352
Opinion of the Court
presented to Congress" reveal a contemporaneous understanding that the proposed legislation modified the reservation. Id., at 471. In 1892, when the Commissioner of Indian Affairs appointed the Yankton Commission, he charged its members to "negotiate with the [Tribe] for the cession of their surplus lands" and noted that the funds exchanged for the "relinquishment" of those lands would provide a future income for the Tribe. Instructions to the Yankton Indian Commission (July 27, 1892), reprinted in App. 98-99. The negotiations themselves confirm the understanding that by surrendering its interest in the unallotted lands, the Tribe would alter the reservation's character. Commissioner J. C. Adams informed members of the Tribe that once surplus lands were sold to the "Great Father," the Tribe would "assist in making the laws which will govern [members of the Tribe] as citizens of the State and nation." Council of the Yankton Indians (Oct. 8, 1892), transcribed in S. Exec. Doc. No. 27, at 48. In terms that strongly suggest a reconception of the reservation, Commissioner Cole admonished the Tribe:
"This reservation alone proclaims the old time and the old conditions . . . . The tide of civilization is as resistless as the tide of the ocean, and you have no choice but to accept it and live according to its methods or be destroyed by it. To accept it requires the sale of these surplus lands and the opening of this reservation to white settlement.
"You were a great and powerful people when your abilities and energies were directed in harmony with the conditions which surrounded you, but the wave of civilization which swept over you found you unprepared for the new conditions and you became weak. . . . [Y]ou must accept the new life wholly. You must break down the barriers and invite the white man with all the elements of civilization, that your young men may have the same opportunities under the new conditions that your fathers
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