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6
THE INDIAN'S SIDE
or THE
INDIAN QUESTION
BY
WILLIAM BARROWS DD
Author of
"Oregon; the Struggle for Possession "
"The United States of Yesterday and of Tomorrow:"
and others.
Haec mea sunt : veteres migrate coioni
— ViRG. ECL. IX.
BOSTON
D LOTHROP COMPANY
FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STS.
/S^l
Ev/I
Copyright, 1887,
By Lucy Adams Barrows.
Electrotyped
Bv C. J. Peters and Son, Boston.
INTRODUCTION.
Serious trifling with the Indian question
seems to be coming to a close. The "nations'*
of colonial times, and the ** high contracting
parties " whom the Republic met as apparent
equals during its first ninety years, have come
down to draw rations under the drum-beat, or
to be blanketed and continental tramps. In
the last analysis of the Indian, in Congress
and on the border, he is discovered to be simply
a man, and more or less like all Americans ;
and the recent and so far final proposition is
to treat him as an American. In coming to
this we have had a tedious, annoying, nugatory,
and mortifying series of theories, experiments,
and makeshifts. Meanwhile, there has been an
apparent decline in their numbers, from the
highest official maximum, of " about 300,000,''
in 1872, to 259,244 in 1885. *"
We are now entering an era of hope for the
Indian, under the Dawes Bill; and though he
is at first to have a qualified citizenship in
passing out of the state of a ward, his rights
are not to be abridged on account of race or
8
4 INTRODUCTION.
previous condition. Hut as all rights, privi-
leges, and inini unities do not, j)rjictically, come
directly to one out of the Constitution and
Statutes of the United States, but are filtered
to him with more or less freedom and purity
through the surrounding community, and as
the success of this bill lies with the border
whites, it has been thought best to mark oflF,
historically, the leading and constant obstacles
heretofore to Indian civilization. Hence this
unpretending treatise. Only official documents
are used to give it force.
No law is self-operating ; somebody must use
it favorably, if the subject of it has its advan-
tages ; and intermeddling opponents must be
held iu check by hands friendly to the end of
the law. Hitherto statute provisions for the
Indians, and often wise and good, have been
made powerless by a third party intervening
between the government and the Indians —
interested, scheming, self-seeking white men,
on the border and in Washington. There was
once a white border belt, poorly civilized, and
with many in it decivilized, but now, interpen-
etrating and commingling, these men have
quite destroyed border-lines.
Hitherto the work of the general government
and of benevolent organizations, in the lines of
education and of religion, has been thwarted
INTRODUCTION.
by white men quite reckless of both civil and
moral restraints. This has been a constant
force, both at Washington and among the Ind-
ians, hinderinix their civilization. Greed for
Indian lands, miserable white neighborhood
life, and base passion have been the constant
cMiemy of Indian elevation, and have often
added to his barbarism and profligacy. More-
over, the average sentiment west of the Mis-
sissi[)pi concerning the Indian is that he is a
worthless remnant of his race, and incapable
of elevation to the average American grade j
and it is no harsh judgment to express that
the two-thirds of oui domain thus indicated
would greatly prefer a civil and moral quaran-
tine between them and an Indian conununity
— the breadth of a State or Territory. This
is the gentler way with some of saying that
the best Indian is a dead Indian. I once saw
an unpopular candidate carry, as with a whirl-
wind, a doubtful campaign in Colorado, under
the popular war-cry, '' The Ute must go ! "
Now, however high-toned and humane a bill
may be which gains the assent of Congress,
the administration of it for the wards of the
ni on must look for its force and temper and
fidelity in the regions bordering on the Indian
reservations and ranges. A law enacted on
the Potomac is still subject to the veto of local
INTRODUCTION.
option on the Columbia or Missouri or Colo-
rado. Climate does not more inevitably and
irresistibly modify the human constitution,
wlien one removes from the land of his na-
tivity, than does the popular will the working
efficiency of a United States law perfectly con-
stitutional, which has started oHf from the halls
of Congress.
Our failures in the Indian policies for a
century have not come so much from the lack
of fair legislation. We have had good laws
enough for ends sought. Nor have the failures
come so much from the quality of this unfortu-
nate race as if it were effete, worthless, and
impossible of elevation. The ends sought by
the law have not been desired in those sections
of the country where the law must be adminis-
tered, and by the people who must administer
it. This has heretofore been the point of fatal
weakness in our government policy for the
aborigines. Our first chapter in this book is
painfully abundant with evidence on this point.
The Dawes Bill opens a new era in this
branch of our national work, and it is beyond
doubt the best thing possible in the line of the
government, so far as it goes. It embodies a
discovery, which has cost the expensive and
sad experiments of two centuries, that the
Indian must be made and treated as an Amer-
INTRODUCTION.
icnn citizen. It, however, does not contern-
plate the removal or neutnilization of tlie
force which has made the most of our pre-
ceding laws and labors fruitless. In the di-
agnosis of this great national iniirmity or
malady, the main cause has been assigned to
the red man, and the medicines have been
given to him. Perhaps the bill goes as far as
the government can go in its side of the work.
What remains to make the new era a success-
ful one, the people must do.
In the regions more intimately affected by
the Indian question, there is need of introduc-
ing a civil, social, and moral constabulary — a
picket-line of principles and of sentiments,
which will constrain a superior neighbor to be
a good one to an inferior neighbor. The decla-
ration of now almost sevent}^ years, made by
the venerable and Christian Cherokee in Geor-
gia, is yet to be disproved : '* No Cherokee or
white man with a Cherokee family can possi-
bly live among such white people as will first
settle this country."
A grand opportunity is now offered by this
bill to solve the Indian question by saving the
Indian race; Congress gives the chance, and
the people must do the work. Here appelirs
one of the choicest features of our govern-
ment, that under the protecting approbation
8
INTRODUCTTON.
of law the people may crown our civilization
with the associated phihiiithropies and charities
and beatitudes. These do not come of legisla-
tive enactment, nor are they established by
majority vote. The bill opens the way, and
waits r the arrival, on tlie interior plains
and rivers and mountains of our country, of
the sacriiice, and romance, and heroism, and
humane and Christian devotion, which we have
so nobly bestowed on the Ganges and Eupln-ates,
and the wilds of Africa, and the islands of the
sea.
William Barrows.
Reading, Mass., November, 1887.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE INDIAN AND HIS WHITE NEIGHBORS.
Section I.
II.
m.
IV.
V.
(iootl OKI Colony Tiines ....
Another Side of the Indian (Question,
How Much Can the (iovernment Do?
The Army and the Indian ....
■ The Courts as Protectors of the Indian
Riffhts
VI. — Encourasrement lies in Broader Work,
13
22
33
44
48
51
CHAPTER n.
THE CHEROKEE EXPERIMENT. THE RESERVATION
SYSTEM A FAILURE.
Section I. — Indian Farmers among White Far
mers
n. — Mixed Society; The Civilizing In-
dian; The Wild Indian; The
Hostile White Man
66
61
10
CONTENTS.
Section m.
IV.
V.
VI.—
Indian Civilization Adjourned . .
Indian Civilization Fatally Struck .
Border White Men Superior to the
United States
The Sad Journey of Sixteen
Thousand into Exile
• • •
VII. — Another ^Morning Overclouded .
VIII. — Forebodings, and the Doom of the
Reservation Theory . .
• •
GO
08
72
74
7(i
81
CHAPTER m.
INDIAN FARMING.
Section I. — Some Very Singular Assumptions . 86
II. — Early Indian Farming in New Eng-
land, New York, Missouri, New
Mexico, Georgia, Canada, Michi-
gan, Iowa, Florida, Minnesota,
Dakota 89
rn. — The Best Indian Farms the farthest
from White Neighborhood . . 101
IV. — The Encroachments of Immigrants
and the Violation of Treaties as
related to Indian Farming . . . 104
V. — British Columbia and its Indians . Ill
VI. — Uncertainty of Residence and Indian
Farming Impossible 12^
Vn. — Still Experimenting on Indian Poli-
cies and Livadins: Indian Farms . 132
CONTENTS.
11
CHAPTER IV.
DO THE AMERICAN INDiANS INCKEASh OR DECREASE?
Sectkjn 1. — The X limber of liidiuiis in Early New
EiiglaiKl vss
li. — The Number of Indians East of the
Mississippi in 1«20 141
ni. — Examples of Deerease beyond the
Mississippi 148
IV. — Some Personal Investigations . . . 154
V. — Inerease or Decrease in California, 157
VI. — The (lovernment Census quite Im-
perfect, yet Sho vs much Decrease, 163
Vn. — Some Unpleasant Conclusions . . . 166
Vni. — English Partnership in the Indian
Decrease 170
IX. — Has American Christianity done its
Best to Preserve the Indian? . 171
Conclusion 175
I-^i^EX 197
IJMBi
I
illl
THE
mikn m of the mm question,
CHAPTER T.
,M
THE INDIAN AND HIS WHITE NEIGHBORS.
Section 1. — Good Old Colony Times.
" Notwithstanding one of the ostensible
objects of nearly all the royal charters and
patents issued for British North America
was the Christianizing of the Indian, few
could be found equal to the task on arriving
here. . . . Adventurer were those, generally,
who emigrated with a view of bettering their
own condition instead of that of others." *
For which those early immigrants are not to
be reproached, since the most of the human
family emigrate or stay at home for the
same reason. Still, we are interested to see
how it fared in those early times with the
pagan red men.
As early as 1670 Richard Bourne was preach-
ing to the Marshpee Indians on Cape Cod,
and even then poor white human nature was
1 Drake's 'Indians," bk. ii. 112.
13
( ■
!!
t
14
THE INDIAN S SIDE
It
■ t
i i
i f
crowding the Indian from those acres of sand
and scrub. He therefore felt constrained to
procure fi'om the Court at Plymouth " a rati-
fication of their deeds, and entailment of their
lands, bounded by ponds, etc., that were im-
movable, to these Indians and their children
forever." The Court ordained " tiiat no part
or parcel of their lands could be bought by or
sold to any white person or persons without
the consent of all the said Indians, not even
with the consent of the General Court. " ^
More than two hundred years of painful
failures, by government and benevolent organi-
zations, in following up exiled Indians with
ploughs and spelling-books and Bibles, have
confirmed the " discernment " of the Indian
teacher of Sandwich. Ir has been found, too,
that even "pondj"' are not immovable as
bounds to Indian lands. It was about this
time that Edward Randolph, crown commis-
sioner on Indian affairs, wrote to William
Penn : '' The Indians were never civilly treated
by the Government, who made it their busi-
ness to encroach on the Indian lands, and by
degrees drive them out." ^ John Randolph
makes a similar remark a century later : " The
1 *' Plymouth Colony Records " — Mass. His. Soc. Coll.,
vol. iii. p. 188.
2 Freeman's "Aborigines" from 1620, p. 99. j
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
15
3
least ray of Indian depredation will be an
excnse to raise troops for those who love to
have troops, etc." ^
Nor does all the millennial advance attach to
the Penn-Indian treaties which ordinary his-
tory is wont to give. In tlie deed from the
Indians to William Penn is this clause of
metes and bounds : " all along by the west
side of Delaware river, and so between the
said creeks, backwards, as far as a man can
ride in two days with a horse, for and in con-
sideration of these following goods," etc. No
doubt, the shekels, current money with the mer-
chant, were all right, but the boixlers lack
somewhat the Abrahamic deliniteness of the
Machpelah lot. That Quaker horse sired a
long-lived breed, and at times of wonderful
speed. It seems, too, that the will of William
Penn was executed in a bloody war. He
bequeathed ten thousand acres to liis grandson
William, "■ to be laid out in proper and bene-
ficial places in this province by his trustees."
William sold the unlocated grant to one Allen,
a border-land speculator, who too' up the
amount on territory never conveyea to Penn
by the Indians. This he cut up into lots for
settlers, and disposed of them by lottery, as
Georgia did afterward in exiling the Cherokees,
1 Letter to Charles Carroll; April, 1791.
'!lh
if
16
THE INDIAN 8 SIDE
in which no recognition was mude of Indian
rights, nor did those who drew the prizes allow
for them when the fact of the wrong was dis-
covered. In tliis way much of the land in
the Forks of the Delaware, the present Easton
and vicinity, was first settled by white men,
through robbery first, and then gambling.
'* The Indians were thus crowded from it.
They, for some time, complained, and at
length began to threaten, but the event was
war and bloodshed." ^
The moral grandeur arising from the equity
and peace with which Penn administered his
Indian affairs may well keep a place in history.
Yet it is not evident why it should stand alone,
as if Vmequalled. The same thing was done
throughout New England and New York, only
that the immense royal grant to Penn enabled
him to furnish a more extended illustration.
Twenty years before Penn's noble act, John
Pynchon paid to the Indians an agreeable
price for Northampton!, the Pladleys, and vicin-
ity, in Massachusetts, " not molesting Indians
nor depriving them of their just rights and
property without allowance to their satisfac-
tion." These words are in the first document
on record in Northampton.
It must not surprise if we here anticipate our
1 Drake, bk. v. 30.
or THE INDIAN QUESTION.
17
time ill the nanative, to read these passages in
the report oi' John Johnson, Indian agent for
Ohio, 1819, on Penn's Indians — about one hun-
dred and thirty years after t^ ^ will of William
Penn was executed. '* The Delawares were
once very nninerous and powerful, but many
disastrous wars with the white people reduced
them to a mere handful. . . . They are more
opposed to the Gosjiel and the whites than
any other Indians with whom I am acquainted.
. . . The United States have engaged to re-
move them west of the ^lississippi. . . . Their
peculiar aversion to having white people for
neighbors induced tliem to remove to the west-
ward."
The colonial beginnings with the Indians
degenerated early, and pious wishes and labors
were mostly august failures. In 1675 one
Indian was made a Bachelor of Arts at Cam-
bridge, yet the same year the General Court
made this entry on its records : "- Hereafter no
person shall harbor or entertain an Indian."
No pains were spared to teach them to read and
write, and in a short time a larger proportion
of the ^Massachusetts Indians could do so than
the inhabitants of Russia in our day. ^
Eliot taught the men to dig the ground, and
the women to spin, and the scholarly ones to
1 Bancroft's " His. U. S.," ii. 94,
W I I '
18
THE INDIAN S SIDE
raise tlie old and still vigorous theological
questiotis : —
'' VVlicji Clu'ist arose, whence came his soul?'*
*' Shall I know you in lieaven?" "Our little
children have n(jt sinned ; when they die,
whither do they go?" ''When such die as
never heard of Christ, where do they go ? "
'■' Why did not God give all men good hearts?"
*'• Since God is all-powerful, why did not God
kill the devil that made men so bad?" ^
So there came to be the '* praying Indians "
in Eastern and Southern Massachusetts in 1675.
Prior to this, and in 1654, Roger Williams had
thus written : " It cannot be hid how all Eng-
land and other nations ring with the glorious
conversion of the Indians of New England." ^
All this seemed most auspicious for the red
men, yet the bright vision makes only a short
chapter and covers a narrow territory. Ban-
croft speaks of them as " crowded by hated
neighbors, losing fields and hunting-grounds,"
and ''broken-spirited from the overwhelming
force of the Emjlish." Near to these, on the
borders of Rhode Island and in it, were the
clans of King Philip. " Repeated sales of land
had narrowed their domains, and the English
had artfully crowded them into the tongues of
1 Bancroft's " His. U. S.," ii. 95-(i.
2 <*
Plymoiitli Colony Keconls," x. 439.
OF THE INDIAN QUKSTION.
19
land. . . . There they couhl he more easily
watclied; for the frontiers of the narrow penin-
suhis were inconsiderahle. . . . The Englisli
villagers drew nearer and nearer to them ;
their hunting-grounds were put under cul-
ture, and as the ever urgent importunity of
the English was quieted but for a season by
partial concessions from the unwary Indians,
their natural parks were turned into pastures;
their best fields for planting corn were gradu-
ally alienated ; their fisheries were impaired by
more skilful methods ; and as wr.ve after
wave succeeded, they found themselves de-
prived of their broad acres, and, by their own
legal conti'acts, driven, as it were, into the
sea.
" 1
Virginia, as well as New England and the
new Stati-s on both sides of the Mississippi,
showed their repugnance to Indian neighbors :
" In all these treaties, whether ratified or re-
jected, the Virginians a])pear to have been
determined to coerce a relinquishment of the
Indian lands, either by fair means or foul, and
no effort of negotiation or intrigue was omitted
to accomplish this purpose," etc. 2 Cotton
Mather speaks of them for those times as "those
doleful creatures, the veriest ruins of mankind
1 Bancroft's •' His. U. S.," ii. 98-99.
2 ^onette's ''His. Miss. Val.," vol. i. p. 349.
I II
xz
20
THE IXHTAN's side
'I III
to be found on the face of the eartli," wliose
"way of living was infinitely l)aibarous." ^
The first colonists of the Papal, Kiifrlish, and
Pilgrim elinrches o})ened devoutly with their
plans for the welfare of the Indians.
The Bull of Alexander VI., under date of
Rome, May 4, 1493, conveyed all lands dis-
covered and to be discovered by the subjects of
Ferdinand and Isabella to them and to their
royal successors forever. But they were to
manage to send to these newl}^ discovered
countries, whether continent or island, good
men, fearing (rod, learned and ex[)ert, to in-
struct the inhabitants of these lands in the
Catholic faith and in good morals. ^
When Philip III. of Spain issued his royal
grant to Don Juan de Onate, in 1602, to colon-
ize and possess New Mexico, beginning with
" 200 soldiers, horses, cattle, merchandise, and
agricultural implements," he ordered that there
should go with the colony '"six priests, with a
full complement of books, ornaments, and
church accoutrements." ^
In 1626-7 Cardinal Richelieu organized his
company of "The One Hundred Associates,'*
1 " Life of Eliot."
- Deuin timontes. tloftos, poritos et expertos ad instruen-
(lain incolas et habitatorc-s priefatos in Fide Catholica et 'm
bonis inoribus imbuondain, etc.
8 Davis' " El Gringo," p. 73.
1
OF THE INDIAN gUKSTloN.
21
»' 1
to take possession, for Fnim^e and the Cluirch,
(»f all the territory from Florida io the Arctic
and from Newfonndland to the sonrces of the
St. r.awrence. It was a gigantic scheme of
colonization to control a wild continent.
One j)r(»vision of the charter was this: ''For
every new settlement, at least three ecclesiastics
must be provided." ^
Pearly in tlie last century a Scotch society
was organized to introduce religious and secu-
lar teaching among the Indians in New Jerse}',
Pennsylvania, and New York. The Rev. John
Brainard was missionary in the lirst named
State, and liad residence at Bethel. He was
to instruct his Indian charge in ''s])inniug
schools," and teach them how to j)rei)are and
si)in flax. 2
As is well known, the English Church follows
the Enjjlish army and colony the world oyer.
As when we assume to do their Home Mission-
ary work in India we lind them there j)ianting
their creed where they planted their cannon.
In good old times when Church and State
were one in Massachusetts, the Great aiul Gen-
eral Court enacted thus: "It is agreed that here-
after noe dwell ing-howse shal be builte aboye
halfe a myle from the meeting-howse in any
^ Parkman's "Pioneers of France," p. 397.
2 "Mag. Am. His.," January, 1885; pp. 05-7.
ZT""".
22
THE INDIAN 8 SIDE
li t
new iilantacion without leauve from the
court." »
The iirgunuMit on the union of Church and
State is not all on one side; hut when, as in the
United States, we assume tlie negative, a mo-
mentous responsihility comes on the church.
If the Church had provided that meeting-houses
be supplied comfortably near to the dwell-
ing-houses *' in any new plantacion '* on the
frontier, this ugly Indian question and some
other border (questions could never hav? so
troubled us. Somewhat the res[)()nsil)ility of
those questions lies with the Indian Bureau at
Washington, that looks after red men ; and
somewhat, and more largely, it lies with Mis-
sionary Headquarters, that should look after
border white men, who have "builte above
halfe a myle from the meeting-howse."
Section 2. — Another Side of the Indian Ques-
tion.
Our government and private benevolence
are trying, with most commendable spe-
cialty, to do a very philanthropic and Chris-
tian thing for the Indians. Our *' wards of
government " more or lesR under restraining
and elevating influences, and exclusive of
wild Indians and the Alaskans, were reported
1 '' Colonial liecords of Mass.," i. 157, 181.
't
or TlIK INDIAN <M^KaTION.
28
officially in inH.') to he '2't\K2U. These are
hihIit iibuiit seventy aj^'eneies, and are without
citizenship and without the possihility of owner-
8liii> in real estate. Results are not satisfactory
to white or red man, and ther(» does not yet
seem reason for varyiii;^- — exce[)t to give i)lace
to an (dl'ered ex[)eriment — wiiat Indian Coni-
niissi(Mier Walker published in 1874: *' The
true permanent scheme for the management
and instruction of the whole body of Indians
within the control of the governmeut is yet to
be created." ' Heretofore we have had the
policy of the extem})ore, a system of shifting
expedients, with annual Reports of failures.
With temporary and local successes, failure
as a whole, and decrease in the number
of the " wards,** we have lately come to a
very simple remedy for this evil condition
of the wasting aborigines. It is citizenship,
and personal ownership in the land.
This seems to be the best possible plan for
the present. It contemplates the absorption of
Indian nationality in American, and a fusion of
the two races to the full extent of all civil rela-
tions — the social and domestic being left to
their own choices and chances.
How far is this theory, or scheme, practicable ?
We cull this — the Dawes Bill — the best possi-
1 " The Indian Question," 1874; p. 99.
24
THE INDIAN S SIDE
) I
ble plan for the present. If, theretore, we
express any doubts of its^snccess, it will \n'. on
its feasibility or practicability. Does not any
scheme which contemplates the civilization and
preservation of tlie Indian race require an en-
ergized social and moral tone in the sections of
the Union where they are, which jiational legis-
lation and Congressional bills cannot generate
and apply? In his "Sketches of Louisiana,'''
Major Stoddard, our first Governor of the 7 ou-
isiana Territor3% says " that any considerable
intercourse with the whites has invariably
tended to debase and corrupt them" — the
Indians.^ We have yet discovered or acknowl-
edged only one side or one half of the diffi-
culty in the Indian question. If we go no
farther in the study of the case, and in the ad-
mission of the radical evil, but proceed to a
remedy, we are in danger of entering on another
experiment, which will perhaps ev'\ in failure
as all the others have ended.
The new scheme conteniplates the total
fusion, civilly, of the white and red races, as
much as the fusion of any other nationalitjs
German, French, or Swede, with the American,
and of course leaves the social and domestic to
local and personal option, as is the case with
the other races.
Page 410.
Si
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
25
•V
Some are discussing tlie settlement of the
vexed Indian question by intermarriages and
so the extinction of race line. At the Mohawk
Conference of the Board of Indian Commis-
sioners in 1886, an able paper was read on Indian
citizenshij The author says: — "That the
cause of peace and quietness, the progress of
Christian settlement across the coaitinent, and,
,in short, the welfare of the white races, are in-
volved in the permanent absorption of all the
tribes into tlie American nation, is perliaps a
generally recognized fact. Some prejudice, it
is true. ap})ears against the idea of admixture
or min^iflinof, in the sense of intermarriac^e and
entire loss of race identity. But it is impos-
sible to prevent the mingling of blood on the
same soil, even if desirable. A large part of
the population enumerated as Indian is now
half-breed. . , . We are descended from a com-
mon father: (xod has made ns *of one blood' ;
nor have we any right, except that derived
from power, to withhold from them any })rivi-
leges or immunities which we grant to the
more civilized [)eople. In all this I do not
recommend the interminorlincr of the races: but
1 do not fear it . . . the nightmare of a confu-
sion of races.'" ^
^ " Eiglitot'iith .\inuial lU'port of the Board of Indian Com-
missioners," 18b0; ijp. 52-3.
26
THE INDFAX .S SFDE
liM
i i]
1
I
The policy here suggested stirs some memories
and compels some antici[)titi()ns. The irudsoii
Bay Company are largely res[»onsible for the
early and prevalent population of the Domin-
ion, who, until lately, have stood vvitli face
averted from a lively civilization toward the
primitive and hybrid forest life. Their em-
ployes were all from the old country and bach-
elor men, and thence arose that tawny aristocracy
of the wilderness, once so characteristic of the
North Country. Kiel and his foUowers, who
lately, and twice, with a few years intervening,
gave the Dominion so much anxiety and labor
too, were of the same mingled blood, in
the second, and third, and fourth generations.
As one goes west and north-west and south-
west in our own land, he has the same facts
forced on him.
It is not alone the copper color and the
peculiar eye and the dark hair and the
unmistakable physiognomy in the half-breed
race which arrest his attention ; but the indo-
lent motions, the unbusiness-like habits, the
uninviting home, and the general unthrift
thrust themselves on him. All these facts,
abundant on both sides of our national boun-
dary, confirm and explain a statement given
me in Wyoming by an American who had been
a careful observer for forty years of trapper
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
27
lories
(I.SOJl
the
lilUtJ
fli-
and trader and mining and ranching life in
our wild and interior west: '• Ilalf-breed chil-
dren are siiort-Iived andjjjjjj^^-goi-v''
The jj^rrrrtrTor'^the Crow Indians makes a
simihir observation: "This agency furnishes
ai! example of men of culture becoming worth-
less by association with the Indians, whin-
they have contributed nothing toward the ele-
vation of the red man. As a rule, the full-
blooded Indian stands a much better chance to
become a man than the half-breed. The pres-
ence of these men causes more trouble in the
management of tiie Indians than all other
causes combined." ^ To make the Dawes Bill
effective for its end, there may be needed a
larger corps of what Robert South calls *' God's
police."
The Report for 1886 of the L'Anse aAd
Vieux Desert Reservation gives the number of
the Indian population as 69-4. Of that 320 are
full-bloods and 374 are mixed, more than one
half. The location of these Indians will be
noted as in the region of the early trapper and
fur-trader towns of Detroit and Mackinaw.
Not only the number of half-breeds here and
elsewhere must be considered, but the demoral-
ized condition of society which has produced
them.
1 u
Report of Commissioners on Indian Affairs," 1874; p. 262.
28
THP: INDIAN S SIDE
As to intermarriafje as a reinedv for the
evils in (juestio i, the plan is not new. It was
formerly proposed by the Secretary of War,
when that department had in charge the Ind-
ian field.
General William C. Crawford had been a
member of Congress, ambassador to France,
and Secretary of War, and as[)ired to the pres-
idency, but lost the election as against Mr.
Monroe. As Secretary of War in 1815, he
made a sensational Report on the Indian af-
fairs, with these recommendations : —
'' If the system already devised has not pro-
duced all the effects which were expected
from it, new experiments ought to be made.
Where every effort to introduce among them,
the Indian savages, ideas of exclusive property
in things real as well as personal shall fail, let
intermarriage between them and the whites be
encouraged by the government. This cannot
fail to preserve the race, with the modifications
necessary to the enjoyment of civil liberty and
social happiness. It is believed that the prin-
ciples of humanity, in this instance, i.re in har-
monious concert with the true inter<»sts of the
nation. It will redound more to the initional
honor to incorporate by a humane and benevo-
lent policy the natives of our forests into the
great American family of freemen, than to
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION".
29
receive with open arms the fugitives of the
old world, whether their flight has heen the
effect of theii' criiiies or of their virtues."^ The
most marked effect of this Report way the polit-
ical execution of its author.
Hitherto and nationally the white side of
the Indian question has been kept back. The
remark of Secretary Stanton, in 1862, to
Bishop \yhi])ple, of Minnesota, should head
this national question, measure the under-
lying evils, and shape the remedy.
Admit to their fullest extent the pagan,
heatlien, and savage qualities of many of the
Indians, we must, nevertheless, give the place
of prominence to the words of the secretary
to the bishop: "If you come to Washington
to tell us that our Indian system is a sink of
ini(]uity and a disgrace to the nation, we all
know it." Color the Indian to the darkest and
hardest character allowable, bv the facts, as a
human being for civilization and Christianity
to take in hand, still it must be borne in mind
that the whites have been the overwhelming
party in all Indian transactions, and had every-
thing their own way. We have dictated and
broken the most of the treaties, we have neces-
sitated, initiated, and executed the most of the
removals, and so far as the Indians have come
' Senate Papers, 14th Congress, 1st Session,
"trfT
30
THE INDIAN S SIDE
I
under American laws, we have enacted, inter-
preted, and executed those laws. Generally,
wherein they have suffered from breach of
treaty, removal, or from failure of law to
protect tlieir legal rights, it has l)een through
our mal-administration, or negligence, or sin-
ister design.
Judge Belford, of Colorado, was credited, not
long since, with tlie statement that since our
independence the United States has made
929 treaties witli 807 Indian tribes and bands.
Commissioner Walker, discriminating between
tribes and bands, s[)eaks of "nearly 400 treaties
confirmed by tlie Senate, as are treaties with
foreign powers." ^ As all know, it was at the
will of the government whether these treaties
should be observed or broken. The bordering
whites and designing men back of them had
their own way.
