COLONIZATION OF THE INDIANS.
The plan, now in progress of execution, for the removal of all the Indians, within the limits of the United States, to a region of country west of Missouri and Arkansas, will of course, when carried out, greatly modify our relations with them. New laws must be enacted by Congress, and new treaties formed between the Indians and the United States.
From the organization of the federal government to the present time, our relations with the Indians have been the subject of frequent legislation, and the statute book bears many evidences of benevolent action towards this ill-fated race. If the laws enacted by Congress for the protection and civilization of the aborigines of this country, had been regularly and rigidly enforced, and a more impartial interpretation of the treaties made with them, had been observed, their condition would have been far better than it now is—they would have passed from the hunter to the pastoral state, and have grown in numbers, virtue and intelligence. But these laws and these treaties, have been year after year violated by our own people, and the result has been a constant deterioration of the Indians. This is especially true of those laws intended to prevent our citizens from hunting on the Indian lands, residing in their country, and trading with them without a license from the United States. These have generally been a dead letter upon the national statute book, and the encroachments of the lawless frontiers-men, the trader, the land speculator, and the vender of spirituous liquors, have impoverished degraded, and vitiated, more or less, every tribe within the limits of the United States. It is to this intercourse, with these classes of persons, that the bad faith, the savage barbarities, and border-wars, of which so much complaint is made against the Indians, are to be mainly attributed. The rapacity of our people, for their peltries and their land, the feeble execution of laws made for their protection, and the loose morality which has governed our general intercourse with them, have wasted their numbers, debased their character, and tarnished the honor of that nation, which, from the very organization of its government, has claimed to be their benevolent protector.
The plan of removing the Indians beyond the limits of the United States is not new. If not original with Mr. Jefferson, it was commended by him, and has been approved, we believe, by each successive administration since his day. It looked of course to a peaceable not a forcible removal of them. Whether the details of the original plan corresponded with those of the law, under which this removal is going on, we do not know.
The substance of the present plan may be gathered from the following provisions:
1st. To secure the lands on which they are placed to the several tribes by patent, with only such restrictions as are necessary to prevent white men from purchasing them, or encroaching upon them.
2d. To establish a territorial government, all the offices of which, (except those of the governor and secretary,) are to be filled with Indians, wherever competent natives can be obtained.
3d. To provide for a general council of delegates, chosen by and from the tribes, with legislative powers; their enactments not to be valid till they have been approved by the President of the United States.
4th. To have a delegate, always a native, remain at Washington, during the sessions of Congress, to attend to the affairs of the territory, who shall be allowed the pay and emoluments of a member of Congress.
5th. To encourage, by liberal annual payments of money provided for in treaties, the establishment of schools and colleges; in which competent native teachers are always to be preferred when they can be had.
The power and influence of the United States are to be directed in protecting them from the whites; in preserving peace among the different tribes, and in stimulating them, by rewards and emoluments, in acquiring the habits of civilized life. The efforts of the benevolent to carry christianity among them, if made in conformity with the regulations of the territory, are to be cherished. These are the leading features of the new system of Indian regulations, established by government for the civilization of the Indians. The territory set apart for this object, lies west of the states of Arkansas and Missouri, running north from the Red river about six hundred miles, and west from the western boundaries of these states about two hundred miles. The number of Indians within the territory of the United States is estimated to approach to near half a million of souls.
It must be obvious to every one familiar with the Indian character, and with the history of our past relations with this people, that the success of this plan, will depend, in a very great degree, upon the manner in which its details shall be executed by the government. A failure will inevitably ensue, if white men are permitted to come in contact with the Indians. The strong arm of the military power of the United States, will be requisite to stay the encroachments of our people, whose love of adventure and whose thirst for gain, will carry them among the Indians, unless arrested by more cogent considerations than a sense of duty, or the prohibitions of the statute book.
Instead of attempting to supply them with goods by licensing traders to reside among them, they should be encouraged to sell their furs and peltries and to make their purchases in the United States. On the former system they are liable to constant imposition, and the very articles which the traders carry among them, are worthless in kind and poor in quality; but if the Indians traded with us, within the limits of the United States, they would have the competition arising from a number of buyers and sellers, they would obtain better prices for their furs and procure more valuable articles, upon fairer terms, in exchange. They would also be benefitted by observing our manners and customs, adopting our style of dress, learning the value of property, and gaining some knowledge of agriculture and the use of mechanical tools, and implements of husbandry. But the most important advantage to be gained by their trading within the United States, would be in their protection from imposition. It has been truly and forcibly remarked,
"Humanity shudders at the recital of the nefarious acts practised by the white traders upon the Indians. Yet not half of them are known or dreamed of by the American people. We refer again, to Mr. Tanner's Narrative, which every man who has a vote on this subject ought to read. Here we find the traders sometimes taking by force, from an Indian, the produce of a whole year's hunt, without making him any return, sometimes pilfering a portion while buying the remainder, and still oftener wresting from the poor wretches, while in a state of intoxication, a valuable property, for an inadequate remuneration. In one place, our author tells of an Indian woman, his adopted mother, who, "in the course of a single day, sold one hundred and twenty beaver skins, with a large quantity of buffalo robes, dressed and smoked skins, and other articles, for rum." He pathetically adds, "of all our large load of peltries, the produce of so many days of toil, so many long and difficult journeys, one blanket and three kegs of rum, only remained, besides the poor and almost worn out clothing on our bodies." The sending of missionaries, to labor by the side of the miscreants who thus swindle and debauch the ignorant savage, is a mockery of the office, and a waste of the time of these valuable men. If the Indians traded within our states, with our regular traders, the same laws and the same public sentiment which protects us, would protect them."
