When the treaty was made in 1855 it was the understanding that whenever the Indians should settle down on the reservation, adopt civilized habits, and clear a few acres of land, good titles would be given to them by the government. With this understanding, not long after Agent Eells took charge, he had the reservation surveyed and divided, so that each head of a family whose home was on the reservation should have a fair portion. He gave them papers, signed by himself, in 1874, describing the land, with the expectation that the government in a short time would give them good titles, he having been thus assured by his superiors in office. Other agents did the same. But new movements by the government with reference to the Indians are usually very slow, as they have no votes, and this was no exception. Agent Eells, as well as others, plead and plead time and again, to have this stipulation in the treaty fulfilled, but for a long time to no purpose. Often he had no reply to his letters. People of both political parties put this as a plank into their platform; those of all religions and no religion; those who opposed the peace policy as well as those who favored it, signed petitions to this effect, but in vain. This delay was the source of much uneasiness to the Indians, more, I think, than any other cause, for men were not wanting who told them that they would be moved away; there were plenty of people who coveted their land, and examples were not wanting of Indians who had been moved from place to place by the government. It has been the only thing which has ever caused them to talk about war. Some Indians left the reservation because they feared they would be moved away. “I am not going to clear land and fence it for the whites to use,” was what one said and others felt. When the treaty was made it was believed by the Indians that they possessed all the land, and that they sold all except the reservation, to which they supposed they had a good title, at least as good as the United States had, and white people believed the same; but a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1873 reversed this idea, and they learned that they had sold all the land, and that government graciously allowed them to stay on the reservation according to its will. In the spring of 1875 they were forbidden to cut a log and sell it off of the reservation, and found that they had no rights to the land which the government was bound to respect, but if she wished to remove them at any time she could do so. The question came up early in missionary work. The Indians said: “You profess to be Christians, and you have promised us titles to our land. If these titles come we will believe your religion to be true, but if not it will be evidence that you are deceiving us.”