It will be observed that the most of this evil
to the red man, and dishonor to the white man,
takes place on the frontier, and grows out of
an incompatibility of neighborhood between
the two races, on their present level, or grade
of civilization. The present white civilization
of the border does not seem to I. j able to
tolerate the inferior Indian neighborhood, and
recognize its natural rights and the claims
1 "The Indian Question," by Francis A, Walker, 1874,
ill
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
31
gUcaranteed by govenniient. The (luestion has
often been put beyond tlie Missouri, whether
the civilization of the East has, ur does, or
would, in case of occasion, tolerate Indian
neicrhborliood with an elevating svnii)athy. Fn
his "Across tlie C(Uitinent," page 8, Mr. Samuel
Bowles makes this record : " The almost uni-
versal testimony of the border men is that
there can be no terms made witli the Indians.
The only wise policy, they aver, is extermina-
tion. This is dreadful, if true, but I cannot
believe it.** To s|)eak in round terms, we have
a curving frontier white belt IGOO miles long,
and 000 deep, and it is constantly moving on
and over Indian lands and reservations and
rights, inexorable and irresistable. To stop or
turn it would be like meddling with the stealthy
shadows of an eclipse. On this belt are
concentrated the capital of the old East,
and emigrants from all the old States. In-
terest in that capital, and sympathy for those
emigrants, are diffused through the Atlantic
half of the country. Under the teachings
and trailing influences of two hundred and
fifty years the western half of the country
has not civil and moral sympathy high enough,
any more than the old East had, to endure
the Indian as a neighbor, while they settle
near enough to cultivate covetousness for
32
THE Indian's side
his guaranteed lands. " So far have th'ese
forms of usui-i)ati()M been carried at times
in Kansas, that an Indian Reservation there
might be defined as that portion of the
soil of the State on which the Indians have
no rights whatsoever." ^
" It requires no deep knowledge of human
nature, and no very extensive knowledge of
congressional legislation, to assume that many
and powerful interests will oppose themselves
to a readjustment of the Indian tribes between
the Missouri and the Pacific, under the policy
of seclusion and non-intercourse. Railroad
enterprises and land enterprises of every
name will find any scheme that shall be
seriously proposed to be (juite the most ob-
jectionable of all that could be offered. Every
State, and every territory that aspires to be-
come a State, will strive to keep the Indians
as far as possible from its own borders : while
powerful combinations of speculators will
make their fight for the last acre of Indian
lands." 2
This was strong language for a government
official to use twelve years ago ; and yet the
facts have more than fulfilled the prediction,
1 "The Indian Question," by Francis A. Walker; pp.
77-78; 1874.
2 Do., pp. 119-120.
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
33
and results are far from honorable to the
tone of our supposed civilization. And the
intensity of language has hardly measured
the greed, the insatiable hunger for Indian
land. In explaining and defending his Indian
Severalty Bill, Mr. Dawes lias thus expressed
himself: "We are blind, we are deaf, we are
insane, if we do not take cognizance of the fact
that there are forces in this land driving on
this people with a determination to possess
every acre of their land; and they will lose it,
unless we work on, and declare that the original
owner of the land shall, before every acre disap-
pears from under him forever, have 160 acres
of it, when he shall be fitted to become a
citizen of the United States, and prepared
to bear the burdens as well as share the rights
of our governnent." ^
Section 3. — How much can the Government do ?
The Ordinance of the North-west Territory
made it the duty of the legislature " to ob-
serve the utmost good faith towards the In-
dians ; to protect their property, rights, and
liberty ; and to pass laws, founded in justice
^ Speech of Senator Dawes, Board of Indian Commis-
sioners, Mohawk Lake Conference, Oct. 13, 1886; " Eigh-
teenth Annual Report," p. 77.
■•^
34
THE INDIAN 8 SIDE
and humanity, for preventing wrongs being
done to them." In accordance with this Ordi-
nance, "The bill to prevent the introduction
of ardent spirits into the Indian towns was
passed, at the instance of the missionaries of
the Church of the United Bretliren. wlm had
made establishments, under authority ( f Con-
gress, at Shcenbrun, GnadenhUtten, and Salem,
on the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum
River, then in the County of Washington.
The Indians in those settlements liad been
Christianized, and had made considerable
progress in agriculture and the high arts.
But when the white people settled in their
neighborhood, and began to associate and
trade with them, whiskey was introduced into
their towns, as a profitable article of traffic.
The effect it was producing on their industry
and moral habits became alarming, and in-
duced the missionaries to apply to the General
Assembly for relief, who granted it promptly,
to the extent of the means in their power. . .
For a short time the law produced a good
effect, but as the white population increased
and approached nearer to the villages, it was
found impossible any longer to carry it into
execution. The result was tliat the Indiani^j
became habitually intemperate, idle, and faith-
less, the missionaries lost all their influence
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
85
over them, and eventually were constrained
to abandon the st'ttlenients in despair. '
In his message to the Territorial Assembl}'
of Ohio, in 1800, Governor St. Clair observed
that *' irresi)ective of the principles of religion
and justice, it was the interest and should be
the j)olicy of the United States to be at peace
with them ; but that could not continue to
be the case if tlie treaties existing between
them and the government were broken with
impunity by the inhabitants of the Territory.
He referred to the well known fact that while
the white men loudly complained of every in-
jury committed by the Indians, however tri-
fling, and demanded immediate reparation, they
were daily i)erpetrating against them injuries
and wrongs of the most provoking and atro-
cious nature, for which the perpetrators had
not been brought to justice. It was univer-
sally known that many of those unfortunate
people had been plundered and abused with
impunity. Among other things, the governor
stated that it would be criminal in him to
conceal the fact that the number of those
unfortunate people who had been murdered
since the peace of Greenville, was sul'licient
to produce serious alarm for the consequences.
^ " Notes on the Early Settlement of the North-west
Territory." By Jacob Burnet, pp. 211-12, 384.
fr^
36
THE INDIAN S SIDE
'M
He added fiirtlicr tliat Ji late attempt to
bring to j)Uiiisliiiien( a wliitc imjiii, \v1i(» had
killed two adults of the Six Nations, and
wounded two of their children, in Trumbull
County, proved abortive. Thouj^h the perpe-
tration of the honiifide was clearly i)roved,
and it appeared manifestly to have been com-
mitted with deliberate malice, the prisoner
was acquitted." ^
So far, and in these circumstances, the
government failed to protect the red man
against the white man. Government in the
United States is the voice of the j^eople, and
the people have decided against the Indian
when questions of e(|uity were involved. We
probablv never liad an army large enough, in
times of peace, to picket and protect them.
"From 1821 to 1828 inclusive, the writer
of these sketches [tassed through the latter
settlement (the Wyandots at Upper San-
dusky) almost every year, and occasionally
twice a year, which gave him an op{)ortunity
to know that the}^ were devoting themselves
principally, and almost exclusively, to agri-
culture and the arts, and were making rapid
advances in civilization, when the policy of
the government compelled them to abandon
1 Burnet's *' Notes on the North-west Territory," pp.
323-4.
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
87
their farms, dispose of their stock jind other
property iit ii j^'reiit sacrilice, and migrate to
the Far West/'i
Jiulgo Hiunet follows this fact with some
emineiitlv sensible remarks, and thev are as
pertinen^ to-day as they were in 18-') : *^lt is
not just to consider the natives of this country
as a distinct and inferior race because tiiey
do not generally imitate us, when we not
only remove every consideration that could
induce them to do so, but, in fact, render it
impossible. What motive of ambition was
there to stimulate them to effort, when they
were made to feel that they held their coun-
try as tenants at will, liable to be driven off
at the pleasure of their oppressors? As soon
as they were brought to a situation in whicli
necessity prom[)ted them to industry, and in-
duced them to begin to adopt our manners
and habits of life, the covetous eye of the
white man was fixed on their incipient im-
provements, and they received the chilling
notice that they must look elsewhere for per-
manent homes." ^
Unusual space has been given to these ex-
tracts from the Notes of Judge Burnet, for
two reasons. His olhcial duties called him
to a very wide range of country and of ob-
1 Burnet's *' Notes," pp. 386-7. ^ Burnet, pp. 388-9,
?!
ti
111
!i
■I :l|
i
I
I
s
1 1;;
I i
J i'
II
IJ i
1
i
I!
tl
I li
88-
THE INDIAN S SIDE
servatioii. For the North-west Territor}', in
wjiich he held court, embraced the present
areas of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and
Wisconsin , and when liis circuit took him
from Marietta to Detroit, 'le had opportunity
to see much of Indian life, and of border
white life. Moreover, in this vast territory
the government fairly illustrated its principles
and policies regarding the natives. The qual-
ity and rank of the writer would warrant us
also in regarding his observations and opin-
ions as given with a judicious fairness, ex-
tending, as they did, over about a third of
a century.
In one of his messages to the 23d Congress,
President Jackson has an idea of the remedy
for the dec lease of the Indians, while the rem-
edy which he offers is impossible of application.
He properly apprehends the fact that contact
with the whites is the destruction of the Indi-
ans, and proposes complete isolation, which of
course is impossible. '' The experience of every
year adds to the conviction that emigration [of
the Indians], and that alone, can preserve from
destruction the remnant of the tribes yet living
among us." Now, in the o[)ening of this new
Indian era, and the most liopeful one we have
ever had, we are confronted with the problem of
saving the Indians, not only without emigration.
I
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
39
I
I
but rather by a more total commingling with
the whites, in real estate ownership side by
side, and in mixed industries of a common and
equal American citizenship.
Under our present inquiry, How much the
Government can do for the preservation of the
Indian race, let refe'once be had to the fourth
chapter in this discussion, and to the fourth
section, under the title, Some Personal Inves-
tigations.
It is probably safe to say that the party ad-
ministration, whicli should emplo}^ to the con-
stitutional extent, the civil and military power
to enforce our Indian treaties, would not survive
to the succeeding presidential election. It is a
delusion to think of a power in this nation
separate from the people, and administering
what is called a government, wiiich is not the
will of the people. We have no such thing in
the United States, and every law unpopular
with the people is at the mercy of "local op-
tion " in the court room, if not at the polls.
The administration of Indian affairs has doubt-
less been in general accord with the wishes of
the people of the Great West, and they are more
than one half the population, and eight ninths
of the territory, dividing the whole country
into East and West; and there is a delusion in
making three parties — tlie people, the govern-
ii
?f
MM^NMMW "
!l
I
I
m
\
I
lii I
It 9
i> :
'
1
I I Ii:
40
THE INDIAN S SIDE
nient, and the Indians — and blaming the
government as a third party, for being faithless
to either or both the other parties. The ground
difficulty, in the Indian question, has probably
never been more comprehensively and truthfully
stated than by the aged Cherokee, above quoted,
the father of Catherine Brown, of missionary
fame. It was in 1818, and in Georgia. The
Cherokees were then starting off in farming, and
government promised them ample supplies, and
encouragement, and protection. But this bor-
der civilization crowded them, and government
offered them protection in Georgia, or a new
home in the Indian Territory. With a rare
foresight of the issues, and against advice of
missionaries, this old and gray-haii-ed Cherokee
concluded to go over the Mississippi to the
New Indian Territory, and gave as the reason :
" No Cherokee, or white man with a Chero-
kee family, can possibly live among such white
people as will first settle our country." ^
That agreed perfectly with Stanton's remark
to Bishop ^yhi[)ple. And indeed it is but the
repetition of what John Smith sjiid of the Vir-
ginia colony : " Much they blamed me for not
converting the savages, when those they sent
us were little better, if not worse." In speak-
ing of the destructive influence of frontier and
1 Tracy's " His. of the Am. Board," p. 76.
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
41
trading men on the Indians, llie ** Edinbiugh
Review " has this statement: —
"It has been tried by the French ; it lias been
tried by the Englisli ; and it has been tried by
the Americans ; and in every case the natives
have been swept away by war, disease, and
famine, and the whites have exhibited a fright-
ful mixture of all the vices of civilized and
savage life." ^
The ancient East, where the frontier faded
out long ago, can but poorly fancy the real bor-
der of to-day, where this Indian question is so
intensely and sometimes teriibly practical.
Hence the birth, on the Athmtic slope, of so
many visionary and sentimental and aesthetic
theories concerning it. In his admirable His-
tory of the Mississippi Valley, Monette outlines
the mixed border society of the two races, with
a painful fidelity. " The confines between the
white man and the savage present human na-
ture in its most revolting aspect. The white
man insensibly, and by necessity, adopts the
ferocity and the cruelty of his savage competi-
tor for the forests, and each is alternately
excited with a spirit of the most vinrlictive
revenge." ^
A case comparatively recent is liere in point.
» " Ed. Review," vol. Ixxxii. no. 165, 1845, p. 243.
« Vdl. ii. pp. 38, 39.
J
i \
I
42
THE Indian's side
In 1871-2, the Osages, living in Kansas, ex-
changed their hinds with government for a
reservation in the Indian Territory. When
they started for their new home, uncivilized
whites, some 500 of them, rushed ahead and
took the reservation, and compelled the Osages
to camp outside. The War Department ordered
them off, and political pressure prevented the
execution of the order till the year following,
when the troops found 1500 whites in posses-
sion of the Osage lands, and expelled them.
The decivilizing influences of frontier life,
and specially in mining and ranching districts,
and among those who are emigrant families in
the third generation from old colony days, are
beyond the comprehension of the staid, theo-
retic, and untravelled New Englander. Prai-
ries, valleys, and mountain ranges, that have
scant copies of the spelling-book, and that
seldom or never have echoed the sound of
church bells, are not apt to be intelligent and
clear-toned on equity, and treaties, and the
general rights of person and property and con-
science, regardless of race or color. A depot
is no perfect substitute for a school-room, or a
locomotive bell for a church bell, in carrying
civilization into a wild country and among men,
unfortunate for two or three generations, in the
means of literary, and civil and social eleva-
tion.
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
43
Of coursti ihe goverimieiit, as well as benev-
olent societies, has been pressed to make the
best possible show of their success in Indian
work. When on a visit to the Indian Territory,
in 1880, we attended their national fair at
Muskogee. It was, as one at the North, for a
show of the products of civilization in farming,
stock-raising, mechanics, and domestic indus-
tries. Excepting a very fine show by the ladies
in the latter, the whole was a surprise and dis-
appointment. Official reports of civil and be-
nevolent agents had raised our expectations
exceedingly beyond the reality.
A similar delusion was dispelled, with refer-
ence to the high educational tone among the
Cherokees. Their schools were fair, but it had
been impressed on us for years, by reports and
speeches, that this Indian tribe excelled the
most, if not all the States, in the rate of tax
per scholar which it furnished for the common
school. We found the case to be that, in the
sale of their Georgia lands by the United States,
our government wisely conditioned that 'VoO,000
of the income should be devoted annually to
schools. They therefore were not voting a
school tax for thi« amount, and its excess over
that in many white States, was no evidence of
an advanced civilization, or educational ambi-
tion.
^a
44
THE Indian's side
1 g!
I
i
i
Full iiclmission is made of all we have gainecl,
within a few years, in locating Indians on
reservations, renewing among them their an-
cient rudimental agriculture, introducing some
of the elements of education, securing some
Christian fruit, and imparting some of the
notions and practices of a crude civilization
into tlie Indian family and house. Of course
our greatest success, as our longest and most
exjjensive endeavor, has been among the Chero-
kees. But here, as will be shown in pages
following, we found them unwilling to add
tilth, and buildings, and fences, and wells, and
highways to land which they did not individu-
ally own, and which they expected to leave
under constraint and pressure. The}^ liad the
traditions, and some of the older ones had the
memories, of tlieir fatherland, east of the great
river.
Section. 4. — The Army and the Indian.
" Some Mormons who were crossing the
plains to Utah had a lame ox, which they
turned loose to die, and a camp of Indians
found and killed it, and made a feast. The
Mormons saw this in the distance, and, think-
ing they could secure payment, stopped at
Fort Laramie, and told the officer in command
the Indians had stolen their ox. The officer,
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
45
who was halt' dniiik, took some sohliers, went
to the Indian villiage, and demanded the ox.
The Indians said: ' We tiiought the wliite niiui
liad tnrncd him loose to die. We have eaten
the ox ; if the white uian want pay for him,
von shall have it ont of our next annnitv.'
' No,' said the (h'linken officer, ' I want the
ox, and, if you do not return him, I will
fire upon you.' He did fire on them, and
killed a chief. The Indians rallied, and
exterminated the command. That war cost
one million dollars. ' ^ For a generation the
Sioux, who were thus outraged, had been the
devotcMl friends of our government. How
much better the kind and vdse counsel of
Jefferson : " The most economical as well as
most humane conduct towards them is to bribe
them into peace, and retain them in peace by
eternal bribes." ^
An army among the uncivilized is not a
civilizing but a conquering, humiliating force ;
and ordinarily it does not generate the soften-
ing, genial, and elevating qualities, wliich we
group under the term civilization. While it
has its uses, as organized physical force, to
hold savagery in check, and to throw pro-
^ " Guide to the Northern Pacific Railroad," by Henry I.
Winser, 1888, p. 02.
'^ Letter to Charles Carroll, April, 1791.
I
h
:
46
•»..
THE INDTAN'S SIDE
tection over rights wliich have migrated be-
yond the borders of (jivil jurisdiction, it is
not aggressive in the introduction of the
civil and social and industrial and moral
qualities which constitivte the foundations of
society. While our frontier army lias found
the Indians simi)ly gregarious, it has succeeded
mainly, in gatliering tliem in corrals to be
fed.
Nor are the United States alone in this
policy of so using a national army among in-
ferior and barbarous peoples. It is poor credit
to the civilized nations that they do not
elevate the people whom they subdue, and
])reserve their separateness and automony.
Subjection is followed by denationalization,
and absorption ends in extinction. Of the de-
pendencies which Great Britain has had, —
forty and more even yet, — development into
separateness has been allowed only in the case
of the thirteen American colonies, and then
from inability to do otherwise. And neither
France nor Spain, nor, indeed, any Europeaii
government, has ever become the willing
mother of a nation. Their complex prob-
lem in Asia and Africa is, api)arently, how
not to do it.
Nor must this be taken as reproach to tlie
military. The army is organized, educated.
I
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
and a|)plied physical Unite, and is not to be
reproached for not aL'C()in[)lisl)iiig what it is
neither adapted nor designed to produce.
Like produces like, (jeneral Custer's reflec-
tions, therefore, are apt and sensible from the
base line of an army, and from the tone and
scope of the education of a gallant soldier,
as he was : —
" M}^ tirm conviction, based upon an inti-
mate and thorough analysis of the habits of
cliaracter, and native instinct of tlie Indian,
and strengtliened and sup})()rted by the almost
unanimous opinion of all persons who have
made the Indian [)robleni a study, and have
studied it, not from a distance, but in immedi-
ate contact with all the facts bearing there-
upon, is, that the Indian cannot be elevated
to that great level where he can be induced to
adopt any policy or mode of life, varying from
those to which he has ever been accustomed,
by any method of teaching, argument, reason-
ing, or coaxing, which is not preceded and
followed closely in reserve by a superior physi-
cal force. In other w^ords the Indian is capable
of recognizing no controlling influence but that
of stern arbitrary power." ^
On this theorv the armv must be ruled
out as a constructing and elevating power
1 "Life ou the Plains."
J-F-
48
THE INDIAN S SIDE
i;
i
to bring the Indian up to a fair citizenship
and manhood. " Stern arbitrary power " can-
not accomplish tiiat. One of the difficulties, and
a strong one, in the way of securing tiie ends of
the Dawes bill, is that this sentiment, naturally
common to the frontier where the civil and moral
code have not become prominent and patronized
by the army, as in their line of work, holds sway,
and puts the Indian beyond the range of the
ordinary civilizing forces. The army has its
place and W(n'k on the border, but the tactics
of West Point are not adequate to the emer-
gencies of the Indian Problem.
Section 5. — The Courts as Protectors of the
Indian Rights.
Much reliance is placed on the United States
laws and courts to secure justice to the wards
of the government. A careful, hesitating con-
fidence here will be the wiser course. Law is
not a leader of public sentiment or a reformer,
but only the legislative utterance of public
opinion, and of a reform gained. Law is the
will of the people in print. It is the ratchet
on the wheel, and will hold only, and not turn,
or pull, or lift. If the States and Territories,
where the Indians are, do not wish them to
remain there. Congress is impotent, and the
courts are powerless.
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
49
In some cases in the East, where prejudice
or passion runs strong, the trial is moved to
some distant section, where the jury and court
may be presumed to be less biassed, or, as is
said, the venue is chini<]^ed. In a case for Indian
justice, arising as far west as Coh)rado or Wy-
oming, the venue would need to be changed to
a county east of the Mississippi, if not of the
Alleghanies.
In tlie Indian Territory, legislation and the
courts have illustrated tlie protection of the
Indian by hiw. Cases arising between Indians
thev handle themselves ; cases between In-
dians and whites go to a United States court
in Arkansas. The Indian Commissioner, for
1874, however, says : '^ Lawlessness and vio-
lence still continue in the Indian Territory. . . .
All efforts on the part of the Indians to es-
tablish a orovernment have failed. Such ad-
ministration of tlie law in this country, as is
possible through the United States District
Courts of Arkansas, scarcelv deserves the
name. Practically, therefore, we have a coun-
try embracing 62,253 scpiare miles, inhabited
by moi'e than 75,000 souls, including 50,000
civilized Indians, without the protection of
law, and not infrequently the scene of vio-
lence and wrong." ^
1 "Report," 1874, pp. 11, 12.
I
f
50
THE INDIAN S SIDE
In 1880, tliis case was detailed tliere, to the
writer, as of recent date. A white man so
cnt an Indian in a qnarrel that he was bleed-
ing to death. A surgeon was called, who said
he could save his life, but declined to do ser-
vice, or see the patient, and so let the Indian
die. His reasons for refusal were that the
case would annoy him by a long, distant, and
expensive absence at Fort Smith, in Arkansas,
as a witness against a white man ; and on his
return his life would be in great peril, for
testifying for an Indian against a white man.
In the Report of the Commissioner, for 1880,
Mr. Walker strongly urges additional legisla-
tion for the Indian Territory, to protect the
property, and virtue, and person of the In-
dians. If, in that compact b(jdy of 75,000, so
immediately under the United States, the ad-
ministration of law "scarcely deserves the
name," how must it now be in the small and
isolated reservations, hemmed in by semi-civ-
ilized and hostile white borders? Will citi-
zenship and land in severalty carry there any-
thing more than the shadow of titles, when
the new theory is put in practice ? Will there
not be needed, indispensable to success, an
element of power underneath, outside and co-
working, which cannot emanate from Wash-
ington ?
f
I
11 >
•.w r-'-.:
'
OF THE INDIAN QCJESTrON.
51
All IiidicUi can liuve hut ii poor show in
court in the region where such facts are nian-
utactured as constitute the hody of this vol-
ume. It would not be a case of law and
evidence, hut of sentiment.
Commissioner Walker makes a statement,
pertinent here, and deduced from wide obser-
vation : '' The principle of secluding Indians
from whites, for the good of both races, is
established by an overwhelming preponder-
ance of authority." ^
But the time is passed for Indian residence
beyond the reach of white men. From colo-
nial times, the Americans were always seeking
for lands and fortunes beyond uiie last village,
and highway, and lone cabin. Nearer to the
horizon has been the passion and watchword, till
trails have gone everywhere across the prairies,
and the blazed trees have marked the bridle-
paths through all forests and over all mountains.
The Indians cannot be secluded from the
65,000,000 of whites in this country.
Section 6. — Eiicouragerneyit- lies in Broader
Work.
It is expecting very much to see the strong
current, so long adverse, turn favorably and
popularly for the poor Indian. Yet the pros-
1 " ^„aian Question," p. 63.
li
lii
Hi:
f *"
i
I
I i'
n i ■
fftj:
52
TFIE INDIAN S SIDK
pect is favorable. Tlie revival of the Tndiaii
question is ({iiite general, tlie study of it
broader than ever before, and the discover}?
and admission of our national mistakes have
been well made. In order now to the best
chance for success, it remains to see and con-
fess thtit much of the failure lies in the im-
perfect white civilization, bordering on the
Indians. We cannot reach the Indians with-
out those whites, and we cannot civilize them
with such whites. The humiliating declara-
tion of the old Cherokee must be kept in
sight : '' No Indian can possibly live among
such white people as will first settle our
countrj^"
A more thorough policy and process of white
civilization on the border must precede a mure
successful Indian civilization. Fur evidently
a higher Christian tone in border life is indis-
pensable to turn the tide and stay this mortify-
ing failure. In our marvellous interior growth,
educating and Christian influences have not
been made to keep abreast of our immigration
and agricultural and mining and rfdlroad
development. For nearly forty years we have
had mining regions, and for twenty years they
have been many times the area of New Eng-
land, with their beginnings of cities and States,
into which educating and Christianizing forces
OF TTTE INDIAN QTTESTTON.
53
have moved much later, and are still moving in
tardil)'. All these were white centres in the
Indian country. The early neglect of these,
because they did not furnish pleasant openings
and calls to benevolent and civilizing work,
has liad much to do in loading down the
Indian question with difficulties and dishonors.
It is no comfortable thing to be said or seeji or
inferred, that American Christianity does not
keep pace with American capital and immigra-
tion and industrial energies, as the nation
moves west.
This whole inquiry shows a failure to pre-
serve and locate permanently and civilize the
Indians, through a lack of moral element on the
white border. The government has not been
able to keep its faith and honor in dealing with
them, since the people, whose voice the gov-
ernment is, have not toned up the govern-
ment, and strengthened it morally to bear
the liand of equity to the red inan. Oifr new
and semi-Indian country, always in the major-
ity, has shaped the Indian |)()licy, while we
have failed to mould that country for the high-
est civil and religious ends. For one of two
inferences is irresistible, — either American
Christianity is not adefpiate to civilize the
Indians, or we have not properly api)lied it.
Apparently the failure has been to civilize and
... *r>
ill
il
54
THE INDIAN S SIDE
1 I
Christianize the white border to sucli an extent
as to secure its moral respect and toleration for
an Indian reservation, which the faith of the
government has guaranteed.
Now, at this late day of disaster, to give
citizenship and land in severalty to the Indian,
without touching the cause of so much degra-
dation at white hands, will be still to delude
and degrade with shadows of better name and
a gilding. Probably the best thing to be done
for the Indian is to give him a ;;indified citizen-
ship, and land in fee-simple under stringent and
guarding conditions. Yet these gifts will
prove a peril and a mockery if not acc()m[)anied
by the elevating influences wliicli white neigh-
bors have failed to furnish. Wliile the Amer-
ican church is able to reconstruct the religions
of the old world, and make civilized nations out
of pagan ones, it will expose her administra-
tion of Christianity to grave criticism by later
historians if she has not been willing to save
the native races of her own country from ex-
tinction.
With a steady failure, for 250 years, to per-
petuate the Indian tribes, and to civilize, edu-
cate, and Christianize them ; witli but a liumil-
iating success in engrafting on the Indian
stock the industries of the whites; witli a
progressive and almost total extinction of
I
■>i!
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
55
Indian titles, and absorption of Indian lands
westward to the Mississippi ; with this fron-
tier tone toward the Indian, and with this kind
of white civilization that borders the Indian
belt and reservations — will citizenship and
lands in severalty prove sufticient remedies?
It is sometimes one half of the victory about
to be won to-day, to have discovered where
we failed yesterday ; and sometimes it is like
doubling our forces to ascertain the weakest
place in the lines of the enemy. We start off
with much of hoi)e and confidence in this new
movement for Indian civilization after having
gained the secret of our failures hitherto. The
environment, the ah extra conditions of this race,
liave foreordained the neutralization and failure
of our endeavors. For we will not admit that
our common Christianity and our American
civilization properly applied cannot make a fair
Christian and a fair citizen out of an American
Indian.
I
56
THE INDIAN S SIDE
i
i.
t
f^
CHAPTER II.
THE CHEROKEE EXPERIMENT. THE RESERVA-
TION SYSTEM A FAILURE.
One case is worth two theories on the Indian
question, and if a century of trials has not
made it evident what we can do with the
aborigines, it has shown conclusively that cer-
tain things cannot be done. Pj'obably a better
case could not be selected to illustrate our
successes and failures with the Indian than the
Cherokee, since the government and our benev-
olent societies have had this tribe on hand
longer than any other, and with more liberal
expense, and through and around them have
tested so many legal questions and civil and
social problems of Indian and white neighbor-
hood. A few facts will present the Cherokee
experiment.
Section 1. — Lidian Farmers among White
Farmers.
The original and first claim on the soil in
North America is an Indian right to occupation
and use. In the sixteen treaties of the United
States with the Cherokees, this claim was cou^
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
57
ceded to them and respected by onr goveni-
nieiit. The first five Presidents rested treaties
with the Indians on this chiini. In the fifteenth
with the Cherokees, 1817, wliicli sti[)uhited for
their going over the Mississi})[)i, this was the
eighth article : '' To every head of an Indian
faniilv, residino- on the Lands ceded bv the
Cherokees in this treaty, shall be allowed a
section of land, that is, 640 acres, provided he
wishes- 'U remain on the land thns ceded, and
to become a citizen of the United States. He
shall hold a life estate, with a right of dower
to his widow, and shall leave the land in fee-
simple to his children."