This is no exaggerated picture. Fraud, oppression and violence, have characterized our intercourse with the Indians, and it is in vain to hope for any amelioration of their savage condition, so long as an intercourse of this kind is permitted. In the very nature of things, the plan of civilizing the Indians, by forming a confederacy of them, beyond the limits of the United States, will prove unsuccessful, unless they are surrounded by a cordon of military posts, and the whites are stayed, by physical force, from entering their territories for any purpose whatever.
It is to this intercourse that the Indian wars, which have so frequently caused the blood of the white and the red man to flow in torrents, upon our frontier, are mainly to be attributed. It has been asserted, even by those who claim to be the grave historians of this unfortunate people, that these wars are almost without exception, the result of that cruelty and insatiable thirst for blood which belong to the Indian character. One of these writers, the Rev. Timothy Flint, in his "Indian Wars of the West," says, "We affirm an undoubting belief, from no unfrequent, nor inconsiderable means of observation, that aggression has commenced, in the account current of mutual crime, as a hundred to one, on the part of the Indians." We do not question the sincerity of this belief, but we do question, entirely, the correctness of the conclusion to which the writer brings his mind: we affirm without hesitation, that it is a conclusion that cannot be sustained by testimony. If the individual making it, had looked less superficially at the case, and had gone to the primary causes that have produced the bloody collisions between his countrymen and the Indians, he could never have made so great a mistake as the one he has committed in the paragraph quoted above. If kindness, good faith and honesty of dealing, had marked our social, political and commercial intercourse with the Indians, few, if any of these bloody wars would have occurred; and these people, instead of being debased by our intercourse with them, would have been improved and elevated in the scale of civilization. The history of the early settlement of Pennsylvania and its illustrious founder, affords the strongest testimony on this point. The justice, benevolence and kindness which marked the conduct of Penn towards the Indians, shielded his infant colony from aggression, and won for him personally, a generous affection, that would have been creditable to any race of people.
Upon this point it has been well and forcibly remarked by a philanthropic writer,[17] of our country, that,
"The American Indian is sometimes regarded as a being who is prone to all that is revolting and cruel. He is cherished in excited imaginations, as a demoniac phantasm, delighting in bloodshed, without a spark of generous sentiment or native benevolence. The philosophy of man should teach us, that the Indian is nothing less than a human being, in whom the animal tendencies predominate over the spiritual. His morals and intellect having received neither culture nor developement, he possesses on the one hand, the infirmities of humanity; while on the other the divine spark in his heart, if not blown into a genial warmth, has not been extinguished by an artificial polish. His affections are strong, because they are confined to a few objects; his enmities are deep and permanent, because they are nursed in secret, without a religion to control them. Friendship is with him a sacred sentiment. He undertakes long and toilsome journeys to do justice to its object; he exposes himself, for its sake, to every species of privation; he fights for it; and often dies in its defence. He appoints no fecial messenger to proclaim, by an empty formality, the commencement of war. Whilst the European seeks advantages in the subtle finesse of negociation, the American pursues them according to the instincts of a less refined nature, and the dictates of a less sublimated policy. He seeks his enemy before he expects him, and thus renders him his prey."
No better evidence need be adduced of his capacity for a lively and lasting friendship, than the history of Pennsylvania, during the life time of the founder. It is refreshing and delightful to see one fair page, in the dark volume of injustice and crime, which American annals, on this subject present. While this page reflects upon the past an accumulated odium, it furnishes lessons for the guide and edification of the future. Let me invite the philanthropist to this affecting story.
A chief object of Penn, in the settlement of his province, was neither land, gold nor dominion, but "the glory of God, by the civilization of the poor Indian." Upon his arrival in Pennsylvania, the pledge contained in his charter was redeemed by a friendly compact with the "poor Indian" which was never to be violated, and by a uniform and scrupulous devotion to his rights and interests. Oldmixon and Clarkson inform us, that he expended "thousands of pounds" for the physical and social improvement of these untutored and houseless tenants of the woods. His estate became impaired by the munificence of his bounty. In return for benevolence so generous and pure, the Indians showed a reality of affection and an ardor of gratitude, which they had on no previous occasion professed. The colony was exempted from those calamities of war and desolation, which form so prominent a picture in the early annals of American settlements. During a period of forty years, the settlers and natives lived harmoniously together, neither party complaining of a single act of violence or the infliction of an injury unredressed. The memory of Penn lived green and fresh in their esteem, gratitude, and reverence, a century after.
The tribe thus subdued by the pacific and philanthropic principles of Penn, have been untruly described as a cowardly and broken down race. They were a branch of the great family of Indians, who, for so many years, carried on a fierce and bloody strife with the Alligewi on the Mississippi, and waged a determined hostility with the Mengwe. At one period they were the undisputed masters of the large tract of country, now known as the territory of the middle states. On the arrival of the English, their number in Pennsylvania was computed at thirty or forty thousand souls. Their history spoke only of conquest. They were a brave, proud and warlike race, who gloried in the preservation of a character for valor, descended from the remotest times. The confederacy of the Six Nations, by whom they were finally vanquished, was not formed until 1712, and their defeat, as evidenced by their peculiar subjugation occurred within a few months antecedent to the demise of the proprietary. The same people annihilated the colony of Des Vries, in 1632, formed a conspiracy to exterminate the Swedes, under Printz, in 1646; and were the authors of the subsequent murders which afflicted the settlements, before the accession of the English colonists.
"Such an example furnishes some insight into the elements of Indian character. Little doubt can exist, if the subject were fairly examined, that most of those sanguinary wars, of which history speaks with a shudder, would be found to have arisen less from the blood-thirsty Indian, than from the aggressions of the gold-thirsty and land-thirsty defamer."