“In this new home [the reservation], which is of comparatively small extent, they will be so concentrated as to be readily controlled and influenced for their real welfare. Farms will be there opened for them. Mills and schools established, and dwelling houses erected; and as gradually the white settlements close in around them, destroying game and rendering hunting life impossible, and as they will have within their own territory the means of living with very little labor on their part, the force of circumstances alone will compel their resorting to agriculture for subsistence…" -A.H.H. Stuart to Alexander Ramsey, August 6, 1851
Alexander Hugh Holmes Stuart served in President Millard Fillmore's cabinet as the Secretary of the Interior from 1850-53. In that capacity, he wielded considerable influence over Indian affairs and conflicts on the American frontier. A native of Virginia, Stuart became a powerful political figure in the Confederacy during the Civil War.