The State of Georgia claimed from Colonial
rights the lands west of her present limits to
the Mississippi, that is, the present territory of
Alabama and Mississi[)pi. Large tracts in this
western claim she sold, then repealed the law
under which the sale was made, and declared
the titles of sale void. The case went to the
Supreme Court, which ruled that the State
must indemnify the purchasers. The '' Yazoo
fraud," so called, is a long story. Suffice it to
say, Georgia ceded to the United States all her
right, title, and claim to what is now the terri-
tory of those two States, and the United States
promised, in return, ^1,250,000, from the first
net proceeds from the sale of these lands.
w
1^1
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^ II'
' li-
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58
THE Indian's side
This was not in pc^ynient for the land, or for
any claim on it, but " as a consideration for
the expenses incurred by the said State, in re-
lation to the said territory." It was also stipu-
lated that '' The United States shall, at their
own expense, extinguish, for the use of Georgia,
as early as the same can be peaceably obtained,
on reasonable terms, . . . the Indian title to
all lands within the State of Georgia." Such,
for substance to our purpose, was " the compact
of 1802," so called.
It would seem that the Cherokees had pos-
sessed, in Colonial days, " more than half of the
State of Tennessee, the southern part of Ken-
tucky, the southwest corner of Virginia, a con-
siderable portion of both the Carolinas, a small
portion of Georgia, and the northern part of
Alabama." Here were about 35,000,000 acres,
more than seven times the area of Massachu-
setts. Beirween 1783 and 1820 they quit-
claimed more than three fourths of this to the
United States, and then declined to sell more.
Of the balance, 5,000,000 acres were claimed
by Georgia, as within her State limits, and in
that claim and its outcome the "Cherokee
Question " took on its troublesome features,
mortifying and humiliating to the United States,
disheartening and decivilizing to the Cherokees,
and ominously, painfully prophetic to all our
Indian tribes.
Il !1
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
59
By tlie compact of 1802 the United States
had promised to extinguish the Indian title in
Georgia at as early a date a it could be do 'C
peaceably, yet if the natives preferred to remai, .
there was nothing in any treaty or precedent of
the government that could force their removal.
They could remain from generation to genera-
tion. Moreover, in the treaty of Holston,
eleven years before, was this article : '' That the
Cherokee nation may be led to a greater degree
of civilization, and to become herdsmen and
cultivators, instead of remaining in a state of
hunters, the United States will, from time to
time, furnish, gratuitously, the said nation
with useful implements of husbandry; and fur-
ther to assist the said nation in so desirable a
pursuit," etc.
It is quite evident that the government was
sincere, and more or less active, in its earlier
days, to civilize the Indians and retain them
permanently on their old and reserved hunting-
grounds. The Delaware treaty, in 1778, even
contemplated an Indian State, with its repre-
sentative in Congress, and the twelfth article
of the Hopewell treaty, 1785, says : " They
shall have a right to send a deputy of their
own, whenever they think fit, to Congress."
The Delawares are now in the Indian Terri-
tory ; they numbered 71 souls in 1885, and are
I '
H-f
60
THE Indian's ride
li
coinbiiiod witli eight or ten tribes under one
jigency. There ore, tlie Clierokees were en-
conniged and aided l)v the fjovernnient and bv
benevolent societies to develoi) agriculture,
l)lant towns, establish a S3'stem of laws, found
schools and churches ; in brief, do just what is
l)eing done to-day for the Indians. With a
full faith in the wishes and promises of the
government, the Clierokees made quite as much
advance in these lines as could be expected.
They began to dispose of their lands in order
to lessen the range of hunting-ground, and take
on agricultural limits as well as pursuits. They
welcomed secular and religious teachers, and
agriculture, education, and religion carried
them upward, so that in 1808 a teacher, ap-
pointed by the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church, reported : " The period
has at last arrived on which I have long
fixed my eager eye. The Cherokee nation
has, at length, determined to become men
and citizens. A few day^ ago, in full council,
they adopted a constitution, which embraces a
simple principle of government. The legisla-
tive and judicial powers are vested in a general
council, and lesser ones subordinate. All crim-
inal accusations must be .established by testi-
mony." ^
1 *' His. of Am. Board," p. 68,
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
61
Section 2. — Mixed Socief// : The civUlzuKj
Indian : the tvild Indian : the hostile White
Man.
It was quite natural tliat a portion of the
tribe should prefer to continue the free, lazy,
and wild hunter-life of their ancestry and
childhood. A delegation to Washington drew
a dividing line. The Upper Towns asked
for a permanent allotment of their propor-
tion of the lands, that they might settle
down in perpetuity in their old homes and
new farms in Georgia, and follow a civilized
life. The Lower Towns asked for an exchange
of their proportion of land for new homes
beyond the Mississippi, where they could in-
dulge, without molestation, their hereditary
passion for the wigwam and the chase.
It was easy for the government to send ex-
plorers, as it did, to select wild lands for the
Lower Towns in the remote West, but the
welcome evidence of a growing civilization,
and a disinclination of two thirds of the tribe
to leave Georgia, annoyed the citizens and
perplexed the general government, as it was
obligated to remove them as early as it could
be done amicably. The theory of the govern-
ment was to civilize and establish them where
they were, while the Holstou treaty and Geor-
;:.?
62
THE INDIAN 8 SIDE
I
i
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I
gia contemplated their ultimate removal. The
l)erplexity of the govenuneiit was the greater,
since the ciyilizing agencies and inilucnces
that were lifting the Cherokees toward in-
telligent and thrifty citizenship were from
abroad. The State of Georgia and the white
neighborhood of these natives were not aiding
and abetting in this work. While the Indian
farms and growing villages were in the wilds of
her interior or borders, that State was indiffer-
ent to what foreign benevolence was doing
within her boundaries. So the colony of
Oglethorpe began to fall into line, with all
the older ones, in the consent that Indian
farming is a good theory, and an Indian farm
a good thing — afar off. The nearer they came
to being " persons of industry and capable of
managing their property with discretion," — as
many were recognized and named in the Calhoun
treaty of 1819, when one square mile was se-
cured in fee-simple to each of those, — the more
unwelcome they were to the whites.
In this divided public sentiment and sym-
pathy on the Indian question, the general
government adopted a divided policy, which
is quite natural where the people rule. They
provided for those who would go, and for
those who would stay, and progress was made
only as fast as white settlements and specula-
I
OF THE INDIAN QUKSTION.
63
tive land interests advjinced on the reserva-
tions.
The Cherokees did not show them-
selves unwilling to sell their hinds so long as
an iideiiuate motive was ]>resenced to their
nunds
I)
urinor ever
y
ad
ministration of our
national government, applications were made
to them for the purpose of obtaining achlitional
portions of their territory. These ap[)lications
were urged, not only nor principally by the
consideration of the money or presents which
they were to receive in exchange, but often
and strongly by the consideration that they
would become an agricultural people, like the
whites ; that it was for their interest to have
their limits circumscribed, so that their young
men could not have a great extent of country to
hunt in ; and that, when they became attached
to the soil, and engaged in its cultivation, the
United States would not ask them to sell any
more land. Yielding to these arguments, and
to the importunities of the whites, the Chero-
kees sold, at different times, between the close
of the T 3Volutionary War and the year 1820,
more than three quarters of their original inher-
itance." ^
Indian matters lingered and progressed, and
1 "William Penii on the Indian Crisis," 1829, p. 8, — an
adniiiablo pamphlet of twenty-four letters from "The
National Intelligencer."
I !
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64
THE INDIAN S HIDE
white settleiueiits in Cieor^ia lulv.iuced, and
land speculators and Indian men sliuwed in-
creased activity.
On the 8th of 'Hily. 1817, a most important
treaty was arranged with tin; Clierokees, well
illustrating those wliite pressures on Indian
reservations that have gone grinding over them
like Arctic ice-floes over capes a;nd islands
and Eskimo huts. It ceded large tracts of
land to the United States, provided for a census
of the Cherokees who preferred to go over the
Mississii)pi, divided the annuities in ratio be-
tween those remaining and those going, granted
land, acre tor acre, beyond the Misssissii)pi to
those who might leave, paid for improvements
on lands left by the emigrants, and ceded, se-
cured, in fee-simple, 640 acres to every head of
an Indian family who preferred to remain where
he then resided within any large ceded tract,
and to become a citizen of the United States,
reatlirmed all previous treaties with the Chero-
kees, and provided flat-binit transportation and
provisions to the emigrating party. This treaty
is signed by Andrew Jackson and other com-
missioners, and by thirty-one chiefs and war-
riors of the party who were to remain, and by
fifteen of those of the party who were to emi-
grate.
As to the quality and condition of those
!
OF THE INDIAN QirKSTION.
65
who then went over the Mississippi and set-
tled in the recently omanizcd Indian 'J'eiri-
torv, one statement will illustrate. Si»oaking
of the Chei'okees aloni,' the Arl msas and
below Mnlbeny River, Major Long says:
'* These settlements, in respect to the com-
forts and con vci deuces of life they afford, ap-
pear to vie witli, and in many instances even
surpass thos(? of the iVmericcvUS in that [)art of
tiie country." •
In 1819 one more treaty was made with the
^herokees. Its [)reand)le states the fact that
*' the greater part of the Cherokee nation have
expressed an earnest desire to remain on this
side of the Mississippi," and wish " to com-
mence those measures which they deem neces-
sary to the civilization and preservation of
their nation." The treaty is mostly a provis-
ion of ways and means for carrying out the
preceding one, and also sets apart 100,000
acres of the ceded territory for school pur-
poses on the unceded, assigns one thiixl of the
annuities to the emigi-ating body, and forbids
whites to enter on the ceded lands prior to
January 1, 1820.
1 Long's "Expedition from Pittsburg to the Rocky
Mountains," 1819-20 ; vol. ii. p. 347.
I-. u.-l
■mi
li iMK ii tfliiM i
mmemasss^s&
L'tfgagsar'r.'s:!'^*-
66
THE INDIAN S SIDE
Section 3. — Lidian Civilization Adjourned,
Meanwhile the emigrating ones took up their
sad journey toward the setting sun, after the
usage of all red men since white men settled
on the Atlantic coast. Of course it may be
said, in technical and strictly legal phrase, that
they went freely, yet the emigration was origi-
nated and consummated by the most over-
bearing forces known to civil and social life.
Extracts from missionary records will suggest
the painful and humiliati'ig facts.
"Nov. 4, 1818. The parents of Catherine
Brown called on us. The old gray-headed
man, with tears in his eyes, said be mast go
over the Mississij)pi. The white people would
not suffer him to live here. Tliey had stolen
his cattle, horses, and hogs, until be had very
little left. He expected to return from the
agency in about ten days, and should then
want Catherine to go hon)e and prepare to
go with him to the Arkansas. . . . These
people consider the ofi'ev of taking reserves,
and becoming citizens of the United States,
as of no service to them. They know they are
not to be admitted to the riglits of freemen,
or the privilege of their oath, and say no Cher-
okee, or white man with a Cherokee family,
I
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
67
!l
f'
L
can possibly live aiiioiig such white people as
will first settle this country.
**Nov. 28. The great talk, for which the
people began to assemble on the 20th of Octo-
ber, was closed yesterday. The United States
commissioners i)roposed to the Cherokees an
entire ch.mge of country, except such as chose
to take reserves, and come under the g(nern-
ment of the United States. This [)ropositio!i
they unanimously rejected, and continued to
reject, as often as repeated, urging that the
late treaty might be closed as soon as possible.
Nothing was done." ^
One other treaty, and onlj- one, was formed
with the Cherokees of Georgia. We have
alreadv outlined it, — the one of 1810. After
this the citizens of Georgia, and politicians 'uid
speculators outside, at Washington and else-
where, struggled, by various expedients, to
reopen negotiations for the extinguishing of
more Indian title and the removal of more
Indians, but in vain. They pressed Congress
for appropriations to aid in reopening — a
white man's bargain with red men is very
expensive ; the entire administration of Mr.
Monroe was teased for this pur[)Ose ; but
chiefs and warriors, at home and at Wasliing-
toix. refused energetically. They declared in
I " His. of Am. Board," p. 75.
HI
If
68
THE INDIAN S SIDE
\m
writing that the treasury of the United States
liad not money enough to buy anotlier foot of
Cherokee land, (jreorgia, ini[)atient of the gov-
ernment dehiy and failure, and tr3'ing for several
years to reopen treaty negotiations with the
Indians for the rest of their hinds within the
State, and obtainino- onlv the stern refusal to
sell more, lirst u[)braids the g(jvernment for not
making another treaty and procuring the rest
of the Indian lands, and then takes the ground
that the Indian tribes are in no such sense a
nation as that a tr^^aty can be formed with them,
and that no treaty proper has been formed
with them by the general government, or is
necessary in order to remove them and take
possession of their hinds; that prior to the
compact of 1802 Georgia, by her own right as
a sovereign State, could have taken those lands
either by negotiation or force, as she might
elect, but consented to have t.he g^eneral m)Y-
ernment do it at government expense. This
was in 1827.
m
Section 4. — Indian Civilization Fatal! f/ Struck.
In the following year this law was passed
by the Legislature of Georgia, and approved :
''That all laws, usages, ai"^ customs, made,
established, and in force in the said territory,
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
69
by tlie said Cherokee Iiuliaiis, be, and the same
are liereby, on and after the first day of June,
1830, declared null and voi<l ;
"That no Indian, or descendant of an Ind-
ian, residing within the Creek or Cherokee
nations of Indians, shall l)e deemed a compe-
tent witness, or a party to any suit, in any
court created bv the Constitution or laws of this
State, to which a white man may be a party."
This law did two things. Tt disbanded and
dissolved the Cherokee nation as a civil
organization. Its elections, lecjislature, courts,
and all other civil })rocoeding of government
were made null and void. It })ut the Chero-
kee tribe under another government as totally
as if they had been kidnapped ; and it so out-
lawed them as to deny them a standing in the
courts of Georgia, except as crhninals. From
time immemorial, under both king and presi-
dent, they had been subject to no jurisdiction
but their own. This iron foot of Georgia
crushed barbarously through all their machin-
€r3' of government, and ainiihilate'd their prop-
erty, by first destroying the laws under which
they had acquired it, and then thrnst-
ino- them under a iz'overnment that ignored
them and alienated it. The nvowed pur])ose
was to ^ vpel them from lands that were their
own before Columbus saw America.
70
THE INDIA N\S SIDE
The issue is now complete, nnd tlie three
parties have made it triangiihiv. The general
government has promised to cxtinguisli tlie
title to all Indian lands in CJeorgia. and for the
use of that State, "as earlv as the same can
be peaceably obtained, on i'eas()nal)le terms/'
The title to about three fourths had })een so
extinguished, and about 6,000,000 of acres re-
mained in Indian title. 'I'his \yas secured to
the Cherokees, till they should be willing to
quitclaim it, mider an older treat}', in which
the government say tliey "will continue the
guarantee of the remainder of their country
forever." The Cherokees, as the second party,
after a month's discussion, and in much
warmth, have vigorously determined to sell
no more land. Then Georgia, seeing the
failure of the government, and the refusal of
the Indians, and after tryino- seven years to
overcome the inability of the one and the un-
willingness of the other, formally declares, in
her Legislature, that "it is un(|uestionably
true, that, under such circumstance, force be-
comes right." Then, in her own sovereignty,
she declares the Indian title null and void,
breaks up their government, tramples on their
young civilization, treats them as tenants at
will, and orders them out of the country.
As we have now to do with facts and not
i
i
OF THE INDIAN QUKSTION.
71
feelings, we glide along to results. This was
a good time for our nation to make a move
upward to that highest grade of national honor,
wliich develops in a sacred regard for treaty
obligations, into the assuming of which Hamil-
ton, in the seventy-fifth nun)ber of the "Fed-
eralist " says there enters "a nice and uniform
sensibility to national honor." From iirst to
last the United States had said to all her
Indian wards what she said in the treaty of
Holston, 1791 : •' The United States solemidy
guarantee to the Cherokee nation all their
lands, not hereby ceded." The government
was solemnly pledged to stand between them
and fraud and violence. If treaty and policy
and })romise and growth may not be sustained
here, can the government make a stand any-
where for the Indians within or beyond the
Rocky Mountains?
If tlie antii)athies of race and color and
semi-civilization and o-reed of land mav break
through here, can American civilization and
the xVmerican administration of Christianity
set an irresistible barrier anvwhere else between
the Mississippi and the Pacific? If the Indian
must here see all equity and treaty and pledge
and promising civilization blotted out, can he
ever, in the future, trust in the government, or
hope for a permanent home, or labor heartily to
llJI
ill
i •;
72
THE INDIAN S SIDE
obtain a white injin's civiliziitioii ? All these
questions stood aroiuul the Speaker's table in
the Georgia Legislature on that ominous De-
cember 20, 1828.
Section 5. — Border White Men Superior to
the United States.
But national honor, treaties, government,
and benevolent plans for elevating the aboi-
igines, the reservation theory, a germiiiant and
promising civilization, the flattering and invigo-
rating anticipations of the red man, — all were
swept away by that December vote, and the
winter of their discontent set in on the
Indians.
They appealed to the Secretary of War that
they be protected in the possession of their
land and government, according to national
guarantee, now forty years old, and reafHrmed
in six separate treaties. The reply is made
through the Secretary, and under direction of
the President, ''that no remedy can be per-
ceived, except that which frequently heretofore
has been submitted to your consideration, — a
removal beyond the Mississippi, where alone
can be assured to you protection and peace.''
. . . They must "yield to the operation of
those laws which Georgia claims and has a
'
V\ i
nn
W
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
78
'
right to extend t]irouprh{>nt lier own limits, or
to remove beyond tlie Mississippi, . . . carry-
ing along with yon that protection which,
there situated, it will be in the power of the
government to extend." ^
In order to dispossess and remove the Ind-
iaiis, the plan was matured by (leorgia to seize
all their lands, divide them into ])arcels of 140
acres each, and dispose of them by lottery.
The scheme appealed well to the speculator
and demao(.o;ue and border white man. Natu-
rally the missionaries would be in the way in
executing this i)rogramme, and a. law was
passed for the pur])ose of expelling them, and
under it thev were cast into the i)enitentiarv,
and the missions broken up. With great in-
dignities and severity and cruelty, these men of
God were chained to each other by the ankle
in pairs, or, with chain and padlock on the
neck, were made fast to a horse or cart, and so
compelled, on foot, to traverse rough and wild
ways, some of them even fifty miles. Tliey ap-
pealed to the President for relief, but he de-
clined to interfere, on the ground that Georgia
was sovereign for all such matters within her
own bounuaries. Tlie case went to the Su-
j)reme Court, when Chit^f Justice Marsluill
declared the act of Georgia, in extending^ her
1 " Records of the Department of War,'" April 18, 1829.
, )
!
74
THE INDIAN'S SIDE
I ;
jurisdiction over the Cherokee lands, repugnant
to the Constitution, treaties, and hiws of tlie
United States, and therefore null and void, and
ordered the discharge of the nussi(»naries. The
Georgia court refused the mandate, and so set
the United States Supreme Court at defiance.
Afterward the Legislature repealed the uncon-
stitutional law. After much ao-grnwatinof dehiy,
and the cultivation of '• nuUilication,*' the mis-
sionaries were discharged, yet with great lack
of dignity and manliness on the part of tlie
authorities. This was in 1833. A short time
before, Webster had made his remarkable
speech against nuUiiication, but Georgia was
still affected somewhat with that political
heresy.
Section 6. — The Sad Journey of Sixteen
Thousand into Exile.
Prior to tliis, and meanwhile, the work went
on of despoiling the poor Cherokees. Tlie
lottery was drawn in the autumn of 183:2,
amid the revels of whiskev and debaucherv,
in which man}" good Cherokees stumbled,
being abandoned of the general government
and disheartened. The removal was mainly
in 1838, and the number about 10,000. Thev
persistently refused to go unless forced, yet
said they would not resist. Some thousands
OF THK INDIAN QUI'^STION.
75
of United Stales troops went into tlieir coun-
try, inulei' Oeneral Sc(jtt, and began the work
by making prisoners of single families, and
thus gathering them into gron[»s. l'\)urteen
eani}) divisions were made, and linally ilie sad
march began. Ten months from the time
they began to l)e gathered, this sad e\'0(bis
commenced. The distance was about 70U
miles, and the time was four to live months.
Credit is given for good management and
kindness in the sorr(>wful work, vet in the
removal a])out 4000 sunk under the trials,
— about one in four of the whole number
died. ** Their sni'ferings were greatly aggra-
vated by the conduct of lawless Georgians,
who rushed lavenously into the country, seized
the property of Cherokees, as soon as they
were arrested, appropriated it to their own
use, or sold it for a trifle to each other before
the eyes of its owners ; thus reducing even
the rich to absolute indigence, and depriving
families of comforts which they were about to
need in their long and melancholy march." ^
We follow these wanderers and exiles from
the white settlements with an intense sympa-
thy and suspense. They have gone over the
Mississippi, not merely under the i)ressure of
Georgia, or of one President, or Secretary of
1 " His. Aui. Board," p. 372.
t'
i
«i
m
i1f
76
THK INDIAN S SIDE
War. 'J'akiiig the in(»st apologetic or sectional
view of the case that can be taken, the re-
moval, excepting (.'crtain atrocities in it, was a
national removal, and, under the chronic pres-
sure of two centuries. Congress indorsed it as
the voice of tne people, and in the line of an
old adopted polic}'. Sharper points in that
p(jlicy were then developed, but they were
sustained. The opposition to them came from
the older States, from which the Indians had
been mostly removed, but the newer States, —
through which there were yet scattered rem-
nants of tribes, — and our border life and the
wilder elements of the frontier prevailed. In
lonpr sti'u^wles over Indian issues these have
always carried a majority. Neither Georgia,
therefore, nor that Congress or administration
is to be reproached preeminently. The}' were
only an index, for the time, of a national
spirit that two thirds of the country has some-
how always nuule predominant.
I
Section 7. — Another Morning Overclouded.
But let us follow up the Jiew experiment,
inaugurated by the completion of the Chero-
kee removal in lo38. A reservation was as-
signed to them that now appears to be 7861
^1
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
77
square miles, — nearly as large as Massachu-
setts. Scliools and Indian agents, churches
and ploughs, and human symj)alhics folh/wed
them ; also, white emigration, and speculators
in wild lands, race prejudii-es, and whiskey,
and semi-civilization. Into that total Indian
Territory of 02,253 square idles, — -nearly as
large as eight States like Massachusetts, — and
around the Cherokees, the government has
h)cated about forty tribes. Around this Ter-
ritory we liave also located — and since it was
set apart for the Indians — tiie States of Mis-
souri, Arkansas, Texas, and Kansas — young
members in the American family, and full of
the blood of youth and growth, and, of course,
andjitious for good neighborhood. In the
strong tide of emigration that has set toward
the south-west, and specially since the war, this
Indian Territory has lifted itself u[) in the cur-
rent midway, and made it divide right and left.
This is a condition exposed to any damaging
influences that may go with our lirst waves of
population, and if its people and natural re-
sources decline assimilation and absorption in
national interests, social and civil and com-
mercial chafings must inevitably occur. It is
quite likely to be the old Georgia case re-
peated, unless Indian and white natures are
much changed. What are the facts?
n
78
THE INDIANS SIDHi
m
The Cherokee '* nation,'' as the Cherokees
greatly prefer to he called, has a government
oi its own, constituted hv the elective fran-
chise, and consisting of* the legishitive, judicial,
and executive branches, and it has exclusive
jurisdiction where all the parties are citizens of
the nation. Mixed cases of red and white go
to a white arbitrator, the agent of the general
government for the Indian Territory, or to the
United States Supreme Court, at Fort Smith,
Arkansas. With 6000 whites living among
the Indians, citizens of the United States, but
not of the Territory where they live, it is not
strange that the arbitrator is overborne with
cases. ^ " The letters received from within the
limits of the agency asking for information,
decision, instruction, or advice, average from
ten to fifteen daily." ^
The disorder from intruding whites and from
intermeddlincj ones over the border is a source
of regret and coni[)laint in almost every report.
"The country continues to afford an as;;lum
for refugees from justice from the States, and
III
It ^ I
1 In the quotations imniodiatcly following, reference is
sometimes made to the whole Indian Territory, and some-
times only to the Clieroke«>s. The text and context will
readily locate the reference.
- " Keport of Commissioners of Indian Affairs," 1880;
p. 94.
OF THE INDl^VN QUESTtON.
79
to invite the iinmigmtion of the very worst
class of men that infest an Indian border.'" ^
'* [lawlessness and vioh'nce still continue in
the Indian Territurv. The two or three
United States niarshalls, sent to enforce the
intercourse haws by protecting Indians from
white thieves and bufialo hunters, have been
entirely inadequate/' etc.'-^
*''J'liey are willing* that the wild Indians
from the plains shall be settled on their un-
occupied lands, but they most emphatically
object to the settlement of the wild white
man from the States among them." "The
intruders, as a chiss, are unfit to be in the
Indian country, and some measures should be
adopted that will rid these people of their pres-
ence." "It is estimated that nine tenths of
the crimes conmiitted in the Territorv are
ft.
caused by whiskey, and its many aliases. It
is introduced from the adjoining States, where
it can be purchased in any quantity." " The
band of desperadoes, whites and Indians, who
made their head(|uarters in the western part of
this agency, and beyond, and who were the
terror of the whole country last year, have all
been killed off', or placed in the penitentiary." ^
" Such administration of the law in this
1 "Report for 1875," p. 13. 2 •« Report for 1874," p. 11.
8 '' Report for 1880," pp. 94, 95.
M
I
n4
80
THE INDIAN S SIDE
V i'
' i' i i
country as is [)ossible through the United
States (listiict courts of Arkansas, scarcely
deserves the name. Practicall}', therefore, we
have a country end)racing (32,253 square miles,
inhabited by more than 75,000 souls, including
50,000 civilized Indians, without the protection
of law, and not infrequentb^ the scene of vio-
lence and wrong." ^ " Tiiis large population
becomes more and more helpless under the
increasing lawlessness among themselves, and
the alarming intrusicni of outlawed white men."
From the tenor of the reports it would seem
that the civilization of the Indiaris has not
risen to even a second rank in national pur-
pose. '' They ought not to be left the prey to
the worst inlluences which can be brought to
them, in the life and example of the meanest
white men. They deserve such guardiansliip
and care, on the part of the United States, as
will secure for them the powerful aid to eleva-
tion which comes from the presence of law."
What is said of low whites who enter the
country to labor for the Choctaws and Chicka-
saws has like bearing on the tribe whose second
experiment we are tracing. "These whites,
once in the country, are seldom known to
leave, and thus their numbers are rapidly in-
creasing. The result will be a mixture of the
' ''lieport, lb74," pp. 11,12.
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
81
lowest white blood with the Indian, thus prop-
agating, instead of curing, the indolence and
unthrift with which they are already cursed." ^
Section 8. — Forehodmgs^ and the Doom of the
Reservation Theory.
No one, of course, can be surprised that the
Cherokees are haunted and i)aralvzed with the
fear of another removal. If tliey were in the
way of the whites when in their old home,
much more may they suppose they now are,
and if old treaties, compacts, and promises,
and even decisions of the Supreme Court
could not protect them in their homes and
rights on the east of the iVlississip[)i, why may
they now expect it? The remark of the agent
cannot be unexpected: "Their only fear is
that the United States will forget her obliga-
tions, and in some way deprive them of their
lands. They do not seem to care for the loss
in money value, so much as they fear the
trouble, and the utter annihilation of a great
portion of their ])eople, if the whites a. per-
mitted to homestead in all portions of their
country, as is contemplated by so many of the
measures before Congress." ^
1 " Report for 1874/' p. 71. - " Report tor IPSO,'' p. U4.
i
(
!
82
THE INDIAN S SIDE
k— ■
I
" They feel the pressure of the white man
on every side, and, among the full-bloods
especially, there is a growing apprehension
that, before long, the barriers will give way,
their country be overrun, and themselves dis-
possessed." '
They may well have this apprehension, when
the Indian Commissioner makes a point to
show, and with much practical sense and force,
that their separateness cannot long continue,
and that "no Indian country can exist perpet-
ually within the boundaries of this republic
without becoming, in all essential particulars, a
part c the United States." Many of those
fears would be abated if the Cherokees could
feel assured, not only that their land titles to
single farms would be made as safe in title as a
white man's, but that such white men would
become their neighbors as would make those
titles worth keeping, and be themselves such
men as Indians could endure. Cherokee expe-
rience had been the reverse of this.
A verv liberal use of official statement has
now been made, that a fair view of the pres-
ent condition of the Cherokees miglit be had.
As government and paid agents are reporting
their own work, we may presume that the
view given by them is as favorable as the facts
1 " Report for .875," p. 13.
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
83
will warrant. The state of the case is too pain-
fully similar to the Georgia experiment to be
satisfactory as a result or hopeful in its outlook.
Surrounded by States, and pressed bv the ris-
ing tide of immigration ; infested and raided
by miserable or unscrupulous wliites ; railroads
clamorous for right of way, and our multitud-
inous white interests and energies standing on
tip-toe to go in, pioneered by insatiable land-
speculators, this second experiment with our
leading tribe under the " reservation theory"
seems to be nearly ended. What is obvious to
us is almost experience to them, so fully is
it in their fears and expectations.
