TREATIES AND TRUST FUNDS
Most of the early agreements were merely declarations of peace and friendship, allowing freedom of trade, but having nothing to do with any cession of land. In New England small tracts of land were purchased by the settlers of individual Indians who happened to sojourn there for the time being, and purchased for a nominal price, according to their own history and records. The natives had no conception of ownership in the soil, and would barter away a princely estate for a few strings of beads or a gallon of rum, not realizing that they conveyed the absolute and exclusive title that they themselves, as individuals, had not pretended to possess.
The status of the Indians within the United States has been repeatedly changed since colonial times. When this Government was founded, while claiming the right of eminent domain over the whole country, it never denied the "right of occupancy" of the aborigines. In the articles of confederation Congress was given sole power to deal with them, but by the constitution this power was transferred in part to the executive branch. Formal treaties were made which had to be ratified by the Senate, until in 1871 Congress declared that the Indian tribes might no longer be recognized as independent nations, and reduced the treaties to simple "agreements," which, however, must in ethics be considered fully as binding. Their natural resources had now in many cases been taken from them, rendering them helpless and dependent, and for this reason some of the later treaties provided that they should be supported until they became self-supporting.
In less than a century 370 distinct treaties were made with the various tribes, some of them merely friendship agreements, but in the main providing for right of way and the cession of lands, as fast as such lands were demanded by the westward growth of the country and the pressure of population. In the first instance, the consideration was generally not over five or ten cents an acre. While the Indians were still nomadic in their habits, goods in payment were usually taken by steamboat to the nearest point and there turned over to the head chiefs, who distributed them among the people. Later the price increased and payments were made either in goods or cash; fifty cents to a dollar and a quarter, and more recently as much as $2.50 per acre for cessions of surplus lands on reservations after the owners have all been allotted. Gradually large trust funds have been created for some of the tribes, the capital being held in the United States Treasury and the interest paid to the Indians in annual per capita instalments, or expended "for their benefit." Farmers, blacksmiths, carpenters, and other industrial teachers; cattle, farming tools, houses, and schools are variously promised in the later treaties for the "support and civilization" of a people whose own method of making a living has been rendered forever impossible. The theory was humane and just, but the working of the system has proved in a large degree a failure.