the practicability of its execution having first to be discussed. The Yankton Indians are under treaty with the Government, and a school fund, if I have been well informed, has been established in favor of their tribe consisting, I am told, of about 450 lodges, or 2,500 souls.
I would feel grateful for information on the following points: First. Should our Board of Missions agree to grant a Catholic missionary establishment, as expressly de