The official reports of both civil and benevo-
lent work performed by the government and by
religious bodies in the Indian Territory make
one more satisfied and hopeful than a visit and
personal observations. Our longest and most
expensive experiment on the reservation theory,
under the joint endeavors of statesmen and
])hiic.nthropists, seems to have culminated in
lifting the Indian to the saddle as a first-class
stock-raiser. Together with this elevation he
has obtained many of the best qualities of the
citizen and Christian, while he is vet restrained
by circumstances unfavorable to their develop-
ment and practice. In 1880 we heard three
eminent Indians address 2000 of their people
m
31
V
I
Ill
'If
84
THE INDIAN S SIDE
at their Ntitional Indian Fair at Muskogee.
r)iie was an ex-chief of the Cherokees, one was
of the Supreme Bencli of that luition, and the
other II graduate of a New England college,
and an eminent lawyer for some time in one of
the western States. Their interests and pros-
pects were freely and ably discussed on the
stand. Farming was not a popuhir idea with
the speakers or the audience, though the Cher-
okees then had about 90,000 acres in rough
agriculture. They declined the ownership of
land in severalty and private farms in fee-
simple, in memory of their experience on the
east of the Mississippi, where they were called,
with some propriety, '^ a nation of farmers."
They were not disposed to prepare more farms
for a second lottery. Hence their agricultural
show at the Fair was meagre in the extreme,
and their mechanical show was more so. This
was sixty years after the government of the
United States had presented to them, through
General Jackson, two ploughs, six hoes, and
six axes, and had promised a loom, six spinning-
wheels, and as many pair of hand cards, and
the American Board had commenced Christian-
izing work among them.
Of course the}^ were blinded by their painful
memories of hard endeavors, discouragements,
and failures to obtain the white man's civiliza-
I
OF THE INDTAX QUESTION.
85
tion; they liad no confidence in government
indorsements and solenni treaties, when a
white man's interests shonhl overtake them.
Yet there was evidently a des[)airing and
o-rowing acquiescence in the new policy of-
fered, of land in severalty, citizenship, and
the dissolution of the *' nation." These par-
ties were so evenly balanced and so warm
on the new policy as to make its discussion
perilous. (xood sense, indifference, and de-
si)air have since given it a quiet majority.
Evidently the Dawes Bill, the soul of which
is the new policy, opens up to the brightest out-
look into their ominous future. Others, how-
ever, must do their hoping in it, and its success
or failure will depend very much on the Indian's
white neighbor.
m
m
I
86
THE INDIAN S SIDE
CHAPTER III.
INDIAN FAKMING.
Section 1. — /Some l\ r// SiiKjnlar A.^.9i(mptio7is.
Indian farming lias lately been put forward
as a leading remedy for Indian troubles. It
has been si)oken of as if it were an industry,
unknown to the Indians, and might be made
to work as a newly discovered expedient, to
relieve both races, on this vexed question.
The fact is overlooked that farming by the
aborigines of America is as ancient as the
Mound-Builders, that is, older than histor}^,
and that the leading grain now is Indiaii corn.
Our newly discovered farming theory, for the ills
of the poor aborigines, goes on the assumption
that the Indians were never acquainted with
this industry, have not jiractised it, and, so far
as they can be made to understand it, are now
averse to it. But what is the fact?
Agriculture has been a leading industry in
Noi'th America from })re-historic times. Among
the Aztec ruins of New Mexico and Arizona, and
in the extant pueblos, are abundant evidences
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
87
of primitive and rudimeiital fciriiiing. '' At the
period of Kuropeau discovery, maize was found
cultivated and a staple article of food in a large
part of North America and in parts of South
America. There were also found beans,
squashes, and tobacco, with the addition, in
some areas, of peppers, tomatoes, cocoa, and
cotton." Through the greater part of the San
Juan region. New Mexico, there is '' evidence
of Indian occupation and cultivation," in its
ancient prime. The writer brought up from
that country very handsome specimens of corn
from fields that bore the same before the Span-
iards arrived there under De Vaca about 1536.
The Alound-Biulders have left c^ood evidence
that they were agricultural tribes. Before the
Spaniards gave Christianity to the pueblo of
Taos, its iniiabitants had their fast days, ap-
pointed by authority, much after the New Eng-
land style, "for offering })rayers to the Sun to
supplicate him to repeat his diurnal visits, and
to continue to make the maize, beans, and
squashes grow, for the sustenance of the
people." The Mandans of the upper Missouri
had their high scaffolds for drying corn and
vegetables. Beyond Bismarck, where the Nor-
thern Pacific Railroad crosses the Missouri,
the Indians have raised corn from ancient
time. " That the culture of this trrain has
p
is !
» I
I
88
THE INDIAN S SIDE
'tr
been carried on by the aborigines from a very
remote period, is shown by the fact thai nume-
rous fossilized and many charred (m)iii-c()])s, in
a perfect state of preservation, are still found
in the excavated bluffs along the river and
very dee]) <' :)wn in the oldest mounds.'*' Sii-
Richard Orenville, visiting the Indijin towns
in Virginia before the days of Jamestown, 1085,
says: ''Their corn they plant in lows, tor it
grows so large, with thick stalk and broad
leaves, that one plant would stint the other,
and it would never arrive at maturity. In the
fields they erect a stage in which a sentry is
stationed to guard against the de[)redations of
birds and thieves." When Dankers and Sluv-
ter visited the Long Island Indians in 1079-80,
they gave them corn-bread, the grain being
unripe, coarsely broken, and half-baked — the
l)rototyj)e of colonial sani}). When Green-
balgh visited an Iroquois settlement at the
outlet of Honeoye Lake, N. Y., in 1677, he
says : " They have a good store of corn, grow-
ing to the northward of the town."
This town was situated at Mend.on, near
Rochester, and the old author says: "It con-
tains about 120 houses, being the largest of all
the houses we saw, the ordinary being fifty or
1 " Northern Pacific Railroad Guide," by Henry I. \\'inser.
1883 ; p. 118.
^
M :- at
M
....ii
OF THE INDTAN QUESTION.
89
sixty feet long, with twelve and thirteen fires
in one liouse. . . . Fioni the i'oof-[)()les were
sns[)en(le(l tlieir strings of corn in the ear,
braided bv i\i(i hnsks, also strinQ-s of dried
squashes and [)uin[)kins. Spaces were con-
trived liere and there to store awav tlieir ac-
cumulations of provisions." ^
Section 2. — Early Indian Farmincf in New
Eniflanil^ Neiv York, iWssourf\ New Mexico,
Georji'ia , Minnesota, Dakota^ Canada, Mich-
igan, Iowa, and Florida.
The agricultural habits of the New England
Indians when white men first came amono-
them is well shown by Roger Williams, in his
*' Key to the Language of America," written in
l()4o. He speaks of their " parch'd meal, which
is a readie very wholesome food, which they
eat with a little water hot or cold. T have
travelled with neere 200 of them at once, neere
100 miles through the woods, every man carry-
ing a little Basket of this at his back, and
sometimes in a hollow Leather Girdle about his
middle, sufticient for a man for three or four
1
ii
I
^ " Houses and House Life of the American Aborigines."
By Lewis II. Mori;;ui. Vol. iv. of rontributions to No.
Am. Ethnology, U. S. Department of the Interior, pp. 110,
120, 123, 129, 151, 192-3.
90
THE INDIAN S SIDE
■■f
claies." " The corne of the Countrey, with
which they are fed from the woiiibe.'' "Their
Women constantly beat all their corne with
hand ; they plant it, dresse it, gather it, barne
it, beat it, and take as much [)aines as any
people in tlie world." ''Against the Birds, ihe
Indians are very carefuU. . . . Tliey put u^)
little watch-houses in the middle of their fields,
in which they, or their biggest children, lodge,
and early in the morning prevent the birds,"
etc. Speaking of strawberries he says: "The
Indians bruise them in a Morter, and mixe
them with meale and make strawberry bread."
" There be diverse sorts of this Corne and of the
colours." "Where a field is to be broken, they
have a very loving, sociable, s[)eedy way to
dispatch it. All the neighbours, men and
Women, forty, fifty, a hundred, &c., joyne,
and come in to helpe freely." " The Women
of the Family will commoidy raise two or three
heaps of twelve, fifteene, or twenty bushells a
heap, which they drie in broad, round heaps." ^
An early author thus speaks of the new vil-
lage of Onondaga, New York. The old one was
burned by the occupants when they fled before
Count xxontenac, in 1696. "The town in its
present state is about two or three miles long,
J " Coll. of the R. I. His. Soc," vol. i. pp. 33, 50, 59, 85,
90, 91, 92, 93.
4
OF THE INDIAN gUE'STlON.
91
yet the scattered cal)iiis on both sides of the
water are not above i'orty in nnniber : man}' of
them hold two families, but all stnn<l single, so
that the wliolo town is a strange nnxlure of
cabins, inters|i(n'sed with great [)atches of high
grass, bushes, and shrubs, some of peas, corn,
and s(]uashes.*' ^
The following evidence of Indian agriculture
in the Ohio comes in sad form, but we give
it: *' About the middle of October, General
Harmar moved on the Indian towns on the
Miami. The Indians had lied, and he ordered
the towns to be burnt, the fruit trees, of which
there was a large number, to be girdled, and
every descri[)tion of property, including at least
20,000 bushels of corn, to be destroyed." 2
The Mandans on the upper Missouri were
once renowned in frontier Indian history.
They built tindjer-framed houses. The timber
for these was in the low bottom-lands, and at
quite a distance often ; yet the\' cut and framed
it without metal tools, and moved it without
animal hauling. Between the lodges were
their drying scaffolds, one for each lodge.
Each scaffold was-* about twenty feet long,
m
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1 "Travels to Onondaga," London Ed., 1751; pp. 40, 50.
Quot-id by Morgan, as above, p. 12:3.
- Judge Burnet's "Notes on the Early Settlement of the
North-west Territory," p. 103.
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THE INDIAN'S sn»E
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twelve foei widc-j and ^e\\lh feet liigh, .p to thf
tlooiiiig. Here they [)iaced lur drying their
corn, meat, vegetables, and skins." ^
Jii his notes on New Mexico, General Emory
says that *^ the Maricopas occupy thatched cot-
tages, thirty or forty feet in diameter, made
of twigs of cotton-wood trees interwoven with
straw of wheat, cornstalks and cane."
*' The Mahas seem very friendly to the whites,
and cultivate corn, beans, melons, squashes, and
a' small species of tobacco." ^
Major Amos Stoddard was our first governor
of the Upper Louisiana, taking charge when
the Territory was transferred to the United
States. Speaking of one Delaware and two
Shawnee villages in the present Missouri, in
1794, he says : ' The houses of all the villages
are built of logs, some of them squared and
well interlocked at the ends, and covered with
shingles. Many of them are two stories high,
and attached to them are small houses for the
preservation of corn, and barns for the shelter
of cattle and horses, with which they are well
sui)[)lied. TIteir houses are well furnished with
decent and useful furniture." ^ Poor remnants
i!
1 Morgan, at supra, pp. 125-129.
- Bradbury's "Travels in the Interior of North America,"
1809-11; p. 69.
^ Stoddard's *' Sketches of Louisiana," p. 216.
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
of these iwu tribes are now found in the Ind-
ian Territory.
The treaty of Greenville was hastened by the
great victory which General Wayne gained over
the Indians, in August, 1794. In moving irre-
sistibly on to that triumph — (leneral Wayne
had gained from the Indians the name of Big
Wind, or Cyclone, by the force and speed of
his marching — he swept through the heart of
Indian civilization in the primitive Ohio. "The
extensive and highly cultivated fields and gar-
dens, which appeared on every side, exhibited
the work of many hands. The margins of the
beautiful rivers Au Glaice and Miami had the
appearance of a continued village, for several
miles above and below their junction. They
were covered with extensive cornfields, and
gardens containing a great variety of vegeta-
ble productions." ^
In Judd's " History of Hadley, Mass.," the
estimate of Indian cornfields between Mount
Tom and Sugar Loaf, on both sides of the
Connecticut, falls somewhat within seventy
acres, and, in the Pynchon purchase, one field
of about sixteen acres, in Hadley, was reserved
by the natives. A part of the payment was
the ploughing of this amount, and probably
this field.
1 Burnet's " Notes on the Early Settlement of the North-
west Territory," p. 169.
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94
THE INDIAN S SIDE
In the winter of 1623, the Pilgrims, hard
pressed for food, made a tour among the Ind-
ians for corn, and liaving purchased more tlian
they could take back to Plymouth, Standish
was sent for it the next month, and ^* also to
purchase more at the same place." Drake says
that *^ The Muskogees (Creeks) had an excel-
lent regulation ; namely, the men assisted the
women in the planting before setting out on
their warlike and other expeditions." ^
The same author si)eaks of beautiful corn-
fields along the Oakmulge, to tlie extent of
twenty miles. Even at the Gasp(i, far nortli,
Cartier found the farm products, in 1534 and
following. When he moored near Montreal, a
thousand Indians welcomed him, and threw
fish and corn-bread into his boats. In the
approach to the city the next day, " we began
to finde goodly and large cultivated fieldes,
full of such corne as the countrie veeldeth
ft.'
. . . wherewith they live even as we doe with
our wheat. . . . They have also on the top of
their houses certain granaries, wherein they
keepe their corne to make their bread withall.
. . . They make also sundry sorts of pottage
with the said corne, and also of peas and beans,
whereof thev liave ijreat store, as also with
other fruits, great cowcumbers and other fruits.
' Drake's " Indians," bk. iv.
OF THP: INDIAN QUESTION.
95
. . . These people are given to no other exer-
cise, but oiiely to hualnindrie and fishing for
their sustenance." *
"The Iroquois have always been an agricul-
tural people. Their extensive plantations of
maize, beans, and pumpkins excited the admi-
ration of the first explorers. Since their re-
moval to Canada, their industry and aptitude
as farmers have been notable. The wheat mar-
ket of r>rantford has, for many years, been
Largely sui)[)lied from the Reserve '' — the
Grand liiver Reserve, in the Province of On-
tario.2
In 1809, Colonel Visger, government agent
for the Indians in the vicinity of Detroit, re-
ported that the Wyandottes " had planted 160
acres of corn, and two individuals had sown
12 acres of wheat; that farming utensils were
in great demand, and that successful experi-
ments in agriculture had been made in six
villages of Indians within forty miles of De-
troit/* In 1884, the Wyandottes had been re-
moved to the Indian Territory, and numbered
284, and wxn-e occu})ying 40 dwelling-houses.
Under date of February 1^), 180G, Lieutenant
Pike makes this entry in his narrative: "The
Sauks and Reynards are planting corn and
1 Cartier's " Narrative," 1534 et seq., Hakluyt's Trans.
2 *'Mag. of Am. His.," LS85; p. 120.
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THE INDIAN S SIDE
raising cattle.*' ' In 1810 the 1/Abie Indians
''sent In tlie Mackinaw market more tlian 1000
bushels of corn, for which they received jjayment
in money or goods. In some years they have
sent more than 3000 bushels. They use the
lioe only, in cultivating their lands, having no
ploughs, oxen, cows, nor, but in a single
instance, horses." "On Menominee Kiver is
the only i)ermanent village possessed by the
Menominees, where corn, potatoes, pumpkins,
scjuashes, etc., are raised." Then they numbered
3900; now 1450. '*The Winnebagoes will suf-
fer no encroachment (1820) upon their soil,
nor any persons to pass through it without
giving a satisfactory explanation of their mo-
tives and intentions. In failing to comply
with this peremptory style, their lives would
be in danger. They cultivate corn, potatoes,
pumpkins, squashes and beans, and are remark-
ably provident. They possess no horses."
Their number then was 5800 ; now 2144.
" The whole of Fox Kiver was owned and
occupied by the Sauks and Foxes more than
a century since. Ma.ny traces of fields culti-
vated by them are still visible." This was
also in 1820. They then numbered 6500 ;
now they are broken up into five locations,
' Pike's '• Expeditions to the Sources of the Mississippi,
etc., Appendix, vol. i. p. lU.
t»
OF THK INDIAN QUKSTION.
97
i!'
and nninber l>-4 souls. The principal Kox vil-
lage was where Daveiijudt jkiw stands, oppo-
site Rock Island, and where thev had about
J)00 acres under cultivati<tn, and raised I'roni
TOGO to 8000 bushels of corn, besides other
cereals and vet;ctables. Fort Armstrong was
on the island, and traders were among them,
where they found an ainiual market for about
loco bushels <d' corn, lOOO pounds of beeswax,
8000 pounds (d' feathers, and about :iT»"),000
pounds of deer tallow. The wintei- hunt for
1810-20 of the two tribes, including peltries
delivered at Fort Kd wards, was valued at
15^58,800. And this j)rindtivc agriculture ex-
tended from the Ilochelaga of the Indians, the
]\I(tunt Koiall of ('artier, Montreal, to the Gulf
of Mexico. ''The Towacauo, or Panis nation
(near the Gulf), live in villages, cultivate the
soil, and pursue the chase." ^
Captain John II. Hell, agent for the Florida
Indians, reported in 18*20: "The pure Semi-
nole Indians live in houses of wood, constructed
like those of white peo[)le. . . . They raise
corn with the hoe, having no ploughs in the
country. . . . These Indians have negro slaves,
who live in Sicparate families. They raise corn
' *' Roport of .ledidiah >rorse. D.D., to Jolin C. Calhoun,
Sec. of War," 1820. ApiR'inlix, pp. 17, 24, -IT, 48, 01, 152-7,
259, 300-10.
■'M
98
THE INDIAN S SIDE
i
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for their su])sistence ; if tliey have a surplus, it
goes to the families of their masters. . . . One
Indian, called Friday, who is an industrious
man, cultivates and fences his lands, splits
rails, etc., but is lau<^lied at and discarded hy
his neighbors, because he * works like a negro.'
Wlien thev see this man at work, thev ex-
claim: * Are we reduced to this degraded
state?' They are unwilling to leave their
country."
It would, of course, be unreasonable to call
the aborigines of this country an agricultural
people in the ordinary sense, and eciually so to
deny that they had the primitive elements of
agriculture, propensities to it, and many habits
and practices of it. That bas-relief panel in
the Capit<>l at Washington, of the Landing of
the Pilgrims, where an Indian offers them an
ear of corn, is an emblem true to history. The
symbol properly associates the Indian with
Indian (forn, declarative of the general fact
that before the white man came, America was
a cornfield, and the red man worked it. When
Ked Jacket was on a visit to his Great Father,
and they showed him this panel picture, he
must have felt the truth it set forth to his eye,
and it would not be strange if the (Id chief had
some painful reflections ovar the way in which
the white strangers have responded to that
generous welcome.
f
OF THK INDIAN QUKSTION.
99
In speaking <»f the North Aiueiican Indians
as a wiioh', IJancroft says: "All the tiihcs
south of thf St. Lawrence, excejtt remote ones
on the north-east and tlie north-west, cultivated
the earth. Unlike the people of tlie Old World,
they were at once hunters and tillers of the
ground." '
In this r^suni^ of Indian agriculture, a few
items should be consichn-ed in c(»nnection with
the sclieme to turn the Indians from the chase
to the farm. The early ex[)lorers and settlers
found them tilling the ground to this extent,
and resuming it will be no novelty. The prijd-
ucts of their cultivation extended to a variety
of articles, and they were careful in their means
of preservation. Some had timber-framed
houses, like those of white people, though
they were destitute of tools of metal or ani-
mals f(jr hauling. They (hired cultivation in
the far north, where now the whites are much
discouraged in the same work. Cartier repre-
sents them as confining themselves to hus-
bandry and fishing for a living. In some cases
they cultivated for the white market, though
confined to the hoe only, and their cr ^s went
up to thousands of bushels. Some i)ushcd
farming enterprise to such an extent as to
own and employ slaves as plantation hands.
1 **Hls. U. S.," vol. iii. p. 271.
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THE INDIAN 8 SIDE
I
Tliis should be regarded as ultimate evidence
of the Indiairs capacity and willingness t(» he a
faimor. 11' the ardor has died out and the ]»ur-
suit ceased, which liancroft represents as gen-
eral south of the St. Lawrence, we may be
able to lind the causes. We may work, there-
fore, in the hope of removing the causes and of
restoring the j)ursnit. Happy indeed if we
could also reinstate the honor and honesty
which liradbuiy ascribed to them: ** I never
heard of a single instance of a white man
being robbed, oi- having anything stolen from
him, in an Indian village." ^
With this agrees an interesting incident,
which Hradbury details on page IIH) of his
narrative. One Uichardson came down the
Missouri with him, and seemed to anticipate
life again within civilization. When I^radbury
was sick in St. Louis, Richardson called on
him, and among other things said: ''I lind so
much deceit and selfishness among white men
that I am already tired of them. The arrow-
head, which is not yet extracted, pains me
when 1 chop wood. Whiskey I cannot drink,
and bread and salt 1 do not care about. 1 will
go again amongst the Indians."
1 '* Travels of John Bradbury in the Interior of North
America," 1809-11; p. 167.
OF THK INDIAN QUESTION.
101
ice
iiir-
reij-
be
Section 8. — The best Indian Farms the far-
thest from Wliite Neii/hborhood.
It is to be noticed tbat these Indian fields
now named were far in advance and at wide
remove from tlio wliite settlements, and that
they have disappeared with the aj)))r()ach of
the immigrants. So Hancrctft recof^nizes farm-
ing among the l*okaii(»kets of King Philip,
before the intrusion of the whites. Then, ''as
the English villagers drew nearer and nearer to
them . . . their best fields for planting corn
were gradually alienated " ; '* repeated sales of
land had narrowed their domains . . . and as
wave after wave succeeded they found them-
selves deprived of their broad acres." ^
The Merrimac, Connecticut, and Hudson
valleys saw, from time to time, the Indian
fields staked off into white men's farms, while
the original owners moved on. When Lieu-
tenant Pike was exi)loring the upper Missis-
sippi, in 180<), lie found fine cornfields, where
are now magnificent wheat fields. He obtained
a grjint of 100,000 acres, including the Falls of
St. Anthony, for two hundred dollars' worth of
presents and sixty gallons of spirits, and in
his Report to the War Ofhce, he says, with
1 "His. U. S." ii. 09.
11:
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102
THE INDIAN 8 SIDE
cliainiiiig siinj)li('ity, " You will j)tMceive that
we have obtained about 100,000 aeies, equal to
.•i<200,000, for a soug."^
Very true, St. Anthony and St. Paul and
Minneapolis look better and are better ban
Indian cc)rnfields. Still, it is well enoiigh
to notice why the Indians gave uj) farming
there. The regions around Detroit and Mack-
inaw have become fruitful and most beautiful
in the farms and towns and cities of wliite
men, but we are false to history if we trace
the changes only to Indian indolence and un-
thrift.
From colonial times hitherto we have had
the national theory of Indian reservations with
some agricultural hope, and at the same time
the national practice of breaking them up.
The encroachment of the whites on the Ind-
ians, and the api)ropriation of their lands, by
treaty, purchase, exchange, (jr force, lias quite
destroyed their even poor practice of farming,
and anv ambition for it. Their constant re-
movals from old homes to a farther front have
made tiiem hopeless and heartless. No white
race, certainly not Americans, would follow up
farming in such circumstances.
It is pleasant to enter one exception to the
' "Pike's Kxpedition," Appendix, pi. i. p. 10, Supple-
ment, p. 25.
at
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OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
103
general rule tliat the whites encroach on the
cultivated grounds of the Indians and expel
them. The question was put to one, huig
and widely familiar with Indian life in the far
West, and lie made this reply to me, on the
willingness and aptness of the Indian to culti-
vate the land : —
'' From the Shoshones here in Wyoming and
west, tliey take kindly to it, and are anxious
to learn. Sagwitche, a Ute, left his tribe, went
to farnung with fifty others, and he raised
1300 bushels of snuill grains. This was in
Thistle Valley, Utah. The white settlers re-
tired from the Indians, and a contribution paid
them off for the improvements which they
left."
And to another related question the same
gentleman nuide this reply : " The whites, bor-
dering, lack the civilization to get along well
with the Indians. The kinder the whites are,
the kinder the Indians." It may not be im-
proper to add that if the Indians had published
as many papers as the whites, in their i)ropor-
tion, we of the East would now have quite
different opinions of the Indians and of their
white neighbors.
P
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104
THE INDIAN S SIDE
Section 4. — The Uncroachments of Immigrants
and the Violations of Treaties^ as related to
Indian Farminy.
As to tlie keeping and breaking of Indian
treaties, Senator Dawes is leported as making
this strong statement in a senatorial debate, in
April, 1880 ; * Government has never kept its
promises to tlie Indians, and there are no indi-
cations that it ever wilL"
Some time since, Indian Inspector PoHock
gave this testimony before a committee of the
Senate : —
The Indians have "almost uniforndy ob-
served treaty obligations, -hen they under-
stood them, while, on the other hand, lo the
best of his knowledge and belief, scarcely one
of over 360 entered into with the Indians by
the government had ever been fuliilled in ac-
cordance with its terms, and manv of tliem
had been ojrosslv violated."
The Indian Commissioner for 1872 gen-
eralizes the reasons for breaking old treaties,
and granting new reservations, in this man-
ner : —
*' These treaties were made from time to
time, as the pressur(} of white settlements or
the fear or the experience ol Indian hostilities
i
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OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
105
made the demand for the removal of one
tribe after iinotlier urgent or imperative." ^
Ml-. Walker, quoted above, says of the causes
for making new reservations: '• Hiere is scarcely
one of the 92 reservations at present estab-
lished (1874) on which white men have not
effected a lodgement; many swarm with squat-
ters, who hold their place by intimidating
tiie rightful owners; while in more than one
case the Indians have been wholly dispossessed,
and are wanderers upon the face of the
earth." =^
And to see what our government treaties
and reservations amount to, and how we
discourage the Indians in any tendencies to
agriculture, settlements, and civilization, let a
few cases be cited: —
"The progress of the Indians in Michigan in
civilization and industry has been greatly hin-
dered in the past by a feeling of uncertainty
in .egard to their permanent possession and
enjoyment of their homes." "^
Of the Mille Lac Chi})pewas, he says :
''Their present reservation is rich in tine
lands, the envy of lumber dealers, and there
,1
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' " IJoport on Indian Aifairs," 187:>, pp. 8.S-4.
'^ ••'I'lic Indian Qnestion," by Francis A. Walker, 1874.
p. 70.
'^ Ibid., Ind. Ques., 154,
#
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106
THE INDIAN S SIDE
M
is a strong pressure on all sides for their
early removal." ^
In the Minnesota and Sionx War of 1862,
the Winiiebagoes remained friendly to the
whites, yet, says Mr. Walker, -'the people
were so determined that all Indians should
he removed bey<tnd the limits of the State
that Congress, in 1863, passed an act provid-
ing for their removal." ^
Mr. Walker speaks of the Pimas and Mari-
copas in Arizona as peaceful, loyal, and consid-
erably advanced in certain features of agricul-
ture and civilization, and then adds : " The
relations of these bands with the neighboring
whites are, however, very unfavorable to their
interests, and the condition of affairs is fast
growing worse." ^
Of the Indians in Washington Territory, he
remarks : " Owing to the influx of whites,
manv of them have been crowded out, and
some of them have had their own un(|uestion-
able improvements forcibly wrested from
them." 4
Those in the Round Valley agency '■'are
uniforndy (^uiet and peaceable, notwithstand-
ing that they are much disturbed by the white
trespassers . . . who are all clamorous fov
1 Ibid., Iml. Ques., 170. ^ Ibid.. Ind. Qiies., 178-
'•^ Ibid., Ind. Ques., 242. * Ibid., Lnd. Ques., 255,
It
OF THE IXDTAX QUESTION.
107
breaking up the reservation and driving the
Indians out." ^
Summarily the Commissioner concludes:
•• Every State, and every Territory that aspires
to become a State, will strive to keep the
Indians as far as i)()ssible from its own borders;
while powerful combinations of speculators
will make their light for the last acre of Ind-
ian lands. 2
An Indian hunt in California, within 1851-4,
as described by an English writer and traveller
there, will serve like a picture to show the
feelings f white border men toward the
Indians. A white man had been killed by the
Indians about twelve miles from Ilangtown,
now Placervillo. F'our white men going to
recover the body and " hunt" the Indians were
repulsed. " The next day crowds of miners
Hocked in from all quarters, each man equi[)ped
with a long rifle, in addition to his bowie
knife and revolver, while two men, playing a
drum and fife, marched up and down the
streets to give a military air to the occasion.
