The Osages are said to have been formerly a brave and warlike people, and in good circumstances. But disease, and the attacks of the Sioux, of whom they were once the hardiest and fiercest enemies, have reduced their tribe so that not more than 5,500 now remain. Treaties have been made with them, and various efforts have been used, but with small success, to civilize and teach them. They have secured to them, for the education of their tribe, by an arrangement for the sale of their lands to the United States, about seventy thousand dollars. Stipulations have also been entered into to teach them agricultural pursuits. This tribe are still distinguished for their tall, fine forms, though they have lost their fame as warriors. They have repeatedly moved and jostled along from the head-waters of the White River, and even from the banks of the Mississippi, to the Indian territory bordering on the Creeks, where they now are. The Kansas, formerly a portion of this nation, have seceded from them, and thus impaired their strength. They have been, till recently, engaged in war with the Pawnees and Camanches, and, though thereby reduced, they have a number of able men as chiefs and warriors. [Illustration] FOOTNOTE: [15] See “Lives of Famous American Indians.” THE INDIANS WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI. The Omahaws are said to have formerly been a much larger tribe than they are at present, and a terror to their neighbours, being able to muster not less than a thousand warriors. But in the year 1802, they were attacked by the small-pox, and the tribe was reduced to about three hundred souls. The survivors, unwilling to remain in a place that had proved so fatal to them, burned their village, and became, for a time, a wandering people. But they have since returned to their country, north of the River Platte, and built a village on the southwest bank of the Missouri. The Pancas, having been nearly destroyed by the Sioux, after several removals from the Red River of Lake Winnipeg, joined the Omahaws, and, for a time, were merged in that tribe, but have now resumed their separate existence. These two tribes are allied with the Pawnees, and, some twenty years since, their chiefs accompanied some Pawnees and other Indian warriors to Washington, where Big Elk, the Omahaw chief, thus addressed the President.