NO. II.
During the winter of 1855 a bill was passed by the Legislature of New York, incorporating an Orphan Asylum, and appropriating two thousand dollars ($2000) for a building, and ten dollars a year for each child received and retained under the care of the managers. This is one of the most important benefits conferred upon the Indians. By it a home will be provided for the destitute little ones of this scattered people. And by beginning early, an opportunity will be afforded of securing to them a proper course of moral and physical training, and more surely than by any other way preserve them from destruction.
The experiment was first tried by taking a few into the family of a benevolent lady residing on the Reservation, which, proving successful, an earnest appeal for aid was made to the State.
The institution is incorporated under the name of the “Thomas Asylum for orphan and destitute Indian Children,” as a tribute of acknowledgment to the individual whose name it bears, for his long and earnest efforts to assist and benefit the Seneca nation.
It is located upon the Cattaraugus Reservation, but is intended to receive children from all the Reservations in the State of New York. As the appropriation of ten dollars a year for the support and education of each child, is quite insufficient for the purpose, it is hoped that if the attempt to preserve from destruction this noble race should promise success, that the State of New York—the only State on the Atlantic borders of this Confederation, in which an organized body of the once numerous aborigines of our country has been permitted to remain—will hereafter further extend towards this institution its fostering care and aid. [[303]]
NO. III.
The following documents from the Indian State Department, will show the advance which has been made in the science of government, and the art of diplomacy:
The nation has recently undergone quite a revolution, and the people have substituted a popular Representative Government, for the government of the Chiefs, which has heretofore existed. At a Convention, held at Cattaraugus on the 4th of December, 1848, the delegates, in a very formal manner, abrogated the old government, and proclaimed the new order of things, very much after the manner of the founders of our government. Their Declaration is not quite as long as the Mecklenburgh meeting, while its style is not unlike Mr. Jefferson’s. The Constitution, defining the duties and powers of the officers of government, is quite detailed. The Supreme Judiciary is composed of three judges, who are designated Peace-Makers. The legislative powers of the nation are vested in a Council of eighteen, chosen by the universal suffrages of the nation; but no treaty is to be binding, until it is ratified by three fourths of all the voters, and three fourths of all the mothers in the nation! This may be considered an advance, even beyond the legislative theory of the French Assembly. One provision of this Constitution exhibits a degree of national frugality, well worthy of imitation by those gentlemen in our own Congress, who spend so much of the “dear people’s” money in talking about their rights and interests. The Seneca Constitution declares that the compensation of members of the Council, shall be one dollar each per day, while in session; “but no member shall receive more than twenty-six dollars during any one year.” With such a provision, they will need no one-hour rule, and there will be no danger of their Council becoming “en permanence.”