A [)ublic meeting was held in one of tlie gam-
bling rooms, at which the goveriM)r, the sheriff
of the county, and other big men of the place
were present. 'J'he miners about Kangtown
were mostly Americans, and a large proportion
1 Ibid., Ind. Ques., 264-5. ^ ibij.^ i^i. (^ues., 1 lU, 120.
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THE INDIAN S SIDE
of them were from the United States, who had
come by the overhiiid route across the phiins —
men who had all their lives been used to Ind-
ian wiles and treachery, and thouoht about
as much of shooting an Indian as of killino-
a rattlesnake. They were a rough-looking-
crowd, long, gaunt, wir}' men, dressed in the
usual old flannel-shirt costume of miners, with
shaggy beards, thin faces, hand;, and arms as
brown as mahogany, and with an expression
about their eyes which boded no good to any
Indian who should come within range of their
rifles. . . . The speech of a Kentuckian doctor
was quite a treat. . . . The governor also
made a short speech, taking the responsibility
of raising a company of one hundred men, at
five dollars a day, to go and whip the Indians.
The sheriff followed. . . . Those who wished
to enlist were then told to come lound to the
other end of the room, when nearl}^ the whole
crowd rushed eagerly forward, and the required
number was at once enrolled." The hunt
lasted two months. ^
With a singular and shocking coolness, Borth-
wick adds the following confessions and reflec-
tions; '* Their presence is not compatible with
that of a civilized connnunity, and as the coun-
1 " Three Years in California." B. J. D. Borthwick,
1851-4; pp. 132-0.
m
i
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
109
try beconu's more thickly settled there will be
no longer room for them. Their country can
be made subservient to man, but as they them-
selves cannot be turned to account, they must
move oft* an<l make way for their betters. This
may not be very good morality, but it is the
way of the world, and the aborigines of Califor-
nia are not likely to share a better fate than
those of many another country." In view of
such facts and such morality, the figures follow-
ing need no explanation. By the oflicial census
of California in 1823, the number of Indians
was 100,826 ; in 1880, it was 1(3,277. The 'In-
dian Hunt " was midway between the two dates.
This last passage quoted from Commissioner
Walker calls up painful memories of what fol-
lowed the close of King Philip's War. '' There
followed a bitter contention of colonists for
shares in the conquered territory." ^
Few persons realize how frecpient these re-
movals to new reservations have been, and how
many the treaties with some tribes, usually on
account of land. This crowding the Indians
to new homes is historic and chronic, ancient
and modern with us.
While among the Cherokees in 1880, I found
their head men under the discouraging convic-
tion that they could not remain there [)erma-
1 Freeman's "Aborigines" from 1620, p. 166.
l!
■,i
£i
m^
i
■■
i
zr -ai
L
110
THE INDIAN S SIDE
^
m
!l;i I.
il In:
uantly, and so but little interest was taken in
peiiiianent iiiH)r()venients. Six sevenths of
their dwellings were log-houses, huts, shanties,
and caves.
Some of our acquisitions were made in colo-
nial weakness and timidity, as our lirst treaty
witii Indians was made by tlie Plymouth
Colony, in 1(321. Our Dutch fathers ran a wall
across Manhattan Island, in KJoo. to keep the
Indians out of New York, thereby gaining a
part of the island, and beginning the i)restMil
Wall Street, so called from that old Indian
wall. Later treaties show all the grotesipie
combination of farce and tragedy in the a})pear-
ance and acts of the two *•'• hio-h contracting-
parties." We ha\e met the blanketed and
clouted red man with all pom[) and circum-
stance, in ridiculous imitation of ambassadors
at Versailles, in the court of Louis XIV.
With all this, however, it should be said
that there was a show of right and a symbol of
equity. It was a recognition, on the part of
the United States, of the limited possessory
rights of the aborigines to the soil, and of a
body of Indians as a nation or civil power.
From the adoption of the constitution to
March 3, 1871, our government indulged in
the phantom of Indian luitionalities, and went
through the motions of treaty-making with
OF THE INDIAN QUKSTION.
111
in
;.s,
lo-
til
ill
them, but at that djite Congress foibiule sncli
rec()<rnitiuu or stNJc (»t intercourse. Between
those two dates, and it should ])e formally
stated to the credit of tlie goverment, the
United States, by at least JiTii treaties, ac-
quired from the Indians all hmd to which a
tribe coukl show any fair cUiim, and which is
now in the })ossession of tlie government. Of
course there has been fraud and crowding and
intimidation at times, but the form of treaty
lias been preserved. Noah Webster speaks of
"the iiidis[)eiisable necessity of securing the
Indian treaties from the outrageous frauds to
which they are ex2)osed by their unrestrained
intercourse with traders destitute of all moral
principle."^ With the single exception of the
Sioux case, after the Minnesota massacre of
1862, our government has always acquired
Indian lands by contract and not conquest.^
k
Section 5. — British Columbia and its Ind-
ians*
The English author, above (quoted, Borth-
wick, is sustained in such repulsive views by
the English government itself in dealing with
^ ** The First An. Kep. of tho Am. Soc. for Promoting tlie
Civilization and CJeneral Improvement of the Indian Tribes
in the U. S.," p. 30, 1824.
2 "Ind. Com. Keport," 1872, pp. 83,84.
'ii
h
112
THE INDIAN S SIDE
I
II:'
i I!
! l!i<
Jin Indiiin tvibe in British Coluinbiu. The case
is here cited, not siinj)ly to show tiijit the
iiuthor is sustiiincd by tlie example of Jiis own
government, but that the recognition of Indian
rights is no necessary part of a so-called Chris-
tum civilization.
British Coluudjia is assumed to have had,
within recent times. 80,000 Indians, of whom
some tribes were so grossly }iagan and barbar-
ous as to be even oaimibals. It is almost im-
possible to describe the ])rutal and bhxtdy and
animal degradation of some of them. In 1857
Mr. William Duncan, an English }thilanthro-
pist and lay Christian, entered into the work
of civilizing one (»f the most corrupt and vio-
lent of them. The tribe was of the Tsim-
shean stock, and had a home near Fort Simpson,
a trading-post of the Hudson Bay Company.
They regarded him as throwing his life away
by exposing himself among them, and they
sought to hold hini back from an almost cer-
tain and horrible end.
After spending five years among them he
succeeded in winning about fifty of them to a
tolerable adoption of the leading principles and
practices of a Christian civilization. This was
accomplished while, at the same time, he was
introducing among them the simpler and ruder
mechanics, and temporal comforts of ordinary
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
113
ase
tLe
\vn
is-
wliite border nieii. He was fortuiuite in liiul-
iug, near to Fort Simpson, a scillcmeiit of 2300
of these Indians, \vli<», unlike cm- later and
nonnxdic tribes, lived ;i vilhige life, in sei)arate
and peiinanent houses.
Of course it was quite inijtdssible to deal
very successfully with these rel'onuing ones
while they were in constant association with
the 2000 and nioi-e who jxTsisted in maintain-
ing their i)agan i)ractices and baibarous habits.
Mr. Duncan, therefore, withdrew the Christian
Indians into a colony bv themselves, about
seventeen miles from the post, and to a tide-
water location and old village site, called Met-
lakahtla. The new town covered two acres of
land, and was laid out into lots 60 bv 120 feet.
It was within an old reservation of their own, as
the Indians supposed, of about 70,000 acres. It
had, finally, a church seating 1200 peo])le, a
town hall, dis[)ensary, reading-room, market, a
blacksmith, carpenter, cooper, and tinshop,
a work-shop and soa})-factory. A system of
civil government was organized by themselves,
a school-room was provided, as also a village
store, by themselves, and the profits were
turned in for the town fund and general good.
The colony grew to the number of about
1000, and was orderly, prospercnis, and was
fairly growing in intelligence and morality.
it
>!
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J!
114
THE INDIAN S SIDE
i
I :.
Its iiifluenoe was widely felt on the wild tribes
around. Even the Chilkats, a fierce tribe in
Alaska, came 000 miles to see the wonder, and
asked to see the book which had done so much
to work the wonder. When the I^ii)le was
produced, and its ])()wcr explained, eacli of the
wild Alaskans touched it reverently with the
tip of his ilnger, exclaiming. " Ahm ! ahm ! "
It is good ! it is good !
A thrifty village business sprang up, of a
domestic kind, and some foreign, specially
in canned salmon. Then border and harpy
traders, who hang everywhere on the sel-
'vage and thrums of civilization, and keep
just in advance of the Decalogue, forced them-
selves on this comparative Eden in the great
north land. As this i)rimitive planting of a
better life had a government in and of itself.
and as weak as it was sovereign, Mr. Duncan
found it exceedingly difficult to protect it
from decivilizing influences of poorly civilized
whites, — Hudson Bay traders on the one side,
and coasters on the other. The simple colo-
nists were constantly tempted to the lowest
vices, usually led mi by vicious whiskey.
Mr. Duncan had not seen the way clear as
yet to introduce the church proper, with its
creeds and ceremonials, but had directed his
labors mainly to secure an every-day moral
I
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
11;")
)('S
ill
lid
ell
as
he
and Christian life. This phm did not coni-
meiid itself to the resident oflicials of the
Church Missionary Society, which had been
somewhat auxiliary to the growth of the enter-
prise, and they therefore sought to embody the
colony in the general church organization lor
British Columbia, and put it under the cere-
monies and rituals of their form of Christianity.
Still Mr. Duncan preferred to keep these simple
and devout natives for the present to a few great
and good points of daily life, which kee[) one
so close to the sources of spiritual power and
to the simplicity of the apostolic forms of
Christianity.
Then the bishop assumed to occupy the
colony as a mission, and took ecclesiastical
control, while yet nine tenths of the colonists
adhered to Mr. Duncan as their redeemer from
[)aganism and cannibalism, and ; their teacher
and spiritual father, and the civil founder of
their prosperous State. Then was illustrated
that critical saying of Bishop Patterson : '• I
have for years thought that we seek in our mis-
sions a great deal too much to make English
Christians."
The missionary society had some claim on
the buildings because of some contributions
toward their erection, but when, because of this,
they wished to encumber these natives in their
'II
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116
THE INDIAN S SIDE
simple piety with an ehibonite and stately wor-
shi[), depose their pastor and impose one not
of their choice, they objected, and asked the
society to remove the buildings (jointly owned)
if they would, and leave the Indiar.s in peace-
able possession of their own two acres of land.
This brought the (piestion of title to the
land to the front, and the native Christians
wrote to the society as follows : ** The God of
heaven, who created man upon the earth, gave
this land to our forefathers, -some of whom once
lived on these very two acres, and we have re-
ceived the land by direct succession from them.
No man-made law can justly take from us this,
the gift of Him who is the source of all true
law and justice. Relying on this, the highest
of all titles, we claim our land, and notify the
societ}^ through you, its deputies, to move oft'
the two acres."
In giving this notice they relied on what
the Governor-Cxeneral of the Dominion of
Canada, Earl Dufferein, had said, in a speech
on the land question, in 1876, at Victoria: " In
Canada, no government, whether provincial or
central, has failed to acknowledge that the
original title to the lands existed in the Indian
tribes. Before we touch an acre we make a
treaty, and having agreed upon and paid the
stipulated price, we enter into possession."
OF THE INDIAN QUtiSTION.
117
The Metlakahtlans also laid their grievances,
as to title, before the Siii)erintcn(ltMit of IiHliati
AnUirs, as one ))riinch of the <;o\'ernnient, and
witli much conliderce of success. Me advised
that the Church Missionary Society withdraw
and leave the Indians in peaceable possession, as
of their own land. Yet the fjovernniont took
no steps, nor did the society accede to the
oflicial judgment. When another notice was
served on the bishop to remove, the government
came to the defence of the society, and in-
formed the Indians that they had no rights
whatever in the land, but that the title
rested in the ({ueen. Then, government sur-
veyors appeared to bound off, and cut up the
two acres, that it might be secured formally to
the Church Missionary Society, through tlie
bishop. The })owerless natives next took coun-
sel of an eminent lawyer at Victoria, who gave
opinion *' that the Indians cannot be molested in
the possession of lands occupied by them prior
to the advent of white men, unless in i)ur-
suance of treaties duly entered into by them."
This opinion was obtained by a visit to
Victoria, 600 miles away. Then, to secure
their rights and to settle all difficulties amica-
bly by a direct arrangement with government,
a deputation of these Indians went to Ottawa,
a round trip of 7000 miles. This: was in
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118
THE INDIAN S SIDE
the summer of 1885, and they brought back
promises that all their grievances should be
lifted. But the hopes thus given were not
to be realized. The question of title was
traced back to the terms of union on which
British Columbia came into the Canadian
Dominion, in 1871. When that union was
consummated, British Columbia had about
60,000 people, of whom one half were abo-
rigines. The province contained 390,344
square miles — about three times the area
of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.
Of all this, ten square miles only were re-
served for the Indians — about two acres
apiece ! It appeared to be a deep scheme
to put that immense domain within the reach
of land-hungry speculators, — a huge Indian-
ring. The plans to reserve even the poor
remnant to the Indians lacked definiteness
and real worth ; for in 1875 the minister of
justice reported that there were no reserva-
tions in British America, while the govern-
ment had obtp.ined no surrenders from the
native occupants. The government simply
assumed possession in a declarative way. More
recently, the Chief Justice for British Columbia
declared at Victoria, while arguing the land
question, that the Indians have no rights what-
ever in the soil. Afterward, it was officially
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
Ill)
r
It
IS
Ih
11
Is
It
declared to tliein that though they inherited
the land from their ancestors, before the white
man came, they were suffered to be in the
lands in mere charity, and by the grace of the
crown. In defence of this opinion, the decision
of Chancellor Boyd, of Ontario, is Ljuoted :
" As heathens and barbarians, it was not
thought that they had any proprietary title to
the soil, nov any such claim thereto as to
interfere with the plantations and the general
prosecution of colonization. They were treated
'justly and graciously,' as Lord Bacon advised,
but no legal ownership of the land was ever at-
tributed to them."
The government ordered the land of Metla-
kahtla to be surveyed as crown lands, as I have
stated. The Indians considered this an inva-
sion of private rights, and prevented variously
the survey, though without any violent or
riotous proceedings. Then, armed vessels and
soldiers protected the surveyors, and the work
was completed, and for nominal sums previously
arranged, it is said, the Indian lands passed intc^
the hands of white men.
But we need not detail. Suffice it to say
that this series of events terminated in the
utter defeat of the Indians. Law and prece-
dent were quoted from colonial and provincial
New York, from the edicts of the Charleses,
i|
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SIHHBI
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120
THE Indian's side
I
I ^
; J:
m
and from the hard and mediieval times of
Great Ihitiaii, as if oppressive usage should
not wear away under the softening Christian
spirit of the advancing centuries. Without
treaty or compensation, and even without war
and coiKiuest, the Indians were official Iv declared
to liave no rights in the hxnd of British C'olum-
bia. Being thus l)eggared by law, they were
allowed but ])ai'cels of land for teni[)orary use,
and as a charity of which, at any time, they
were liable to ])e dispossessed, under the pres-
sure of white neigh})ors, or by the scheming
of speculators.
Bancroft, in his history of British Colum-
bia, sums u}) the policy of British Amer-
ica with the Indians in very plain words:
" Tlie cruel treacheries and massacres, by
which nations have been thinned, and flicker-
ing remnants of once powerful tribes gathered
on government reservations, or reduced to a
handful of beggars, dei)endant for a livelihood
on charity, tlieft, or the wages of prostitution,
form an unwritten chapter in the history of
this region. That this process of duplicity
was unnecessary as well as infamous, I shall
not attempt to show, as the discussion of
Indian })olicy is no part of my present purpose.
Whatever the cause, whether from an inhumane
civilized policy or the decrees of fate, it is evi-
I
m
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
121
dent that tlie C'olunibiiiiis, in common with all
the aborigines of America, are doomed to ex-
tinction.''
The villaoe of Metlakalitla, nnml)ering ahont
1000 souls, is now a petitioner to the United
States for permission to move ovei* into Alaska,
from whose border it is about thirty nules, and
the i)roject is regarded favorably at Washing-
ton, and will [)robably come before Congress at
its next session.
I have presented this case with its outline
facts and laws, in skeleton, and it must be
confessed that it is a very ghastly skeleton.
Two reflections will show the pertinence of
the reference to the general topic of this
volume.
The North American Indians are in quite
similar relations to the government of the
whites on either side of the international boun-
dary, and in substance their treatment is quite
alike by both. The Indians usually receive their
first practical knowledge of the government of
white men by being forced to the defensive of
their ancestral rights and usages. The land
title, on which so much of all a whil3 man
prizes depends, and all of worth to a red man,
he soon finds is generally and practically a
nullity in the- opinion of both British and
American governments. Chief Justice Mar-
HI
n
i
i
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f •■
f
^ jp5
109
THE INDIAN S SIDE
shall has stated brieHy tlie Indian laws of Eng-
land in this country when we were colonies,
and tlie States have inherited, and, with modifi-
cations, ad(>pted the same : "According to the
theory of the British constitution, all vacant
lands are vested in the crown. ... No distinc-
tion was taken between vacant lands and lands
occupied by Indians. . . . All our institutions
recognize the absolute title of the crown, sub-
ject only to tlie Indian right of occupancy, and
recognize the absolute title of the crown to ex-
tinguish that right."
With the exception of a few parcels of land,
and wide asunder, the Indian has no guarantee,
like that of a white man, to the soil of his
truck-patch and the lot of his Avigwam or
framed cabin. The land of the white owner,
under deed properly executed, is as good to him
and to his heirs as the government is strong.
With the Indian, his treaty titles are as perisli-
able as the paper on which they are written,
and often as short lived as the grass on the
house-tops, "which witliereth afore it groweth
up." Xor is the force of this strong statement
much abated by the fact that often the inexor-
able pressure of the border men or of govern-
ment has some formalitv, and some simulation
of just and orderly proceedings, when finally it
^ Johnson anU Mcintosh and Wheaton.
■ 'i
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OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
123
gains its end, and the irresistible party closes
in on the coveted Indian lands.
The Provincial governments on the north of us
boasted of a kinder and wiser policy than that
of the United States, and referred to the friend-
ship with which they and the natives were
jointly occupying the same territory. In our
''Oregon: Tiie Struggle for Possession," we
took occasion to show that this might well be
and continue while the great North Land was
held bv the Hudson Bav CVnni^anv ns a sfame
preserve, and the white man set steel-tra[)s with
the Indians, and made social and domestic equal-
ity with them ; but that when the factory took
the place of the steel-trap, and civilized homes
the place of promiscuous forest-life, trouble
and Indian wars would come. That time
has arrived sooner than we expected. Our
Northern Pacific Railroad hurried the coming
of the Canadian Pacific, and that precipitated
the Indian turbulence and wars north and west
of Winnipeg, in the wide and wild lands of the
Indian owner and the white adventurer. Riel
and his struggles for his people are sample and
type. Now comes the Metlakahtla case, blood-
less because they have been won to Christian-
ity. The remaining 29,000 may not welcome
the surveyors over the graves of their fathers
so gently. Their future is ominous, and the
IMi
124
THE INDIAN S SIDE
•'
L
vision is not encouraging. But yet we are not
ready to see what Bancroft does : " The Col-
umbians, in common with all the aborigines of
America, are doomed to extinction."
The other reflection weighs on us very sadly.
Witii a superior civilization, and with the gentle
reli<?ion of the Prince of Peace, we come bv
shady approaches to tlie homes of tlie Indians.
They are graded all the way from tlie painted
savage and wolfish cannibal to tliose of fair
and happy homes, in framed houses and among
tilled lields, with schools and ciiurches and
civil courts. In the Cherokee countrv of 1820,
and in the Tsimshean of 1886, where the red
man's style of life does not suffer much in
comparison with that of his white neighbor,
they are outlawed and forced from the homes
of their childhood, the lields of their tillage,
and the graves of their ancestors. Possibly
paganism and savagery may work a forfeiture
of inherited and natural rights, but will civil-
ized and Christian men declare and enforce
the forfeiture ? Because we are a Christian
people, may we assume to seize the lands of those
who are not? Do all land titles and equity
and rights lie as a matter of course on the side
of those who call themselves Christian ? Is
this seizure one of the notes in the anthem of
"peace on earth"'? If our civilization and
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
125
our Christianity will not recoornize the natural
lights of those who differ from us, where is the
elevated humanity of the one or the divinity of
the other? With all the more force these
questions come home to the people on both
sides of our international boundary, where
those who are despoiled and outlawed and
made continental tramps are as civil and as
Christian as those who invade and despoil and
take possession of their heritage. But we
return from British Columbia. ^
Section 6. — Uncertainty of Residence^ and
Indian Farming Impossible.
With this semblance of equity we have never-
theless negatived ultimate justice and Indian
farming by constant changes of reservations.
The one deep cardinal thought that the govern-
ment has impressed on the Indian is that of
change of home. The only certainty he has, as
to his present land tenure, is its uncertainty.
That old treaty phrase, " as long as grass grows
and water runs," is a historic sarcasm on
our Indian policy. In his tour of conference
and observation, by order of Calhoun, Secre-
tary of War, among the Indian tribes, in 1820,
1 " The Story of Metlakahtla." By Henry S. Willcome.
Saxon and Co., London and New York, 1887.
i 4I
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1 1
126
THE INDIAN S SIDE
the Kev. Dr. Jedidiah Morse was constrained to
this (lechariition : '• In repeated interviews with
the 111, after informing tlieni what good things
their Great Fatlier, the President, was ready
to bestow on them if they were willing to
receive them, the Chiefs significantly shook their
heads, and said : * It may be so, or it may
be not ; we doubt it. We don't know what
to believe.' " ^
The worthlessness of the reservation system
for agriculture because of its uncertainty,
President Jackson states with great candor
and force, in his first message, 1829 : ^' Pro-
fessing a desire to civilize tliem, we liave at
the same time lost no opportunity to purchase
their lands and thrust them farther into the
wilderness. By this means they have not only
been kept in a wandering state, but been led
to look upon us as unjust, and indifferent
to their fate. Thus, though lavish in its own
expenditures upon the subject, government has
constantly defeated its own policy."
This reservation theory has suggested some
singular expedients for disposing of the Indian
question. In 1778, while yet in the dubious
struggle of the revolution, and when the Eng-
lish were enlisting the Indians against the col-
onies, we formed a treaty with the Delawares in
1 "Report to the Sec. of War," etc., pp. 89, 90.
fl
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
127
which, under certain provisos, "it is further
agreed on between the contract iuf^ [)arties,
... to invite any other tribes, who Imve l)een
friends to the interest of the IJniit'd States,
to join the present confederation, and to form
a State, whereof the Dehiware nation shall be
the head, and have a repre entative in Con-
gress. . . ." ''
Under a change from that policy, the pitiable
remnant of the Delawares are down on the Ked
River, in the extreme south-west of the Indian
Territory, and number, all told, about 80 souls.
Possibly the elaborate, suggestive, and some-
what seminal report of John C. Calhoun, in
1818, had Indian States in view when he
proposed two large reservations on which to
collect the Indians. The southern one we
have. The one proposed for the north was
never formed.
The process of force, outlawry, and ostracism,
by which the Cherokee nation was removed
from Georgia to become occupants of this
southern reservation, the present Indian Ter-
ritory, is no unfair illustration of our ruinous
policy on Indian farming. " By the advice of
Washington and every successive i)resident
of the United States, and assisted by grants of
money from Congress, made for that express
1 "Laws of U. S.." Duaue, ii. 304.
a
" i;
p-
128
THE INDIAN S SIDE
jnirpose, the Clierokees hud been rapidly ad-
vancing in civilization. They had becunie a
nation of fanners so entirely that persons
extensively acquainted with them did not
know a single indivi<iuul who depended on
the chase for a subsistence. They were un-
willing to leave their comforlable habitations,
their cultivated iields, and the crraves of their
fathers, and remove into a distant and un-
known wilderness. They had organized a
regular government, and were, to a consider-
able extent, supplied with schools and religious
institutions. For several years they had re-
fused to sell any more of their lands, and had
even enacted a law for punishing with death
any chief who should attempt it. (jeorgia did
not need the lands, for her population was
not more than seven souls to a square mile ;
but the avaricious part of her citizens coveted
them, for money could be made by trading
in them, and some of them (Contained gold
mines. It was proposed that the State should
take possession of the lands, divide the whole
into small portions, and distribute them among
lier citizens by lottery." It should be here
interposed that some years before a large
minority of the tribe had removed under
pressure, and with the usual Indian willing-
ness, to the new opening over the Mississippi ;
OF THE INDIAN QTICSTION.
129
■I
to compel the rest to go was the purpose of
Georgiii.
"A law was enacted by the Legislature of
(ie(»rgia, to take effect in June, 1(S30. extending'
the jurisdiction of the State over tliat part of
the Cherokee nation within her cliartered liui-
its. Against this the ("heiokees renionsti-ated
to the President ; but he, through the Secre-
tary of War, answered that he had no authority
to interfere. Encouraged by this state of things,
Alabama and Mississippi enacted similar laws
with respect to the Indian 'J'erritoiies within
the limits that they claimed. All these laws
were j)assed for the av^owed pur[)ose of nudging
the situation of the Indians so uncomfortable
that the}^ would be willing to sell out and re-
move to the West. Success was confidently
anticipated ; and speculators were already in-
quiring what parts of the lands about to be
vacated would be most salable, and making
arrangements to suppl}^ provision for the Ind-
ians while on their way, at enormous profits,
at the public expense." ^
Of course the Cherokees went over the river.
What could be otherwise? Those three States
combined to force them out, and the gov(3rn-
ment at Washington confessed its inability to
m
' *' History of the American Board of Commissioin is for
Foreign Missions," by Joseph Tracy, 1842, pp. 228-l»;;0.
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THK INDIAN 8 SIDE
interpose. Always, at Washington, on the
Indian ({uestion, tlie government in action is
the sentiment of the white border, as one of
the two parties in interest.
Civilization, not to say Chrijitianity, blushes
at the record. At the treaty of Ilolston, this
article was inserted by our government: "Tiiat
the Cherokee nation may be led to a greater
degree of civilization, and to become herdsmen
and cultivators, instead of remaining in a state
of liunters, the United States will from time
to time furnish gratuitously the sj'id nation
with useful implements of liusbandry, and fur-
ther to assist the said nation in so desirable a
pursuit," etc. In 1816, General Jackson, an
Indian agent, gave them two ploughs, six axes,
and six hoes, to encourage and aid them toward
civilized life, and at the same time Cvrus
Kingsbur3% a missionary, settled among them
as teacher and preacher. Now they fall into
line under military order of this same govern-
ment, and turn their backs on their homes and
farms and stock, and their faces toward sun-
set and destiny. In 1880, while riding with
an ex- 3f of the Cherokees among his own
herds, lie said to me: '^ Farming is not good for
the Indians." He had better re^isons for saying
that than any white man can conceive of, or
any white farmer's experience can suggest.
OF THK INDIAN QUKSTION.
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Almost all India fanners in tlie UnitcMl States
are as those Ciierokees, and almost all their
white ncii^hbdis are as those (ircor^ians I In
1880 Georgia had within her border 124 In-
dians.
Still witiiout a policy of general acceptance,
and learning bnt little from onr failnreb, with
the Indians receding and wasting, and their
civilization adjonrned fiom one generation to
another, Secretary Kiikwood reproduced, with
modifications, early in 1881, the Calhoun [)lan
of sixty years before. He would have a few
large reservations, and the lands finally held in
severalty, in suitable quantity, and under sensi-
ble conditions. The inauguration of this [)ol-
icv would interfere with od home attachnients,
break up again their agricultural and civil and
domestic beginnings, and either dissidve the
tribes, or consolidate and locate them in juxta-
positions where they wonld be liable to become
irritating and belligerent. A general move-
ment in this direction would possibly dissemi-
nate a general discontent, and intensify the
traditional uncertainty tiiat has hitherto at-
tended ail government plans with them. If
these results should follow the adoption of the
plan, their advanie in civilization would for a
time be barred by their dissatisfaction, dis-
couragement, and indifference.
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THE Indian's side
Section 7. — iStill Experimenting on Indian Pol-
icies^ arid Invading Indian Farms.
At the end of a century our government is
without an Indian policy ; Mr. Dawes is re-
ported as saying recently that " what has been
done in the past is of no use, except to teach
us that sometliing different is needed in the
future." The same causes wliich have, for two
centuries, been diminishing the Indian fields
and driving tlieir owners beyond the Missis-
sippi, are still working, but with an increased
energy, and on a wider compass. To name
any exceptions to this, as the Marsupee and
Gay Head remnants in Massachusetts, or more
numerous bands in Western States, is oiilv to
expose the inefficiency of our Indian systeni,
and manifest its failure by graded illustrations,
the oldest being the most pitiable and con-
demning.
It is true the Indians have not shown an
educated interest in agriculture, but the best
of their farms have not been improved by a
new and white neighborhood and the example
of white settlements. Indian farming has been
in the advance of white immigrant neighbors,
and abandoned when they came. Some figures
in the census of 1880 are encouraging. Da-
kotah has 27,500 Indians, and betweeu 2000
mm
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
133
i
and 3000 cultivate the laud. Some of these
had begun farms, and repeatedly, in regions
far to the east, but had been forced along by
the white tide. Now they are trying it over
again, perhaps for the fifth time, but always at
a distance from the whites. Indeed, it may be
said as a general truth that the best Indian
farms are those fartliest from the farms of
white men. In Montana there are 19,791
Indians, and a few hundred, much under 500,
are in some farm interests. The r[)per Mis-
souri, the Yellowstone, and the yet inaccessible
or undesired heads of other continental I'ivers,
show what are called Indian farms under
government appropriations and management.
They are, however, a poor basis for prophecy,
because of recent opening, and in advance of
immigrants and speculators. Indian farms lie
all the way east of them to the Atlantic, under
the warranty deeds of white men. We wait
with a painful certainty as to result till white
men want those upper valleys of the United
States.
It is now a popular and philanthropic sug-
gestion to try and end the Indian troubles by
turning the 250,000, more or less, of tliis hated
race into farmers. As if we had tried all other
expedients, and hit vipon this as a final experi-
ment, we are pressing on them the choice to
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THE INDIAN S SIDE
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work or die. The effrontery of the proposition
would be ludicrous if it were not cruel. For
two hundred years the peoi)le of the United
States have been working the best possible pol-
icy to break up the inferior farming of lliis
pitiable race, and discourage them from under-
taking more or doing better. It is believed
we have taken everv cornfield of the Indian be-
tween Plymouth and the Rocky Mountains.
If any yet remains, it is at a front not yet
reached by us. There are, as yet, partial fail-
ures of our policy of removal liere and tliere,
in the newer States, where a few agricultural
Indians are to be found. They are probably
only temporary exceptions to a final success.
As they have already been removed repeatedly
V hen white settlements crowded them, it may
be expected that they will move on, *'as the
English villages draw nearer and nearer to
them," as in tlie days of Philip. Wlien now
we propose this scheme to them, the stinging,
humiliating, and discouraging memories of gen-
erations come over them. VV^'hy should they
have any confidence in our new promises, or
expectation of permanency in a new home and
on another farm ?
It is said the Indian is lazy and will not
work. Take ten counties of good farmers in
Ohio or New England, and discourage and
» I
OF THE INDIAN QFESTTON.
135
deceive and abuse them as we have aii}^ ten
average Indian tribes, and will those wliite
men, in the second or fourth or six generation,
show themselves thrifty, hearty, and progres-
sive farmers, crowded from New Enghmd and
Ohio by repeated removals to tlie headwaters
of the Missouri or Arkansas or Columbia ?
How long would it take our Indian policy to
produce the Dalrymple farm? How short a
time to convert its thirty thousand acres of
wheat field, minus a few, into wild prairie and
buffalo range? Even Indian human nature
ought to be ashamed if our old policy would
not make it la^ and listless and h()[)eless.
Our Indian *'ward" is naturally, logically, and
honorably lazy, in opening farms in wild lands
for the inevitable white man. Deny to these
ten counties of white farmers any warranty
title to their farms, or any personal and sal-
able rights in the buildings, wells, bridges, and
fences, and tilth, which they have made ; deny
to them the protection of law, and the valid-
ity of all government pledges and treaties ;
follow them up with forced removals, to work
other wild lands into farms; do this for half a
dozen generations, and will not those white
farmers of the ten counties become lazy and
listless and hopeless ?
I have mentioned the policy of Mr. Bourne,
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THE INDIAN'S SIDE
of Colonial Massachusetts, to limit the Indian
lands by ponds, so that the whites might not
change the bounds. The quaint recorder of
the court record of this reservation adds that
this Bourne '' was a man of that discernment
that he considered it vain to propagate Chris-
tian knowledge among any people without ter-
ritory where they might remain in force from
generation to generation and not be ousted." ^
^ "Plymouth Colony Records," Mass. His. Soc. Coll.,
vol. ill. p. 188.
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OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
137
CHAPTER IV.
DO THE AMERICAN INDIANS INCREASE OR
DECREASE ?
The Indian question has as many faces as
a polyliedron. It has at least ten : the Indian
agent, who lives in a tribe, and has his political
conipaign bills cashed by being made the su-
perintendent of a reservation ; the Indian con-
tractor who is to supply such an amount of
goods and rations for so many dollars ; the
land speculator, who wishes to break up cer-
tain reservations that he may handle their
acres in the general land market ; the railroad
projector, who wishes notices served on the
tepees that the cars are coming : the philan-
thropist, who would tabulate the wrongs and
sorrows of the Indian, but lacks reams of
paper; the romantic admirer, who has read in
dreamy Eastern bowers of Cooper's Indian of
fiction ; the citizen friend, who sees in a ballot
and a warranty deed for land in severalty a
cure for all civil ills that American flesh is
heir to ; the man of visions, who sees in latest
and popular schemes the redemption of the
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THE INDIAN'S SIDE
red man ; the Christian workingman, who be-
lieves that uur holy religion is fully adequate
to make Christians of Indians, and save the
race from extinction ; and the matter-of-fact
man, who asks to what extent Indians' woes
have been lessened, and what plans are on
hand, and what more will probably be accom-
plished.
Here, in the extreme West, where we are
for the purpose of acquiring information, these
questions press: Wiiere have the American
Indians once lived? And how many? And
where and how many are they now ?
Section 1. — The number of Indians in Early
Neiv Eniiland.
Referring to the earliest days of the Ply-
mouth Colony, Dr. Bacon says : •' The Narra-
gansetts, inhabiting all the territory now in-
cluded in the State of Rhode Island, are
supposed to have been at that time about
thirty thousand." ^ Schoolcraft says that at
the discovery of America, the number of In-
dians within the present area of the United
States did not exceed one million. Among
the earliest estimates of their number in New
^**Tlie Genesis^of the New Etij^land Churches." By
Leonard IJacon. 1874. P. 357.
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OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
189
Engliuid is that of Gookiii, of whom Dwight
says, in liis '' Travels," that he " has left, in
many parlicuhirs, the bei^t ancient account
extant of the natives of this country."
Gookin numbers 80,000 to "less than half of
the present New England," which President
Dwight thinks too high, and puts the number
at 70,000. This was for the year ITOG —
ninety years ago.^ By the census of 1880, the
nundjer of Indians in the whole of New Eng-
land was 4096.
In 1820, under the instruction of the Hon.
John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, the Hev.
Jedidiah Morse, D.D., made a visit into much
of the Indian country, and also a careful study
of the Indian question for those times. He
found the whole number of Indians east of the
Mississippi to be 120,346. ^ In the census of
1880, they were 17,679, allowing one fifth
of all in Louisiana to be on the east of the
Mississippi.^
The report of Dr. Morse for the entire
United States for 1820 gave 425,766, while by
our last census, sixty years later, the number
1 " Travels in Xew England." By Timothy Dwight,
S. T. D. 1822. Vol. iii. pp. 89, 41.
2 '* Report to the Secretary of War of the United States
on Indian Affairs." By the liev. .Jedidiah Morse, D.D.
1822. P. 375.
3 Appendix, " United States Census." 1880. P. 558,
140
THE INDIAN S SIDE
ii|i
is 255,938, — -Alaska not i'lclutled. This is a
decrease in the sixty years of 169,828. Two
things, liowever, should be considered : first,
the impossibility of any close estimate of our
Indians at that time — the number given by
Dr. Morse may be too high or too low; sec-
ondly, it must be remembered that our census
of 1880 covers territory gained from Mexico,
which gives us 33,306 Indians. This number
should be subtracted from the whole, in order
to take the census of 1820 and that of 1880
from the same area. This will show a decrease
of 203,134 from the estimate of Dr. Morse
during the sixty years ending with 1880.
As to the remnants of Indians in Massa-
chusetts, the last itemized and exhaustive
report was ma^^e in 1861.^ It is a sad record,
and brief — "the short and simple annals of
the poor." There then remained the shreds of
ten bands, in all about 1600 persons, but
among them all no one drop of pure Indian
blood, no civil rights at the polls ; intemperate,
immoral, and unambitious, and for the ten
years preceding, receiving the charities of the
State, not including school-money, to the
amount of !5?29,964.37.
1 " Massachusetts Senate Document 96." 1861. By
J. M. Earl.
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OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
141
Section 2. — The number of Indians East of
the Missit<stppi hi 1820.
A wider territorial range than the Bay State
gives only the same fact extended. One hun-
dred years ago the young republic had prac-
tical possession of a shore belt one hundred
miles in depth by nine hundred in length.
Theoretically, we owned the remainder back
to the Mississippi, with the Indians in pos-
session. The western border of our Atlantic
belt was skirted with the cabins and wigwams
of tlie two races. By treaty and trick, pur-
chase and fraud, the whites have come into
actual [)ossession to the Mississipi)i. Here and
there is a '^ reservation," with Indians on it,
as islands in an overflowing river with their
trees half u])rooted. It would be difficult to
tell how many times single tribes have been
moved, till they are now gathered, wasted and
heartless, in the Indian Territory. In 1880 I
found the Cherokees there, under the six-
teenth treaty with government. Many of
these serial movements to new reservations,
and other changes of condition, were marked
with their attempts for our style of life, but
their i)rojects were broken and their improve-
ments were abandoned as fnst as white inmii-
grants and speculators wanted their lands.
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THE INDIAN S SIDE
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At the time above mentioned, an ex-chief
of the Cherokee nation said to the author,
and with metre of meaning than it is possible
for a white man to })ut into the words :
"We are discouraged, hopeless, and expect to
become extinct."
The original States of the Union have not
been preeminent in this wasting of the abo-
rigines. Newfoundland was once fairly peo-
pled with Indians, but the hist two of them —
a man and a woman — were sliot by two
Englishmen in 1823. " In Newfoundland, as
in other parts of America, it seems to have
been for a length of time a meritorious act to
kill an Indian." ^ " Between Lake Huron and
the sea the remnants of them are scattered in
small and decaying tribes, at distant intervals,
unconnected, and of no public importance."^
I'he Hurons, or W^^andots, were once esti-
mated to be 30,000, " A feeble remnant, a few
score in number of the Wyandots, now survive,
and are represented at Washington by an ex-
ceptionally shabby white man, who has received
the doubtful honor of adoption into the tribe." ^
1 " Report of Committee of Parliament on the Abo-
rigines of North America." 1837. Martin's " History of
the Hudson" s Bay Company."
'-^ " Emigrant's Guide to Upper Canada," etc. By C.
Stuart, Esq. London, 1820. Pp. 24:}, 2.57.
a " The Indian Qu,.stion." By Francis A. Walker. 1874.
P. 70.
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
143
111 1885 this aiicioiit and strong tribe reportcMl
2ol, of wiioiu 2ol) were mixed bloods, witii 40
dwelling-houses.
The depletion of the race continued west of
the Alleghanies, and as rapidly as in the east.
When Colonel Henderson obtained title of hind
for that abnormal State called Transylvania, he
contracted with 1200 Indian chiefs, and paid
to them for their (quitclaim ten loads of goods,
a few fire arms, and some whiskey.^ So many
chiefs indicated a large Indian population at
that date, 1775. At our last census the num-
ber of Indians in Kentucky — now about double
the area of the primitive Transylvania — was
fi^ty. It is no longer "the dark and bloody
ground," but " the blue grass country."
In 1820, Dr. Morse, the Indian Commissioner,
report(Ml the Mennomonies, Winnebagoes, Chip-
peways, Sioux, Sacs, and Foxes at 60,000, but
the census of 1880 puts them at 33,795. In
1820, the Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Cliero-
kees, and Seminoles were numbered at 72,010,
and in 1880 the census puts them as being
59,187. Once the Delawares were numerous
and powerful, the fear of Pennsylvania. In
the Indian Commissioner's Report for 1880,
sixty years afterward, they are numbered as 78,
and on the other side of the Mississippi. Dr.
1 Abbott's "Life of Daniel Boone," p. 123.
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THE INDIAN S SIDE
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Morse, in his Report, page 31, states that ''South
Carolina had twenty-eight tribes when settled
by the English," all hut five of whi(;h, he re-
ports, had even so early disappeared. In 1880,
it had 181 Indians.
Judge Hurnet has left on record some painful
passages in reference to this disa])pearance of
the aborigines : '• In journeying more recently
through the State the writer has occasionally
passed over the ground on which, nniny years
before, he had seen Indian towns filled with fam-
ilies of the devoted race, contented and happy,
but he could not i)erceive the slightest trace of
those villages, or the people who had occujned
them." ^ The Judge details a thrilling incident,
and a picture of the frontier. In 1812, a tribe
of friendly Indians came within the range of
the settlements, near Tjvbana, to be safe
from the hostile tri^ Jome of the United
States army static aere laid a plan to mas-
sacre them. Simon Kenton, who commanded
the regiment, exhausted his pleas to restrain
them, but in vain. He then said that he would
go with them, and called on them to proceed,
and, taking his rifle, he added that he would
shoot the first man who molested an Indian.
* *' Notes on the Early Settlement of the Northwest
Territory." By Jacob liurnet. Cincinnati, 1847. Pp.
390-92.
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The soldiers did not proceed. ^ Ohio to-day has
130 Indians.
Hennepin says that wlien he first visited the
Mississippi, in 1680, the Osages had seventeen
villages; the Mahas or Oinahas, twenty-two,
the least of which contained two hundred
cottages. If these nundjcrs be correct there
must have been about 90,000 souls in them all.
Now, says one authority, i)ublishing in 1812,
there are less than 1500, and he adds : *•' Many
other nations were equally numerous." ^ Major
Stoddard was the first United States Governor
of the Upper Louisiana, taking office in 1804.
The '" Magazine of Western History " quotes
a Jesuit father in Louisiana as saying that
about the year 1700 Hlinoishad 10,000 Indians.
Now it has 140.^ Probably Dr. Morse was
not far out of th.. way in numbering the
Indians east of the Mississippi in 1820 at
120,000.
One old Canadian testimony will be in point
here : *' They have receded as a natum^ con-
sequence before the progress of industry. . . .
Unless some extra means be interposed, he
gradually fades from existence. . . . They are
1 Ibid., pp. 404-05.
'^ " Sketches and Description of Lonisiana." By Major
Amos Stoddard. Philadelphia, 1812. Pp. 433-34.
8 " Magazine of Western History," 1885, p. 268.
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THE INDIAN S SIDE
a degraded race, and seem rapidly sinking to
extinction. . . . It is still most anxiously to be
desired that such may become our future con-
duct towards them that a remna? survive to
bless, instead of cursing the day when Euro-
peans arrived to Sbttle among them." ^
But we have neither time nor need nor heart
to trace out farther, in items, this decline of
the Indian tribes east of the Mississip})i. We
have followed the trail of the 120,84(3, officially
reported in 1820, till they have wasted, in 1880,
to 17,679. What Dr. Morse saw in the year
preceding drew from him this sad lament:
" How many tribes, once numerous and respect-
able, have in succession perished from the fair
and productive territories now possessed by and
giving support to ten millions of people I " ^ I
cannot refrain from adding that eloquent pas-
sage in the " British Spy," which, if very ro-
mantic and poetic, is still more historic . —
" This charming country belonged to the
Indians ; over these fields and through these
forests their beloved forefathers, once, in care-
less gayety, pursued their s[)orts and hunted
their gjime. Every returning day found them
the sole, the peaceful, the happy proprietors of
1 " Eniigraiit's Guide to Upper Canada," etc. C. Stuart,
Esq. London, 1820. Pp. 240-208.
2 " Report," Appendix, p. 17.
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
147
this extensive domain. But the white man
came, and lo, the animated chase, the feast, the
dance, the song of fearless, tliouglitless joy,
were over. Ever since, they have been made
to drink of the bitter cuj) of humiliation ;
treated like dogs, their lives, their liberties, the
sport of the white man ; their country and the
graves of their fathers torn from them in cruel
succession, until, driven from river to river, and
from forest to forest, and through a ])eriod of
two hundred years rolled back, nation upon
nation, they find themselves fugitives, vagrants
and strangers in their own country."
Of course the claim by natural right of the
aborigines to hold these immense wilds against
utilization in cultivation and civilization can-
not be conceded. If one is studiously inclined
on this point, he may find profitable and suffi-
cient reading in Vattel, section 209 ; Kent's
"Commentaries on American Law," volume iii.,
and Lecture fifty-one; and Wheaton's *' Re-
ports," volume viii., page 543 and following.
It is estimated that one acre in corn will fur-
nish a food supply for from 120 to 240 men for
a year, while from 800,000 to 1,500,000 acres of
wild and game land would be necessary to do
the same.^ The increase of the human family
* " Pre-Historic Races of the United States of America."
By J. W. Foster, LL. D. 1874. Pp. 34G, 347.
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THE INDIAN S SIDE
and its elevation in what constitutes civiliza-
tion cannot be expected to concede to an
Indian the sovereign control and use of GOOO
acres of land for the natural production of wild
animals, that he may live on game suppers.
Practically, and by some processes in jurispru-
dence, the case becomes a new one and th?
decision is reversed when the party is a while
Englishman or American instead of a tawny
aboriginal American, and holds from ten thou-
sand to half a million of acres.
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Section 3. — Examples of Decrease beyond the
Jlississippi.
But let us cross over the Mississippi, and
there take up again the trail of our fugitive
Indians — "our wards" — as they strike off
into the West. We stai ted, sixty years ago, to
follow 425,766 of them, of whom we have found
only 15,366 now on the east of the great river.
How many of the remainder can be found on
the west of it ? The American Board of Mis-
sions has this remark in its Report for 1853 :
" It is not strange that the Indians of the
United States, in two centuries, have lost half
their number."
We never have had, in early years or lately,
such an enumeration cf our Indians at regu-
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
149
larly recurring periods as will enable us to
speak positively of tlieir increase or decrease as
a whole. Single tribes and clusters of tribes
have furnished a basis for limited comparison,
if we are allowed to use official and unofficial
estimates in a mixed way, as thus : —
When Marquette opened his Mission opposite
" Starved Rock," Illinois, in 1G75, " 500 chiefs
and old men sat in a ring. Behind stood more
than 1500 vouths and warriors, and behind all
these the women and children of the town."
About four years later, Hennepin says that he
counted 460 lodges there, and others made the
same estimate." ^
Mr. Picotte "informs me that since he first
knew them, in 1820, the Mandans, Rees, and
Gros Ventres had probably lost five sixths of
their number." ^ In 1858 the Apaches in Ari-
zona were said to have 2000 warriors.^ On a
common estimate of one warrior to six Indians,
this would give tlie Apaches in that territory
12,000. The government reports 9891 for their
total in Arizona, New Mexico, and the Indian
Territory, in 1880.
1 " Mag. West His.," 1885, p. 315.
- Cuthbertsou's " Expedition to the Mauvaises Terres,"
1850, Fifth An. Kep. Sniitlisonian Institution, March, 1851,
p. 119.
^ " Arizona and Sonora." B\' Sylvester Mowry, delegate
to Congress. 18G4. Pp. 32, 33.
150
THE INDIAN S SIDE
" Some sixty years ago, after an inquiry into
the state of the Illinois Indians, it was thought
they numbered 10,000 souls. I am of the oi)in-
ion that to-day tliere are scarcely more than
800 or 900.1 Association with the French des-
troys them." 1
In 1845 Elijah White, Indian Agent for
Oregon Territory, reported there ''about 42,000
Indians." That territory embraced the Ore-
gon, Washington, and Idaho of to-day, and all
north up to 54° 40'. As only "civilized"
Indians are entered in the census of 1880, and
the agencies report only what are connected
with them, a comparison with reference to in-
crease or decrease can be only suggestive and
approximate. For so much of the original
Oregon as now lies within the United States,
the Indian Commissioner's Report for 1880
gives 16,356. Of these, 1550 are reckoned as
not under an agent. The number of the un-
civilized is not given ; and allowing for these
and for any north of 49° in Mr. White's re-
port, the difference is still very great between
his estimate in 1845, of 42,000, and the reported
number of 16,356 in 1880. The statements fol-
lowing of two agents are stimulating to reflec-
tions on this difference. The agent for the
' John Watson, " Jesr.it in Louisana." 1764-5. "Mag.
West. His.," 1884, p. 120.
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
151
»»
Grand Roncl^) Agency, Oregon, says : " The In-
dians composing the inluibitants of the agency
are remnants of the iminerous and once power-
ful tribes occupying the Wilhiniette and Kogue
River Valleys in this State." Tliis agency has
869 Indians, the remnant of seventeen tribes.
The agent of the Siletz agency, Oregon, re-
ports : "The Indians occupying thi^'> xtent of
country number about 1100, and are composed
of the remnants of fifteen different tribes."
We obtain a gkmce at the large body of
Indians in Oregon in those early days by read-
ing a passage like this : " Half a century ago
they came by thousands, and tlie desohite
shores were alive with them. . . . Now, only a
few score Indians come to remind the whites
that a remnant of the race still lives." The
author is speaking of the salmon fisheries on
the Columbia, at tlie Dalles." ^
In 184:0 five missiiniaries, with associates, —
thirty-six adults and seventeen children, —
arrived in Oregon to enlarge the Methodist
Mission. '* Not long after the arrival of this
last reinforcement, affairs began to grow more
discouragino^. The Mission school near Salem
dwindled to almost nothing. ... A tour was
made in the Unipqua Valley, where they
1 '* Guide to tlie Northern Pacific liailroad." Jiy Henry
I. Winser. 188U. P. 233.
ri ^
i i
II
152
THE INDIAN S SIDE
preached to the Indians, on many occasions,
but concluded that it was not wise to o[)en a
mission tliere, partly owing to the ra[)i(Uty with
which the Indians seemed to be wasting away.
Tlie station on Puget Sound was so unsuccess-
ful that it was abandoned." The superintend-
ent was superseded, but Mr. Hines, one of the
authors on Oregon, defends the Mission and
Mr. Lee by saying that " the Indian population
had been wasting away like the dews of the
mornr'T^.
»' 1
Commander Wilkes noted the same decrease
of Indians in Oregon in 1841. " We hoped to
get sight of the Indians of the Methodist Mis-
sion, whom they were teaching, but saw only
four servants. We were told, however, that
there was a school of twenty or twenty-live
scholars ten miles away. In a few days we
visited the mill where the school was situated,
but were told that it was not in a condition to
be visited." " During my stay at Vancouver I
frequently met Casenove, the chief of the Klac-
katack tribe. . . . He was once lord of all
this domain, . . . and within the last fifteen
years his village was quite prosperous ; he
could muster four or five hundred warriors;
but the ague and fever have, within a short
- " History of Indian Missions on the Pacific Coast, Ore-
gon,'' etc. By Kev. Myron Eells. 1882. I'p. 22-24.
IP
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
153
space of t^me, swej)t off the whole tribe, and it
is said they all died within three weeks. He
now stands alone, his land, tribe, and [)r()perty
all departed, and he a dependent on the bounty
of the Company (Hudson's Hay Company).
Casenove is about fifty years of age, and a
noble and intelligent-looking Indian. At the
fort he is always welcome, and is furnished
with a plate at meal-times at the side-table. . . .
He scarce seemed to attract the notice of any
one, but ate his meal in silence and retired. . . .
Casenove's tribe is not the only one that has
suffered in this way ; many others have been
swept off entirely by this fatal disease, without
leaving a single survivor to tell their melan-
choly tale." 1
Campbell, in his *' Northwest Boundary,"
page 133, makes this statement in the same
line : '' The whole inside of the north-
eastern part of San Juan formerly belonged to
a tribe kindred to the Lummies, and now
extinct." And the follow^ing is of the same
import, only more comprehensive : " The race,
as such, is doomed to extinction in Oregon."'^
■ " Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedi-
tion." By Charles Wilkes, Commander of the Expedi-
tion. Philadelphia, 1845. Vol. iv., pp. 3:2, 369-370.
2 "Oregon and Her Resources."' By Ilugli Small. 1872.
P. 14.
i ; n'
154
THE INDIAN S SIDE
i
Ui
18
I
hliiili
Still another and more recent author shows the
whole by sample : " One Sunday I was at the
Siletz Agency, and, hearing the church-bell
calling to service, went in. . . . There was a
great variety of type apparent, for the remnants
of thirteen tribes of the Coast and Klanuith and
Rogue River Indians are collected on this re-
servation." ^
In his " Sketches of Louisiana," page 206,
Stoddard says that in the early days of white
settlements among them " the Arkansas nation
of Indians was deemed one of tlie most power-
ful in the country, and the French, to preserve
peace with them, and to secure tlieir trade,
intermarried with them, . . . who are now
reduced to a very few in number, and live
in two snuxll villages." That was early in
this century. Now the very name is lost to
any living Indian, and is preserved in a State
which contains one hundred and ninety-five
Indians.
Section 4. — Some Persoiial Investigation^.
Three months in the autumn of 1885 were
spent by the author between the Missouri and
the Pacific, and with a leading purpose to
' " Two Years iu Oregon." By Wallis Nash. 1882. P.
139.
I
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
155
study our mixed Iiidiau aud American life
in tliiit region. The freedom of the private
travelling citizen, and exemption from all
official relations which might hias him or
expose him to any [)ersonal aims of his in-
formants, afforded some exce[)tionally good
opportunities for seeing the inside of the
"'Indian question." An oHice-holder among
the Indians or an oflice-sfeeker, a border land-
speculator or an Indian agent, secuUir or
sacred, will appreciate this statement. The
principal informant, intelligent and candid,
had spent more than thirty years west of
the Missonri and between our northern boun-
dary and Mexico, had been the most of this
time in the em[)loy of the government, and
spoke four Indian languages. Questions were
put and the answers written out at the time.
"The Gos-Ute,*' he said, in answer to the
question whether the Indians are increasing
or decreasing, '• was once a very numerous
tribe on the deserts of Western Utah and
Eastern Nevada, now nearly extinct, — less
than 400. In 1860, when I guided Lieutenant
Weed's command, Battery B, Fourth Artillery,
in Eastern Nevada, we estimated them at
1200." "Possibly the Utes hold their own
numbers, but not any other tribe, and I
have ranged, since 1853, from the British
r
ii
\\
THE INDIAN S SIDE
border to Arizoiui, and on tlie East from
the divide to the Pacific." " The Indians
must go. They are dying out. The Nava*
hoes liave the niilitaiy and missionaries, Catho-
lic and Protestant. But the sokliery will iiave
access to tlie reservation. The officers and
missionaries cannot prevent it, and the tribe
is being consumed with imported diseases.
The Arapalioes are anotlier case." Of these
the Report for 1880 sliows about 4000, of
wliom 712 are tabulated in the column of
venereal diseases. "In 1858-18G9 it was
difficult to find an unchaste Ute or Snake
woman. After they went on the reservation
virtue was destroyed by the soldiers. I doubt
if one virtuous woman can now be found
among them. Liquor can be had freely on
the reservation. It caused the Ute massacre
of Meeker and of Jackson, the teamster. . . .
From the corruption of the whites the Navahoe
tribe is now one vast pest-house." " The tribes
are ruined beyond all chance of hoj)e by the
soldiers and cow-boys and ranchers. 'J'he
officers generally are gentlemen, and hold
themselves above corrupting influences over
the Indians, but the soldiers are of the lowest
grade originally, and are simply dreadful.
You can have no conception of their out-
rageous conduct." ** Can we iu any way
1 I
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
157
save any tribe fiom extinction?" ''Only
by keeping .I'oni them the wliite intlnonces
which arc now destroying tliein." '• Wonhl
a fair Ohio neiohborlioocl aroniiil save them?"
"Yes, beyond a (h)ubt ; and yet 1 do not know
but these imj)ortetl vices have too strong and
destroying a hold to be stopped."
The testimony just quoted covers, it will
be noticed, quite an area, and quite a number
of years. It agrees well with what Commis-
sioner Walker says in his " Indian Question,"
page 152: ''The Indian tribes of the continent,
with few exceptions, have been steadily de-
creasing in numbers."
An illustration to the same effect from
Vancouver Island is in point : " It is pain-
ful to know, as I do from frequent iniiuiry
of Indians in Victoria streets, how very few of
them outlive infanc3\" ^
itfi
H
1^
Section 5. — Increase or Decrease in Cali-
fornia.
In this historical disquisition on the increase
and decrease of the American Indians, those of
California have been reserved for a sei)arate
consideration, for several reasons. California
had, from the earliest days of Europeans there,
1 "Daily Chronicle," Victoria, Nov. 2, 1886.
1 '
<1 ^
f •
i>!
i
158
THE INDIAN S SIDE
the fair experiment of the Church and State
policy combined to open u]) a new country.
The Roman Catholic Mission had there, in
its twenty-one *' Missions," a fair and unmo-
lested show of its theory, running through
more than sixty years. An American border
life among Indians had there an exceptionally
good illustration in the extent of its range —
having the combined areas of New England,
New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Nowhere
besides, in our domain, has there been such
a mixture of Indian, mining, and ranching
life — each a very positive element in the oper-
ation of a civil and Christian State.
Therefore a better field than California could
not be found in which to studv the civilization,
Christianization, and perpetuity of American
Indians.
The Franciscans planted Missionb among the
Indians on the coast between San Diego and
San Francisco. There were linally twenty -one
of these Missions, in a shore belt about 500 by
40 miles, and so far adjoining as to rule out
settlers between. The first was established in
1769 and the last in 1823, and the Padres were
both lords spiritual and temporal. They so far
Christianized and domesticated the natives as
to reckon 18,683 as connected with the Mis-
sions. These were all servants, and worked for
OF THE INDIAN QUKSTION.
159
n
a living merely, not accuniulaiing property in
their uwn right. By tiiis policy the Fathers
became immensely wealthy. In LS^o the Mis-
sion at San Francisco owned T<»,00<) head of
cattle, oOOO horses, 79,000 sheei), and other
ranch interests in proportion. Their white and
red wines obtained high re[)ntc in the East,
the Mission of San Gabriel i)r()dncing annually
from four hundred to six hundred barrels.
The civil, social, and '^Cin'istian " condition of
the native converts may be S( i in one passage
from Cronise : —
" Both men and women were required to
work in the fields every day, except those who
were carpenters, blacksmiths, or weavers.
None of them were taught to read or write
except a few who were selected to form a choir,
to sing and play music, for each jNIission. The
only instruments were the violin and guitar.
They never received any payment for their
labor, except food and clothing, and instruc-
tions in the catechism. The single men and
women were locked up in separate buildings
every night. Both sexes were severely pun-
ished with the whip if they did not obey the
missionaries, or other white men in authoritv.
. . . Both men and women were flogged or put
into the stocks, if they refused to believe or to
labor. . . . Eminent men of science from Eng-
H
■• I
160
THE Indian's side
■1" ! '■''
V|! II
Mil
!:^h
land, France, Russia, and the United States
who visited the coast, and saw the unfortunate
natives under tlie Mission r(}ginie, in its pahni-
est da3^s, all bear witness to the wretched state
of bodily and mental bondage in which they
were held." ^
So in Mexico, the converted Indians were
reduced to slavery on the land and in the
niines.2 Of the vast interior of the countiv
and the great majority of pagan natives the
"Missions" took no account. It does not
a[)pear that they explored to see whether the
lands or the natives, far inland, were worth
attention. When the Convention at Monterey,
in 1849, was discussing the question where the
eastern boundary of the young State should be,
they were bewildered, as in an unknown land.
One proposed a line that would have included
one half of Nevada ; another, the whole of
Nevada and a large part of Utah; and yet
another, all of Nevada and Utah, the most of
Colorado, and portions of Nebraska. Indeed,
the vastness, the amplitude of American geog-
raphy has always been confusing to both
citizens and foreigners. The home govern-
ment of old S[)ain made liberal grants for these
i"Tlie Natural Wealth of California." By Titus Fye
Croni^e. Sail Francisco, 1808. Pp. 25, 26.
2 " Am. Kncyc," 1875. Mexico, p. 476.
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
101
Missions, as settlements to develop the country
as a part of the S[)anish Eh![)ii'e, and the
Catholics patronized them generowi-jr' for the
extension of the Churcli. Yet the sohliers and
colonists sent there hv the orovernment were
often rutBans and renegades, trans[)()rted for
crimes at home. Such was the S[)anish theory
of the civilization and Cliristianization of the
Indians as practised in California.
In 1821 Mexico assumed independence under
Iturbide. It became more and more evident
that the polic}^ of California was a failure for
either civil or religious i)urpose, and in 1826
the Missions began to be broken up by govern-
ment, and the vast wealth in them conliscated
to the young republic. This was completed
by statute in 1833, when the Mexican Con-
gress abolished tlie Missions, removed tlie mis-
sionaries, and divided the cattle, lands, and
remnants of property among the natives and
the settlers. Santa Anna, coming tlien into
power, broke the full force of this decree, yet
their power waned ; the successive insurrec-
tions, or changes in partie,, despoiled them,
and in 1845 government sold the last of the
" Missions " at auction. The domesticated Ind-
ians suffered severely from these changes.
They had been educated for servitude and not
citizenship, and Jjiexr conversion to Chris-
III
ii ':
1 1'''-
1
iv: I!
i I
i I
THE Indian's side
tiaiiity liad been ceremoiiiiil vatlier tluui vital,
and they had received no training in civiliza-
tion above the wants of their menial life. Their
relapse, therefore, was not only inevitable, but
they became more of an obstacle to the future
settlement and development of the country
than the wild Indians themselves. Indeed,
they stood in the wa}" of civilizing the uncivil-
ized Indians, for tliey had only so far left the
savage state as to adopt the vices of their half-
civilized masters. They had lost the virtues of
their wild life, but had not attained to those of
civilized life, and would class with that refuse
of whites on our frontiers who are the princi-
pal obstacle to the elevation of the Indians.
Of these '' Mission " Indians, as has been
stated, there were finally 18,683. The last of
these establishments was constituted in 1823,
in which year the first official census was taken
of the Indian race in California. The number
reported was 100,826. That was about sixty
years ago, and by latest official reports that
number has fallen to 16,277 (1880). The
estimates of the number of Indians in the coun-
try, prior to any tolerable census, must be taken
with grave distrust. Schoolcraft put tlieii- num-
ber at 1,000,000, when America was discovered,
while Catlin')^ estimate was 14,000,000.
II
OF THE l^'DIAN QUESTION.
168
Section 6. — The Government Census quite Im-
perfect^ yet Shows much iJecrease.
The facts now given, miscellaneous of
necessity, only partially olHcial, and as compre-
hensive as data at hand would allow, point dis-
tinctly to an apparent decrease in the number
of the American Indians. Of course results of
this investigation can be stated only approxi-
mately, since the government tables contain
many blaidvs, and when tilled tliey frequently
have the foot-notes ; *' from report of last
year " ; '' estimated " ; " partially reported " ;
*' an under-estimate, many tribes not being re-
ported." While the twenty -six columns in the
usual table are generally filled, except when ob-
viously there was nothing to be inserted, as
boarding-schools, or missionaries, or donations,
only twenty-eiglit per cent, of the blanks for
births and deaths are filled. Every tribe fur-
nishes material for these blanks, and their
vacancy is a serious hindrance to this investi-
gation. In the reports for ten years, ending
with 1884, there are 2585 blanks for the entry
of the population, etc., yet onl} 729 of these
contain the figures of births and deaths. We
have, there fm'e, only twenty-eight per cent, of
the material or conditions for working tlie prob-
lem in hand. With these very imperfect re-
. 1
: i
^
'I
HI
J Ml
; 1 •
'i'
li
i •!
• *|
sit
164
THE INDIAN S SIDE
turns, the average annual return for ten years*
ending with 1884, is 518 births in excess of
deaths.
One of the Indian Commissioners throws a
farther perplexity over the tables on which we
would like tr rely on the question of increase
or decrease. Mr. Walker mentions an increase
in certain tribes, and then says: '* An increase
of 402 over the number reported for 1871 ; due,
however, perhaps as much to the return of
absent Indians as to the excess of births over
deaths." ^
Only " civilized " Indians are officially re-
ported, which fact may have left some to a
hopeful delusion as to increase. For example,
the total reported increase for 1881 over 1880
\\ as 5913 ; but the increase by births over
deaths was onlv 350. Whence the additional
increase of 5563 ? It is an increase of " civil-
izerl," not of new-born Indians -^ an annex of
so many from the wild Indians. Dropping the
bUmket for the pantaloons does not add to the
" wards of the nation " ; it is merely a change
in wardrobe, and very slight indeed at that.
Thus, in 1882, the number falls off 2219 from
the preceding year, not perhaps a decrease by
death so much as by a relapse into the "unciv-
ilized " class.
1 " The Indian Question," p. 155.
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
165
re-
A wider range among the figures may serve
still farther to remove this delusion, for an ob-
scurity covers them, tending to skepticism on
what we would like to say, that the Indians are
on the increase. The Report of the Connnis-
sioner for 1874 gives their number as 275,003,
but the Report for 1882 gives it as 259,(332.
Here is a loss of our Indian total in eight years
of 15,371.
We have elsewhere quoted a government
Report for 1820, showing that the ^' Five
Nations," or five civilized tribes in tlie Indian
Territory, then numbered 72,010. The Report
for 1880 — sixty years later — shows that they
had decreased to 59,187, — a loss of 12,823. It
should be here added that those five tribes have
been the favorites of the government and of
our educating and missionary societies.
And if one is still more critical over some of
these figures, he ^ ly become more skeptical as
to their accuracy. The increase in the ''Five
Nations " for eight years, ending with 1882, is
5381. As it does not appear that any wild
Indians have been added, during this time, to
the number of those five tribes, this increase
must be the excess of births over deaths. But
the excess of births over deaths among all our
Indians for those eight years was only 4560 —
821 less than the number assigned by the Re-
Vf] f
III !!
1G6
THE INDIAN S SIDE
ports to the Five Nations alone. No doubt the
per cent, of natural increase sliould be qreater
among those favored tribes than among any
others, for they have enjoyed an actual
" reservation " for sixty years or so, and liave
been able to establish a family life. Under
their present liabilities and anxieties as to a
new civil status and separation and wanderings,
this natural increase must not be expected to
keep np its average. It is unfortunate that we
have not conn)lete and reliable vital statistics
of these five favored tribes, that we might
know what the State and the Church have ac-
complished, and may reasonably undertake.
Section 7. — Some impleasant Conclaslons,
It was the purpose, in this paj^er. to prepare
a disquisition and not an argument. The fig-
ures and quoted statements from authors named
are, therefore, left to work their own way, with
what force they may inherentl}^ have, without
offered inferences or rhetorical enforcement.
We started with the government Report of
Dr. ]\Iorse, giving the number of American
Indians in 1820 as 425,766. We have added
to those, on the Mexican census of 1823, the
number of 100,826, which body, more or less,
and increased or decreased, we took into the
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
167
American Union, with California, in 1848.
These two sums make 5211,592 Indians witliiii
the present teri-it(jry of the United States,
Ahiska excei)te(l, and are to be now accounted
for. We have cited authors to show their
abundance at times and in sections; also to
show the wasting and even total disappearance
of powerful tiibes, and the reduction of others
to feeble and petty renniants, till a half score
of old tribes made only a handful for an agency.
We have called attention to deficient, and some-
times discrepant, tabulations.
A few totals for a few years from oflicial and
annual reports on the Indians may well close
this chapter. The earliest at hand is for 1866,
when their number was 295,774; in 1868 it was
298,528. In 1872 theii- inunber reached the
maximum in official returns, when it is put
"about 300,000."' Five years later, 1877, they
fell to their minimum reported number, which
was 250,864. Six years afterward, 1883, the
number had risen to 265,565, but the next year,
1884, fell off to 264,369, —a loss of 1196. It
will be noticed tliat since 1866 the Indians have
decreased 31,405. If we go back to 1823, and
take the ao-o'ieo-ate numbers of the United States
and of C'alifortiia — 526,592 — it \\\\\ be seen
that their decrease since 1823 has been 262,223.
It may be well said that the numbers of long
;t » in
r^: III
II
-ill
ii I
108
THE INDIAN S SIDE
{i^o were a crude e!-;tiiniite, and that losses com-
puted on tliem will need a wide margin fur
variation. This cannot be said of the reguh^ir
government returns of the hist eigliteen years,
during wdiicli the average annual loss has been
1744.
As has been already stated, in the Indian
census only the ''civilized " or "[)artially civil-
ized" are enumerated and reported. All others
are unreported, and are reckoned only by esti-
mation. The only guide offered by the Com-
missioners, as to the number of tlie uncivilized
and unreported, is that the reported are about
five sixths of the wdiole number.
According to the nflicial reports of the last
eighteen years the average decrease of the " civ-
ilized " or " partially civilized " has been some-
thing less than 2000 a year. One of highest
authority on this subject, within government
circles, informs the author that our Indian sta-
tistics are very far from reliable. There are
many and obvious reasons for this, and some
special ones for making the statement of their
numbers in excess of fact. Neither the State
nor the Ch;..'ch can readily consent to the criti-
cism that the aboriginal race is diminishing un-
der their mutual care, and the error in the
statistics is most likely to be in making the
number too high. Be that as it may, as the
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
1G9
the
official reports sliow that there has been a
steady decrease for many years in the total
of the civilized, the increase, if there has been
any, must haA^e been anicmg the uncivilized.
It will be a most unwelcome and rei)roachfnl
inference, if forced on us, that only wild Ind-
ians can increase by birtli in the United States,
while civilization, as we Jipply it to them, or
make a show of it ourselves, on our white bor-
ders, is gradually wasting them away, or is prov-
ing incompetent to save them from extinction.
And yet another point. It appears that the
"civilized" or "partially civilized" Indians, tab-
ulated in the census, are decreasing at the aver
age rate of about 2000 a year. If, therefore, there
is an increase in the total of the aborigines
within our borders, it must be among the un-
civilized, who are not reckoned in the census.
By estimation, this unknown quantity is put at
abont one sixth of the whole, that is, about
50,000, as the reported total for 1885 is 259,244.
Thus, to make the increase claimed, this 50,000
of wild Indians must first gain enough to make
up the loss of 2000 a year in the civilized
259,244, and enough more to enable us to say
that the American Indians, in their totality, are
on the increase. It is an impossible snpposi-
tion that 50,000 wild Indians are doing this,
wdiile five times as many civilized ones cannot
hold their own.
Wi
ill
I I
'P
170
THE INDIAN S SIDE
Uii
iV
Section 8. — EnjUalt, Partnership in the Indian
Decrease.
As some relief to American dishonor, offer-
ing mitigation \vitlK)iit comi'ort, it must be
added tliat the Englisli are partners, to an ex-
tent, ill the re[)r()ach of Indian decrease. After
tlie treaty of 1783, and in viohition of it, they
continued to hohl, and for more than ten 3'ears,
several north-western posts within the American
lines, and used them as centres for stinndating,
and honoring, and compensating the Indians to
make war on the settlements. Following 1783,
" the whole Indian war had been the result of
intrigue between agents and emissaries from the
British posts along the Canada frontier, whose
avowed object was to check the advance of pop-
ulation northwest of the Ohio." ^ Under their
instigation and patronage Tecumseh visited the
southern Indians, and for the second time in
1812, and made "connnon cause with the Eng-
lish ill the extermination of the frontier settle-
ments of Georgia and Tennessee, with those of
the Mississippi Territory.'' ^
" British officers and emissaries had been ac-
tively engaged in arousing the Indians of Flor-
ida to renewed hostilities,"' and Colonel Nichols
1 Monette " His. Miss. Valley," ii., 203. '^ Ibid., 395.
OF THE 1^'DIAN t^UESTiOiJ.
171
lian
ffer-
, be
1 ex-
^i•tel•
tliey
ears,
ricaii
itiiig,
Lus to
1T83,
,ult of
m tlie
whose
if pop-
tlieii'
ed the
Line in
3 Eiig-
settle-
liose of
een ac-
f Flor-
Nicliols
of the Britisli stjuadroii, at Pensacoha, offered
tlie Indians ten doHars for (^vcrv white soal[).^
So sucli merchandise was pnt on the sched-
ules of commerce — the silver-fjrav of ajje, the
flowing tresses of maidenliood, and the flossy,
(h)wny covering of infant lieads. In liis mes-
sage of Novend)er, 1812, Madison says: "The
enemy has not scrupled to call to his aid tlie
ruthless ferocity of the savages, armed with in-
struments of carnage and torture, which are
kncnvii to s[)are neither age nor sex."
Of course, Indians by the thousand, and
even whole tribes, stimulated tlius by bawbles,
whiskey, and promises to throw down the
gauntlet of war, perished miserably.
Section 9. — Has American Christianity done
its best ta Preserve the Indian ?
'' While Protestants have skunbered ; while
the wealthy and powerful church of our own
establishment (Church of England) hath been
inert ; while missionaries, reared and supported
by British piety and by British generosity, have
labored and died in other countries, the poor
Indian of North America, a cast-off savage peo-
})le, the most interesting perhaps in the world,
iiave been left in ti:e gall of our common i...-
' Ibid., 428-9.
%.
i
■r^p
b r
f
!i
I,
I
I
i
172
THE INDIAN'S SIDE
ture, or abandoned to the efforts of a sect —
Catholics. . . . Can we not iind amongst our
millions another Hraincrd? Or liave we no
souls but for the comparatively easier toils of
Eastern missions ? " ^
In the wasting and disappearing of these an-
cient and primeval races, we cannot too much
admire the benevolence and the Christian ten-
derness which are comforting their last days
and smoothing their trail into the twilight. It
is the present highest attainment of our civili-
zation to watch and comfort the dying, till
death come, no matter how imbecile or useless
or degraded the departing may be. But if our
civilization has done its best, while it a[)propri-
ates their lands, and vitiates their blood till it
ceases to flow, and spares only geographical
names as memorials, some of its praise must be
abated. The civilization which cannot make
citizens out of Indians, or the religion which
cannot make Chrifi^tians out of the aborigines,
must become modest in its pretensions ; and,
reasoning from our American experiment on
home heathen, it may become a question how far
we can make a success in those lines among the
inferior in foreign lands. If American Christi-
anity and American civilization can do their
' " Emigrant's Guide to Upper Canada," etc. By C. Stu-
art, Esq. London, 1820. Pp. 258, 259.
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
173
best only by easing and gracing the extinction
of tlie East Indian, and Turk, and Hawaiian,
preparatory to tlie snj»reniacy of an Knglish-
speaking peo[)le over tiieir ancestral d(»inains,
the theory of Christian missions exposes itself
to grave criticism.
In this home work and threatened failure,
nothing can be charged off on the government
as a force separate from the people. For all
practical purposes they are one and the same.
The national government on the Indian (ques-
tion is only an alias for the people. Probabl}-
in the cool, historic i)eriod which is coming,
when old States and new, and base and border
lines shall be blended, and the provincial be
ruled out by the national, it will appear that
civilization and religion had hard times at the
front, with scant encouragement from the older
States, and the Indian and his white neighbor
degenerated. For the good of the red man and
of the border white man there has been too
much East and too little West, and very mucli
foreign, in the divisions and apportionments of
our benevolent work, and in our popular enthu-
siasm. Very likely the progressing failure in
our civilization and Christianity to save the Ind-
ian races will by and by be properly traced, not
to any inherent weakness in the systems, but to
their unfortunate administration. It is to be de*
i||.|
'l!
I 1
111
■MMWM
If ' .
■ I
I i
174
THE Indian's side
voutly hoped that we will not be too late in the
discovery that the household phrase, Home Mis-
sions, means for this new and broad continent
a p(nver to nialie a nation to order. Providence
has given out the order, and, if it is not filled,
tlie '•es})onsibility must come on those having
the management of the work. In discussing
the Louisville Canal Bill, in the United States
Senate, in l8o(J, and against much Eastern op-
position and ignorance of the Western growth
and i)reponderance of the nation, Webster, as
usual with him, took a national view of the
question, and said it was his habit to ask, not
where an improvement was pro])osed, but what
it was. Then he added : " There are no Alie-
ghanies in my politics." We have needed
Clinstian contributors and benevolent adminis-
trators of Christianity as continental as such
statesmen. Some, with k'ng and wide patriotic
and Christian plans, have gone '' from sea to
sea," but the number of these has been all too
small, and tlierefore these ugly Indian and
Mormon and Socialist questions trouble the
nation on its Western side.
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
175
I the
Mis-
uent
ence
illed.
Lviiig
ssing
itates
II op-
owtli
er, as
f the
k, not
what
Aiie-
eeded
miiiis-
i such
tiiotic
sea to
ill too
11 and
)le the
CONCLUSION.
We have had several epochs in oiir Indian
history, but no one has come with tlie gravity
which attaches to the bill that secures land in
severalty and citizenship to the riulian. It
gives to hini three things, any one of which is
more than all that the nation has before con-
tributed toward his manhood : se])arateiiess from
the tribal relation, land as truly and absolutely
his as is that of a millionnaire, and all the
rights, privileges, and immunities which per-
tain to a citizen of the United States. It does
not surprise us that tl«3 author of the bill
re-wrote it seven times, and has given to it six
or seven years of senatorial life.
We indicate its leading features. When the
President sees an Indian so far advanced that
in his opinion he can maintain himself, and
wishes land of his own, he is authorized to allot
to him, if the head of a family, 1(30 acres of
land, and if single 80 acres, and to each child
of this head of a family, 40 acres, within their
reservation. For twenty-live years no one
can obtain any legal title, claim, or lieu to any
!i
If
HI
(4
tit
im
!
176
THE INDIAN S SIDE
of this land, and then the government conveys
it absolutely to the Indian in fee-simple. Land
within the reservation, not so disposed of
finally, may be sold to the white settlers, by
consent of the tribe ; and the income from such
sales the government shall hold for the bene-
fit of the original Indian occupants. But the
white man purchasing must dwell on the land
five years continuous before he can obtain a
title. After this manner, aix' eventually, the
reservation system and the tribal relations will
disappear, but only as each Indian chooses the
new style of life. This will come about imper-
ceptibly ; and so almost unconsciously all these
"wards" of the nation will become citizens in
full. There are two marvels about the bill:
. "le is that its fundamental provisions are so
simple, and the other is that we have been so
long in coming to it.
The bill imposes certain grave ohligations on
the people. The government can bestow the
land and confer citizenship, but not till the
Indian is fitted for them and desires them.
Here comes in a first great duty of the benev-
olent to prepare the Indian for this step, and
to lead him up to desire it. On this Mr.
Dawes has well said: "The o()vcrnment can
furnish money, but it cannot teach a school.
The government can give land, but it cannot
"
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
177
veys
and
l of
, by
such
)eiie-
; the
h^nd
Uin a
, the
5 will
s the
mper-
these
jns ill
J bill:
are so
ien so
071S on
iw the
ill the
them,
benev-
3p, aiul
lis Mr.
lit can
school,
cannot
teach how to cultivate it ; that must be done
by private and benevolent effort, or not at all.
It would be idle to take him out and oive him
160 acres of land, ignorant how to use it; bet-
ter let him be where he is. . . . The Indian is
to be trained and educated, not by government
ofificials, but by private effort. Teachers sliould
be paid in large degree by the government, and
the government has shown its readiness to sup-
ply everytiiing that can be done in educating
them."i
Certain dangers or perils lie about this
bill, and in this speech now quoted, ]\Ir.
Dawes says, and with force ; " The great dan-
ger with the Indian is that he will be cir-
cumvented ; that he will be cheated, if not
directly out of his property, yet that in one
way or another he will lose it. The State is
hostile to his coming there and settling." This
anxiety seems to follow the distinguished Sena-
tor and in an address at the Conference of the
Missionary Boards and Indians Rights Associ-
ations, in Washington, January, 1887, he re-
curs to these dangers again: '*• Suppose it
became a law just as we want it, wliat is the
thing next to be done? Are we to step down
and say that we have enacted this great work
into completion? I never knew any good to
1 "Mohonk Lake Conference," October, 188G.
Ill
li
If'
jifii'
III"
THE INDIAN S SIDE
come from any such course of action. I am
greatly oppressed with the feeling that it will be
considerable of an undertaking to get the peo-
ple of this country to feel and understand . . .
that unless we coniprehend it, and feel it as a
living principle, after all, it would have been
better that the law never should have been
enacted."
This bill can become of force in actual re-
sults only as fast as the benevolent people of
the land advance the Indians up the line of
civilization, and prepare them for this new and
citizen life. The philanthropic and Christian
associations are to lead this unfortunate race
along in a prejjaratory course, till, in the judg-
ment of the President, they are qualified to be
graduated from their wild state of pupilage
and enter into the individualism and indepen-
dency of American citizens.
In his Washington speech, Mr. Dawes urges
this benevolent action in earnest words : " It
is possible to lose all the benefit of this (bill)
by indifference, or by the apprehension that
you liave accomplished it all, when you have
got a measure upon which you have set your
hearts as capable of working out the result.
Witli the passage of this bill you will only have
gotten the instrument, that is all. . . . We
must understand tliat we are carrying along not
1^1
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
179
am
,11 be
peo-
• • •
as a
been
been
al re-
»le of
lie of
^ and
■istiaii
i race
to be
pilage
depen-
uvges
it,
It
3 (bill)
11 that
Li have
t your
result,
ly have
. . We
ong not
only the Indian, but we are carrying along [)ub-
lic opinion, which, up to this time, lias been in an
altogether different direction, and holding back.
We are to educate ivhite men as well as Indians
in this matter."'
With this the remarks of General Porter on
the same cccasion were in accord: "You can
do nothing in law, or in the i)ractical opera-
tions in the progress of a people, that is con-
trary to that progress, or the public sentiment
controlling it. It does not make any differ-
ence what you enact in the shape of law ; the
public sense of a country is what will shape its
course. . . . The idea of lands in severalty has
been for the last fifty years a pet scheme for
the solution of the question as to the civiliza-
tion and the C'hristianization of the Indians.
It has been repeated and failed times without
number. While Maiiypenny was Commissioner
of Indian Affairs, there were not less than 15
or 20 tribes that took lands in severalty, with
the option of becoming citizens. Where are
those tribes to-day? Reduced in numbers,
reduced in morals, without si)irit, they have
been cast into the Indian Territory, and given
small reservations there. They took lands in
severalty. At first they seemed to progress,
which is perfectly natural ; believing in it
inspires them to work out its end, but just as
I
w
Hi!
180
THZ INDliVN S SIDE
soon as their enviro7i77ients are contrary to it,
they lose courage, and it dies, and tliey want
to get away. The surroundimj settlements of
Indian reservations, where the land lias been
divided in severalty, have invariably had such
experience as to result in petitions to Congi ss
to get rid of the worthless Indians." ^>
We must not conceal from ourselves the fact
that the policy of land in severalty and citizen-
ship for the Indians is attended with no little
peril to the new citizens. Their friends, there-
fore, as well as the friends of a progressive civ-
ilization, must stand by them with all the more
steadfastness and watching and sacrifice when
they enter on this higher plane of living. An
experiment of years ago in Massachusetts is
full of suggestions, and is calculated to make
one somewhat timid and anxious over our new
policy.
About one hundred and fifty years ago the
Housatonics were a remnant quite respectable
in number and quality in Stockbridge and vicin-
ity. Late in the year 1749, an order was passed
by the Legislature that their lands, held on the
tribal theory, should be divided and apportioned
among them on some plan and scale of equity.
Moreover, the order in council says that '' it is
further declared that the Indian inhabitants of
the town of Stockbridge are and shall be sub-
«v
OF TIIK INDIAN QUESTION.
181
D it,
vant
ts of
been
such
gi ss
i fact
tizen-
Uttle
the re -
e civ-
move
when
. All
jtts is
make
Lr new
go the
ectable
[i vicin-
\ passed
on tlie
ii'tioned
equity,
it " it is
tants of
be sub-
jected to and receive the benefit of the hiws of
this Government to all intents and purposes in
like manner as other His Majesty's subjects of
this Pruvince are subjected or do receive.''
An official of the government aided them in
making the divisions and apportionments, ^rhe
Indian proprietors decided to appropriate at
first but one-half their reservation, so that thev
might have lands to grant to Indians of other
tribes who might wish to make home with
them afterward. It was found tliat sixty were
entitled to land, an(^ '^ vras assigned in parcels
ranging from ten res to eighty. Some Eng-
lish families had previously been invited by the
Indians to settle among them, as farmers and
mechanics, for purposes of instruction, and
these al: "dy had lands in possession.
The I .dians at once laid out a common for
a training-field, cemetery, and church lot. The
races thus mixed in neighborhood life consti-
tuted the town of Stockbridge, as the tribe
of Indians was called Stockbridge, or Housa-
tonic, and the town records of that early day
show that the red men shared with the white
the offices of selectmen, assessors, constMl)les,
and deacons, and several of the aborigines Ijore
military responsibilities and titles during tlie
French, Indian, and Revolutionary wars. They
had had good training under the missionaries
182
THE INDIAN S SIDE
Ifl
I
Sargent and Edwards, and, with the possible ex-
ce[)ti()n of the Cherokees, there was never, in the
United States, a tribe 'oetter prepared for the
experiment whicli they tried. ±\ie Indian pro-
l)rietors hekl their annual and some special
meetings from 1750 to 1781, and liad the man-
agement of their affairs in their own hands,
among whicli were the control and disposal of
the undivided half of their reservation. And
yet, in less than forty years, the experiment
failed and was abandoned, and the Stockbridge
Indians moved off and united with the Oneidas
of Central New York.
Why the failure of a policy founded on land
in severalty and the ballot and equal privileges
under the laws? The proprietors' record book
answers the question somewhat, though unde-
signedly. The undivided land was sold, accord-
ing to vote, from time to time, to pay the debts
of the proprietors, till it was all gone. Indi-
viduals were allowed also, by proprietors' vote,
to sell their private land to pay off personal
debts, till they were reduced to poverty. The
quotation of a few votes will make it plain.
'' Voted, that T. Woodbridge, Esq., make sale
for the just debts of the Indian proprietors,
who have not ability otherwise to discharge
their debts, all that tract of land lying," etc.
"Voted and granted to Elias and Benj. Willard
^\l
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
183
le ex-
iu the
)L' tlie
1 pro-
pecial
; iiuui-
iiiiids,
)sal of
And
riliient
bi'idgi'
)iieidas
n land
.vileges
•d book
1 unde-
accord-
le debts
. Indi-
L-s' vote,
personal
y. The
aiii.
ake sale
[)rietors,
ischarge
ng,'' etc.
, Willard
one hundred acres of land, in consideration of
their discharging X50, New York currency,
debts due to them from sundry Indian pr(>i)ri-
etors." ('aptain Daniel Niiidiam, 'M)wing a
large sum of money, which he cannot pay,
except by the sale of his original grant," is
given liberty to sell. "Granted to William
Goodrich, in consideration of his having his ox
killed, fifty acres of land." One article in the
warrant for the meeting in 1771 reads thus :
*' To see if the said projnietors will order and
grant some of their common lands to be sold
for the payment of several Indian debts, who
have judgments of courts and executions issued
against them, and must unavoidably be com-
mitted to jail except relieved by the propri-
etors." And in 1780 all the common lands in
the south part of the town were sold for the
payment of public debts.
These are samples of some sixty votes f»n
the Indian land sales within thirty years of the
time when the land was granted in severalty.
We are at no loss to conclude why some of
these debts were contracted, nor does it sur-
prise us that white men would trust Indians,
so long as Indians owned land. When emer-
gencies came, they could be persuaded or
forced to part with it to satisfy the shrewd
creditor. The Saxon greed and schemes for
f
184
THE INDIAN S SIDE
1^
land lire not new with us. It was thought best
to mingle the two races socially and civilly,
and yet the fatal weakness in the policy of tlie
council ol" 1T41> was in peiinitting that near-
ness of the white man lo tiie red man. Slowly,
but inevitably, the shrewder and sharper race
absorbed the pro[)erty of the inferior neighbor,
and so the life of the Indian commonwealth ran
only for one generaticm.
In epitomizing tliis experiment of the Massa-
chusetts Colony with the llousatonic or Stock-
bridge tribe of Indians, an author remarks :
" The simple fact seems to have been that even
without attributing deliberate intention of fraud
in the premises, the natural and inevitable re-
sult of the contact of simplicity with shrewd-
ness, of ignorance with intelligence, oi indolence
with industry, of barbarism with civilization,
happened in this case, as methinks it will ever
happen — the weaker party must go to the
wall." 1
Mr. Dawes referred to this same adverse pub-
lic sentiment on the border and in Washington,
when he said, in his Molu ': speech : '' I
liave been for years in a fight with western
men, who are bent upon taking land from these
Indians without the slightest regard to their
1 E. W. B. Canning, 'VMag. of Am. His.," August,
1887.
m
OF THR INDIAN QUESTION.
185
riglits, or the obligations tlie government had
entered into.
'llie
re is an organization in
Washington of very excellent men, bnt their
pnri)ose is to perpetuate the existing state of
tl
nil
g^
?»
ai
In the execution of tlie bill, a specific danger
ises. The President has to do it tlnonoli
the Secretary of the Interior, and he through the
Commissioner of Indian ^Vllairs, and he tiunugh
fifty or a liundred agents scattered among tlie
Indians, and some of them a thousand miles olT.
If all are good men and true, competent, faith-
ful to their trust, and in full sympathy with
the Indian cause, it will be well with the
bill. But the peril to the aim and end of the
bill is obvious when the interests of white men
are known to be in the ascendant. There is a
large body of men East and West, land specu-
tators and jobbers in Indian reservations and
supplies, who wish to have the old conditions
continued. This bill will put all their schemes
and usages concerning Indian lands among the
impossibles. Thousands will be thrown out of
employment and fortunes.
But above all and more than all dangers and
perils which cluster about the opening of this
new Indi" i era, is the dominant white hostil-
ity to the Indians as neighbors. This becomes,
practically, hostility to their preservation and
m
<>,
:<^T^
>,
.^^-'<^V
IMAGE EVALUATION
TEST TARGET (MT-3)
4is
^
%
^o
1.0
I.I
us ^ 12.2
1.8
11-25 111.4 11.6
V2
7
7
^
'^
?^
THE INDIAN 8 SIDE
civilization, witli a part of tlie American [)eople.
Tills is recognized in the [)iii'ases. in the [)rece(l-
ing quotations : '' The State is hostile to his
coming," ''public opinion holding hack,''
" environments," " surrounding settlements.*'
This obstacle is recognized in the s[)eeciies but
not in the bill, since law cannot niacii it. The
appeals to the people for benevolent and
moral and Christian aid, to make the law effec-
tive, are not too strong, are well put, and are
recognized as carrying a force indispensable to
success." After all, the public at hirge are to
do the work. The tone of national feeling
toward the Indian, and the prevalent habit of
the nation in handling him, are indicated in
two federal money facts. Last year the In-
terior Department had ^6,000,000 to use in
caring for, edncating, and civilizing the Ind-
ians, and the War Department had '*i?17,000,-
000 to use in subduing them, and in holding
them in subjection by military force. Three
times as much ft)r enforcing subjection as to
enligliten and civilize and lift him out of the
ordinary chances for savagery. These two facts
are a measure of the moral convictions of the
government on the Indian policy; and the
Indian severalty bill opens this new Indian era
in the face of these facts. There is no lack of
equity and humanity and Christian statesman-
I (
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
187
leople.
reced-
to his
buck,"
lents.*'
es but
The
t and
7 effec-
iid are
ible to
are to
feeling
abit of
tted in
he In-
use in
le Ind-
L7,000,-
lolding
Three
1 as to
, of the
vo facts
s of the
nd the
lian era
hick of
tesman-
shi[) in tlie scheme, but its "environment"
puts its success in great peril. The American
people are hardened into discouragement and
apathy toward the Indian by successive and abor-
tive experiments. Even philanthropic and i»hi-
losoi)hical men are drifting to the i)Ositi(in that
the Indians must be reckoned among the eftbte
races, as the Pueblos, Aztecs, and some earlier
ones, who have passed from our continent, leav-
ingf only fjraves without headstones or names.
More people than is generally supposed are
willing that the Indians should perish utterly.
V^arious causes operate to this: greed of land,
a wanton, semi-civilized delight in warring
on them, as on aninuils whose heads offer
a bounty ; an affected or real fastidiousness
about Indian neighborhood, as elsewhere shown
concerning a negro as i)assenger, or hotel guest,
or occuj)ant of a [)ew ; impatience witii their in-
feri(jr grade as standing in the way of the prog-
ress and civilization of the nineteenth century.
Mence the semi-serious judgment, fel^ by
many more than ex[)ress it: *^ The good
Indian is the dead Indian." That is hapi)en-
ing which is not novel in the growth of su-
l>eiior nations and under foreign invasions.
In the agrarian military divisions of Italian
Rome the immigrants and new settlers had only
to say : — ** ILtc mea sunt : veteres migrate
188
THE INDIAN 8 SIDE
II ■
coloni." In our border and very vernacular
English, this is rendered : ** The Indian must
go-"
It is not apparent that neighb()rh(»od feeling
in our border land is anv more tolerant toward
an Indian farmer on the other side of the fence
than it was in Georgia under the Cherokee
experiment. Indeed, lapse of years, with con-
stantly failing .experiments, have begotten the
conviction that tolerant and kindly neighbor-
hood between the parties may not be expected.
Chapters one and three, made up so largely
from official sources, are i)ainfully full to aid
this conviction. But, what is more — that
neighborhood has not yet been established, ex-
cept in rare cases, and those Lack time to show
that they are a success.
We have said that we are opening on { 3W
Indian era, and, it is safe to say, tlie most hope-
ful one ever offered to this unfortunate race.
It is with the superior race to make it a success
Oi.' a failure. The whites are masters totally of
the situation, tliough cumbered by much which
Indian heredity has entailed, and by discourag-
ing antecedents, and by various adverse cir-
cumstances and incidents now immediately
pressing. Still, like all impediments to a good
cause, these things are simply obstacles to be
overcome. It is much to aid in doing it that
OF THE INDIAN QUKSTION.
180
lular
nust
eling
ward
Pence
'okee
I 0011-
n the
;hbc)r-
3Cted.
irgely
CO aid
— that
(d, ex-
show
sw
; hope-
race.
;iiccess
ally of
which
jourag-
*se cir-
(Uiitely
a good
s U) be
it that
now, to a remarkable degree, the moral sense of
the people is awakened, {ind the honor of the
nation is under conviction, in view of mortify-
ing failures in its policies for the Indian. And
what is, probably, to become a strong auxiliary
for success in this new era, is the wide and
growing [)ersiiasi()n that we have not only or-
ganized wrongs thoughtfully for this prior and
feeble race, but we have suffered wrongs to be
extemporized and sprung on them by schemes-
of marauding and plundering. We have winked
when we should have frowned, and we have
hurried away the victims under the pretended
convoy and i)rotection of arms, when those
arms should have been turned against the in-
vaders of Indian rights and the violators of
national pledges.
It is hopefid that we have come to some hu-
miliation in view of what the fathers did, and
the nation is taking unto itself some of the dis-
honor which it has allowed belts of territory
and sectional masses of the people and greedy
financial schemers to accomplish. Rei)aration
is thought of by many, and that is hopeful ;
for the unwise and the unkind of the past
always become, when discovered, a stimulus
with good men to secure a better future. It
is one of the j)roofs of the advancing civiliza-
tion of the age that the nation is beginning to
I
190
THE INDIAN S SIDE
show compassion and some sense of justice for
the Indian.
At this critical epoch it will not be wise to
look only to the future, since true progress is
achieved by a huge exi)euditure of study on
the i)ast. The simplicity and hunuinity and
statesmaiishi[) and vigor in the new scheme,
now a law of the nation, must not divert our
study of tiie one fatal weakness in all i)receding
schemes. The first three chapters of this book
have been made (^uite elaborate in historical re-
search, and perhaps to the reader tedious, in
unfolding the mutual relations of the two races.
We have traced their relations along the line of
neighborhood, and among the adjoining and in-
termingled farms of red and white men, for two
centuries. We have also outlined the same re-
lations in an eminent and protiacted national
experiment, to secure a conterminous if not
intermingled neighborhood life. For the ma-
terial for these chapters, we have not drawn
from the resources of philanthropic romance,
or hypothetical benevolence, or from the sym-
pathies and testhetics of unworking though most
humane parties. We have worked mostly along
the hard, cold line of oificial records in territo-
rial and state and national dealings with the
American Indians. With painful reluctance
and with mortification, we are forced to the
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
191
3 for
se to
;ss is
y oil
and
leiiie,
t our
3 cling
book
;al re-
us, in
races,
line of
lid in-
3r two
me re-
itiunal
if not
lie ma-
drawn
mance,
e sym-
rh most
y along
territo-
nt\\ the
uctance
to the
conclusion, from these three chapters, that, for
the perpetuity, elevation, and civilization (»f
this race, the white man has stood in the way
of the Indian.
It remains to be discovered whether this
opi)osition to Indian civilization has been es-
sentially abated. Here is the pivotal point on
which the new policy will turn for good or
evil, and the struggle will come, as always
heretofore, along the dubious border where
the two races meet.
From all that we have shown in this detail
of official and other reliable information, it is
evident that the power of the military forces
and of the courts alone cannot carry the end
sought for the Indians. If public sentiment
on the border, where alone the question must
become practical, and be wrought out practi-
cally, is unfavorable, it easily can and will put
a veto on any proceedings, whether congres-
sional, civil, or military. In any large sections
of the domain, the people will have their own
way in handling the Indian and his land; and
the sections in question constitute the western
front of our nation, extending in a deep belt
from Mexico to the British dominion. No
process of venue can remove the trial of the
(question from the vicinage of its origin, which
is a thousand miles by live hundred.
If'
192
THK INDIAN\S SIDE
When we have used the civil and niilitaiv
powers on this issue to tlieir extent, we have
exhausted the forces of the national govern-
ment, since it cannot legishite and execute on
questions of mere sentiment or public opinion.
The new scheme is, apparently, eminently well
adapted to the end sought, and it can be car-
ried with all the efiiciency which a United
States statute can possess ; but if the main
difficulty of execution lies in the tone and tcui-
per of public sentiment, the scheme nuist be
inadequate to overcome the difficulties. No
man can be made amiable toward an Indian
by Act of Congress, but unamiable neighbors
make civilized and permanently settled Indians
an impossibility.
Our labors, therefore, to make the new Ind-
ian era a success are narrowed to a few points.
The work is to be done mainly on the Indian
and white borders, and only indirectly and
partially at Washington ; it is to be extra-
constitutional, that is, social and moral, and
not mainly legislative and civil and executive ;
and it is to be wrought principally on wiiite
men. They must become tolerant and neigii-
borly and patient and enduring with tlieir
inferior neighbors, and helpful toward unfor-
tunate and abused nii-tive Americans. I'he
bearing towards the Indian needs to become
OF THE INDIAN QUESTION.
198
itiuy
hiive
(vevii-
ite on
inion.
y well
)e ciir-
jnited
lUiiin
(1 tlMU-
usl be
IS. No
IikUuu
icrhbors
Indians
ew Incl-
points.
Indian
tly and
e extra-
>ral, and
ecutive ;
on Nvhite
d neigb-
iih tbeir
id unt'or-
lis. Tlie
become
like that wliich old States sliow, where all
social and moral and educated and financial
grades, and all bloods and colors dwell harmo-
niously together, within limits ample enough
for the widest choice, and so constitute what is
called a civilized society.
Reflections and regrets are perhaps vain, yet
we may not be so near the end nf this work as
to make them valueless. The civilizing and
Christianizing forces of the older States have
been allowed to be scanty and feeble on our
emigrating and projjagating borders. The sur-
plus of benevolent sympathies and funds and
men have been i)ut to the front tinndly, and
often with a crippling, impoverishing support.
We have allowed patriotic heroes and heroines
to depart quietly for picket duty, and a i)erpet-
ual absence on small rations. If at the end of
twenty or thirty years some of them have re-
turned to visit only graves at the homestead, and
incidentally to stir a hoi}' crusade for a tier of
new States and Territories, tliey have made the
pilgrimage usually at their own costs, and out
of scrupulously saved moieties. It is only to
praise an eminently wise policy when we say
that we have treated the islands of tud sea, and
idolatrous Asia, and the Dark Continent, with
more worldlv wisdom and witli more of Christian
tenderness. Now, in carrying this Dawes bill,
;1
194
THE INDIAN 8 SIDE
80 humane and so Christian for a statute, into
our American waste pUices, we are baffled, and
painfully, by the scanty and feeble civilization
whicli our administrations of benevolence have
entailed.
While, therefore, governmental machinery is
manufactured at Washington, — and vastly bet-
ter we think of late than ever l)('f()re, — a good
moral and social and philanthropic public opinion
must secure a fair chance for its working. The
locomotives must have a good track, and kept
clear. Indian associations will find the very best
of causes for benevolent work in arousing ])op-
ular feeling, and in organizhig for frontier field
work. Whenever a tribe adopts the Dawes
bill, and resolves itself into a community of
incipient American citizens, Indian friends
should be ready and willing at once to sur-
round those Indians with a social police,
and to throw over their new homes and hopes
a network of protective influences full}'' up
to the intent and tone of the bill. This
will require agents on the ground, of rare
sympathy and energy, and watchfulness and
prudence, and men too who know the border
by experience. It will be turning to some
practical account the enthusiasm of mass-meet-
ings for the wards of the nation, and the work
will be quite unlike that of cheering eloquent
OF THE INDIAN QUKSTIUN.
195
, into
I, and
zation
e have
iiery is
tly bet-
a good
opinion
J. The
id kept
ery best
ng pop-
ier field
1 Dawes
unity of
friends
to sur-
[ police,
id hopes
fully up
II. This
of rare
luess and
lie border
to some
nass-nieet-
the work
g eloquent
speeches. We must i'ot forget how much
most excellent legishiting li?is been done by
Congress for the Indians since the Republic
was founded, and designing, selfish, unprin-
cipled men have made it inoperative, till hope
of saving the Indians from extinction is very
feeble. This bill awaits the same opposition in
social dislike of the Indians, and in contempt
of them, and in satisfaction at tlieir decrease,
and in a greed for tlieir lands. Sympathy
with the bill and for its object must make
itself felt on the ground where it is jjroposed
to execute it, and this sympathy must be
organized and concentrated and made perma-
nent by well supported agencies, constantly
auxiliary to government, and never relaxing
watch and ward.
Il
I:
II
NOTES.
I.
'*Tl)e early Jesuit inissinnaries all write of
well cultivated fields, cared for by the Uiitives,
who pursued the same course as our fron-
tiernieii Iwive followed ever since — <drdliu"*
and then hurning the trees, leaviuL,' the stuni]>s
to decay, gTubbing up the bushes, and theu
T)lant!n2f." ^
"The iMlg-rinis very often send their shallops
to the coast of Maine to buy corn of tin; Ind-
iaus," and they used on the New England
coast lish for fertilizers, as the whites have con-
tinued to do.2
The Indians in the region of the present
Deerlield once took fifty canoe loads of corn to
towns in the valley of the ronnecticut below,
which were in distress from famine.
When Governor Endicolt raided Block Isl-
1 The Bed Man and the White Man, George E. Ellis,
D.D., p. IT."). 2 11)1^1^
197
'
198
NOTES,
and, he found and destroyed two hundred
acres of '* stately fields of corn." In the
French wars, it was found that the Iroquois
had on hand a stock of corn for two years, with
good store of vegetables, and ap})le orchards;
and the Abenakis of Maine were good farming
Indians.
II.
As to the treatment of the Indians in the
colonial East, some facts should be added,
and they should be remembered, too, when
their treatment in the new States and Terri-
tories is criticised. Governor Penn of Penn-
sylvania, grandson of the eminent })liilanthro-
pist, offered, by proclamation, Jtfl35 for a male
Indian prisoner, and ?130 for a female. The
Commissioners for that colony agreed to send
to England for fifty couples of blood-hounds,
to be used by the Rangers against the Indian
scalping parties.
Official papers in the archives show that the
Massachusetts Colony offered bounties for Ind-
ian scalps, — to the regular soldiev ten pounds
sterling, to the volunteer twent)^ and to patrol
parties fifty. These bounties were claimed,
paid, and recei[)ted for. Mrs. Dustin so re-
ceived bounty for ten scalpc which she had
taken with her own hands.
NOTES.
199
ndred
1 the
)quois
, with
uuds ;
viiiing
in tlie
added,
when
1 ern-
Peiin-
111 til ro-
ll male
. The
send
loinids,
ludiiin
lat the
or Ind-
pounds
1 patrol
laimed,
so re-
jhe had
III.
As to the decrease of tlie Indians, some per-
sonal reminiscences will not lie thought out
of place. In 1840 the Indians were abundant
in large sections of Michigan and Wisconsin,
and the author found it a common thing to fall
in with them in Missouri; and in 1841 they
thronged him at Keokuk and in the present
Iowa and Minnesota. Speaking generally the
quadrant cornering on St. Louis and running
north by the Mississippi to the British line, and
west beyond the Rocky Mountains, the coun-
try in 1840 was alive witli Indans.
In a ramble in and about that region this re-
cent autumn the scene is wonderfully changed.
The Reservations have some, but those vast
spaces of plains and mountains and valleys
show but very few. In a saddle ride of eight
hundred miles on the heads of the Colorado
and Columbia rivers, and near to those of the
Missouri, and among the Big Horn, Wind River,
Teton, and Bridger Mountains, only a few
squads of the Snakes and Bannacks were
met. Where Lewis and Clark met so many in
1803-6, and Lieutenants Pike and Longr much
later, and Dr. Whitman and companies from
1836 to 1843, and the Oregon and California
emigrants afterward, and Frdniont in all his
Fp
200
NOTES.
»
exploring tours, and tlie builders of the Union
and Northern Piicific, and Kansas railroads,
we have found the Indians almost as scarce as
the buffaloes. A tew times only we came on
their tents, or the murks of their lodge-poles,
in our dusty trail, where they had dragged
them along on their lonely wanderings. 'I'he
Delawares, whom the goveinment once pro-
posed to form into a State to enter the Union
and sit in Cougress, were reduced in 1884
to 74.
i
INDEX.
Agriculture for the Cherokees, 130.
Agriculture of Indians. i»re-liist<)ric, S6.
Early, WA-l, 1<)7-S.
American and Enirlisli Indian policy compared, 128.
American Board's opinion on decrease, 148.
American Board's testimony to Indian progress, 127-9.
•aches in 1858 and in 1880, 145).
Ardent spirits for the Indians, 34-5, ISti.
Arkansas totally extinct, 154.
Army costs and civil costs for the Indian work, 186.
Army and courts alone not enough, 101-2.
Army rule of the Indians, 44-8, 144-5, 155-7.
Bancroft, Georoe, on Indian farming, iH), 101.
Bancroft, H. H., and the Indians, 120-121.
Border civilization imjterfect and unfriendly to Indians, 51.
Borthwick's Indian hunt, 107-8.
Bounties in Massachusetts, 198.
Pennsylvania, 198.
Bowles' " Across the Continent," 31.
British Coiumbia and the Indians, 111-125.
Burnet, Judge, on Indian wrongs in Ohio, 37.
Testimony to decrease, 144.
California and Indian decrease, 157-168.
Canadian Dominion and the Indians, 111-126.
Decrease of Indians in, 145-(>.
Casenove, the last of a great tribe, 152-3.
201
202
INDEX.
ratlin's wild estimate of numbers, 102.
Census of the governmont defective, 103-6.
Cherokees, etc., in 1820 and in 1H80, 143.
Cherokee lands past of Mississippi, 58-60.
Experiment and failure, r>0-84.
Opinion on farming, 130.
Progress in civilization, 127-S).
Christianity lu-gligent of tho Amorican Indians, 171-4.
Christianizing, early success in New England, 18.
Christians and outlawed Christian Indians, 124-5.
Church of England inactive in Indian missions, 171.
Church Missionary Society and the Metlakahtlans, 115-125.
Church work of early colonists, Protestant and Roman Cath-
olic, 20.
Civilization destroys inferior nations, 45, 46. ,
Civilization and Christianity of whites, how high, 124-5.
" Civilized " Indians only entered in the census, 164-8.
Conclusion, 175-1)5.
Corruption of Indians by the whites, 156-7.
Crawford, Gen. William C, on intermarriage, 28-9.
Custer, General, on Indian civilization, 47-8.
w ?
Dakota, farming by Indians in, 132-3.
Dawes on struggle for Indian land, 33.
On need of a new policy, 132.
Dawes bill, what, 23-4, 175, 176.
People must enforce, 176-91.
The success of, where, 3-8, 176-8.
Decrease of Indians west of Mississippi, 148-68.
Delawares and an Indian State in the Union, 126-7, 200.
Drake on failing to Christianize, 13.
Dufferin, Earl, and the Canadian Indians, 116.
Duncan, William, and the Canadian Indians, 111-125.
Dwight's estimate of number in early New England, 139.
'i:
Edinburgh Review on Indian traders, 41.
Ellis, George E., D.D., on early farming, 197.
English emissaries excite Indians to war, 170.
English influence on decrease of the Indians, 170-4.
English law and Indian rights to laud, 121-2.
Exile of 16,000, 74.
INDEX.
208
Failure in homo missions for whites, the radical failure for
the ludiaii.s, IT^M, 193^.
Failure of Christiaiiity in its administration, 173-4.
Failure to civilize, why, ;j-8.
Farjns of Indians tlie best farthest from whites, 101-3, 132-0.
Farming, Indian, 87-«), 197-8.
Farming and Indian migrations, 125-31.
Georgia and her claim to wild lauds, 56-60.
Outlaws the Indians, 68-72. *
Present number of Indians in, 131.
Trookin's estimate of uumbtr iii early New England, l.'J9.
Crovernment a fiction separate from the people, 39, 40.
How much can it do for the Indians, .'i3-44.
Still experimenting and preventing Indian farming, 132-
135.
Great benevolent work of the country to enforce Dawes bill,
177-80, 191-5.
Hennepin on number of Indians, 145.
Holston, Treaty of, I.JO.
Home missions in Massachusetts in 1035-6, 21-2.
Home missions too provincial to reach the frontier, 173-4.
Too tardy, .~».'>-5.
Hostility of the English to Indians, 108-9.
Housatonirs and land in severalty, 180-84.
Hunting Indians in California, 107-8.
Hurous or Wyandots once and now, 142.
Illinois Indians once and now, 145.
Increase or decrease of the Indians, which, 137-171.
Indian and whites mixed in society, 01-5.
Civilization of, and John Smith's Virginia colonists, 40,
Cost of supporting wild, 147.
Era, a new one, 188-90.
Expelled from Georgia, 61-4.
Fair at Muskogee, 43;
Farmers and white neighbors, 56-9.
Indian farming in New England, 89; in New York, 90; in
Ohio and ^Missouri.91-;?: in New Mexico, 92 ; in Canada,
91; in Michigan, 95-7 ; in Florida, 97-8. Notes (1), p. 197.
[ li
1 ]|
1
204
INDEX.
Indian frtrming a protended discovery and novelty, 133-6.
Indian Judgment on wliite neighbors, 40.
Lands, stru^ifglc for, .■>2-;{.
Indians, numbers of, east of Mississippi in 1820, 141-8.
Indian rights in tlie soil ((inccdcd, "iiMlO,
Safety only in distance fntin w hites, 38.
In Kentucky once and now, 14.*).
Number of, in early New Enjiland, 138-40.
Remnants of, in Massachusetts, in 1801, 140.
Separation of, from w liites, [iroposed and impossible, 51.
Indian 'I'crritory, aica. population, 7(5; design of, 127.
(Jloomy antiei])atir>n in, Hl-85.
Government in, 78.
Indian titles to land, and the law of nations, 147.
In Dominion of Canada, 11(5-125.
Intermarriage, 25-9.
Introduction, 3-8.
Inxpiois as farmers, 95.
Is Christianity able to Christianize Indians, 172-4.
.Taoksox, President, on tlie only chance for the Indians, 3a.
Jackson, President, on reservations, 12(), 130.
Kansas, hostility to Indians in, 32.
Kirk wood, Secretary, Indian policy of, 131.
Land in .severalty, experiment of with Housatonics, 180-84.
Law as the protector of the Indian, 48-51,
Illustrative case of, .50.
Lawlessness in the Indian Territory, 49, 77-81.
Mattikk, Cotton, his views of the Indians, 19-20.
Marshpee Imlians and Richard Bourne, l.'}-14.
Massacluisetts, hostile legislation of, 17.
Massachusetts Indians, education of, in colony times, 17-18.
Metlakahtlans and the Canadian Dominion, 111-125.
Missions, Franciscan, in California, 157-1()2.
Monette on border men, 41.
Montana, Indian farmers in, 1.33.
Morse, Rev. Dr., estimate of Indians in 1820, 139.
On Indian removals, 125-6,
INDEX.
205
Arouml-Ruildevs as fanners, 06.
Mouinful journey, li-ii.
Xarha(;a\setts once 30,()00, i:\S.
Nationality of Indians deniod by Congress in 1871, 110-11.
Necessary for the people to enforce the Dawes bill, 176-91.
Newfoundland, last Indians in, 14'-'.
Number of Indians, decreasing, ;$, i:J8-l<3(), 199-200.
Official figures on their number, lG3-{5.
Opposition to the Dawes bill on the frontier, 184-9.
Opposition of (Jectrgia to Indian elevation, (51-84.
Ordinance of the North-west Territory, 'S-i, IM.
"Oregon: The Struggle for Possession" on Indian policies,
12;'.-4.
Oregon Indians once and now, 150.
Osages crowded off their reservation, 41-2.
Outrage of drunken officer on Indians, 44, 45.
Pkxn-Ixdian treaties, peculiar, 15.
Pemfs Delaware Indians, in 1810, 17, 126-7; in 1884, 200.
Personal testimonies to the author, 154 --7.
Philip III. of Spain and Indian Missions in New Mexico, 20.
Plymouth Court an<l Marshpee Reservation, 14.
Policies, Indian, all a failure down to 1874, 23.
Pope Alexandei VI. and Indian missions, 20.
Pynchon treaties for Northampton, the Hadleys and vicinity, 16.
Randolph, Johx, and soldiers to control Indians, 14-15.
Randolph, Richard, on government treatment of Indians, 14.
Reports and results of Indian work contrasted, 43-4.
Ueservation system a failure, 5(5-84.
Reservations, change of, the ruin of Indian elevation, 125-33.
Rhode Island early crowded the Indians, 18-19.
Richelieu, Cardinal, and Indian missions, 20-21.
Scalps bought of the Indians by tlie English, 171.
Bounties on Indian, in Pennsylvania, 198.
" " '• in Massachusetts, 198.
Scotch society for Indian missions, 21.
Schoolcraft on number of Indians once, 138.
206
INDEX.
Siletz apency and 13 pitiable romnartts of tribes, 154.
Soutli Carolina Indians once and now, 144.
St. Clair, Governor, on Indian wrongs, 35-6.
Stantou, Secretary, on iniciuity of Indian system, 29.
Traders, Indian, the character of, 111.
Treaties, how many with Indians, 30, 104, lOo, HI.
Treaties l)roken by whit«'8, 104-7.
Treaty witli Indians limited in 1871, 110-11.
Treatment of Indians by the Missions in California, 158-61.
United Brktiirkn, Mission of, ruined, ;t4-5.
United States Court set at nought by Georgia, 72-4.
Virginia early crowded the Indians, 19.
Walker, Commissioner, on law in Indian Territory, 49, 50.
On decrease, 152, 157.
"Wall Street first for a protection against Indians, 110.
White and border hostility to the Indians, 21)-33.
White encroachments on Indian farms, 104-11, 132-().
White men the great obstacle to Indian civilization, 51-5.
Wirt, William, on Indian decrease, 140-7.
\-6l.
l«t, 50.
L-5.