The Indian Question

by Francis Amasa Walker

We have thought it important thus to review the doctrine of the Report of the Senate Judiciary Committee, because, from the high standing of the Committee, from the assumption which the Report[P] makes of completeness in the citation of "treaties, laws, and judicial decisions" pertinent to the subject, on the express ground of a desire to enlighten, not only Congress, but the country, in respect to our Indian relations, and from the wide circulation given to the Report, as compared with that obtained by an ordinary decision of the Circuit or Supreme Court of the United States, the Report has apparently come to be accepted by Congress and the country as an authoritative exposition of the history and law of the subject although, in the very month in which it was submitted to Congress, the Supreme Court, in the Cherokee Tobacco, pronounced a doctrine which cuts up that of the Report, root and branch.

Such being the constitutional competence of Congress to deal with the Indians, without restraint either from the self-government hitherto permitted them, or from treaties to which the United States are a party, it is for Congress to decide, firstly, what the good faith of the nation requires, and, secondly, what course will best accomplish the social and industrial elevation of the native tribes, with due consideration had for the interests of the present body of citizens.

How, then, stands the matter with the faith of the nation? By the Report on Indian Affairs for 1872, there appear (p. 16) to be in the neighborhood of 120,000 Indians with whom the United States have no treaty relations. These certainly can have no claims to exemption from direct control, whenever the United States shall see fit to extend its laws over them, either to incorporate them in the body of its citizenship, or to seclude them for their own good. There are, again, as nearly as we can determine by a comparison of treaties with the Reports of the Indian Office, about 125,000 Indians with whom the United States have treaties unexpired, but to whom no distinct guaranty or promise of autonomy has been made. Examination of these treaties reveals nothing which should prevent the United States from establishing a magistracy and a code of laws for the government of these tribes, according to principles suited to their present condition, yet tending to raise them to a higher social and industrial condition. On the other hand, the perpetual interdiction of all white persons upon the reservations of these tribes, except "such officers, agents, and employees of the government as may be authorized to enter upon Indian reservations in discharge of duties enjoined by law," would seem to preclude the possibility of these regions ever being opened to settlement, and the Indians thereon resolved into the body of citizens on equal terms. But, as matter of fact, not even such treaty provisions need, with intelligent and firm but kindly management, greatly or long embarrass the government in the adjustment of the Indian question according to either principle which may be adopted, seclusion or citizenship. Few of these tribes but are obliged, even now, to seek from the United States more aid than they are entitled to by treaty; while it is certain that in the near future most, if not all, will be thrown in comparative helplessness upon our bounty. The United States being the sole party to which they can cede their lands (8 Wheaton, 543), and the sale of the great body of these lands being their only resource, the government will have the opportunity, not only without fraud or wrong to this people, but for their highest good, and indeed for their salvation from the doom otherwise awaiting them, to cancel the whole of these ill-considered treaties, leaving the natives where they ought to be,—subject to direct control by Congress. We repeat, there need never be any difficulty in securing, at the right time and in the right way, the relinquishment of lands or privileges from the Indians. They are, unfortunately, only too ready to sacrifice the future to present indulgence; while the government on its part can always afford to pay them far more for their lands than their lands are worth to them. Under this relation of the parties in interest, and with the pressure of actual want, due to the inability of the natives properly to cultivate what they possess, the United States may at an early date, with good faith and judicious management, easily secure the relinquishment of every franchise that stands in the way of a satisfactory adjustment of the difficulty.

There is still a third body of Indians, about 55,000 in number, occupying chiefly the regions known as the Indian Territory, and representing the tribes which were the subjects of the colonization policy of Pres. Monroe, to whom the United States have plighted their faith that no foreign authority shall ever be extended over them without their consent. These are not beggarly and vagabond Indians, to whom the offer of subsistence would be sufficient to obtain the relinquishment of their franchises, or the cession of their lands. They are self-supporting, independent, and even wealthy. Their cereal crops exceed those of all the Territories of the United States combined. In the number and value of horses and cattle, they are surpassed by the people of but one Territory; in expenditures for education, by the people of no Territory.[Q] If these people ever relinquish their autonomy, it will be because they desire the privileges of American citizens. This may well be in the immediate future, and surely will be, sooner or later, unless they are made to fear the violence and greed of their white neighbors. Meanwhile, they should be honorably protected in the enjoyment of their treaty rights. They have already advanced so far in civilization as to secure their own future, as against any thing but squatter and railroad rapacity; and their fate does not properly form a part of the Indian problem of the present day.

Excepting thus the present inhabitants of the so-called Indian Territory, who ought to be excepted from any scheme that embraces the half-civilized and the wholly savage tribes, we have practically a clear field for any policy which Congress shall determine to be best suited to the serious exigency of the situation; for, however easy to dismiss the subject for a time with ridicule, the task of so disposing a nomad population of 200,000 to 240,000, as to reduce to a minimum the obstruction it shall offer to the progress of settlement and of industry, without leaving the germs of lasting evil to a score of future States, and at the same time to secure the highest welfare of that population,—this task is a most serious one, to which the best statesmanship of the nation may well address itself.

In characterizing the classes of persons who will naturally be found among the advocates of the policy of an immediate bestowal of citizenship upon the Indian tribes, whether they be willing or unwilling, whether for good or evil, we have in effect stated all the arguments in favor of that policy; for it is not probable, that, aside from those who would properly be placed under one or another of the classes indicated, there are a score of persons reasonably well informed in Indian affairs, who would so much as affect to believe that such a course would have other than disastrous consequences to the natives.

The considerations which favor the policy of seclusion with more or less of industrial constraint are so direct and familiar, and are sustained by so general a concurrence of testimony and authority, that they will not require us greatly to protract this paper in their exposition and enforcement. These considerations are four in number; three of them having especial reference to the interests of the Indians, the fourth bearing on the welfare of the States to be formed out of the territory now roamed over by the native tribes.

First: so long as an Indian tribe is left to its own proper forces and dispositions, free from all foreign attraction, it is not only easily governed, but the whole body obeys the recognized law of the community with almost absolute unanimity. No expressions would be too strong to characterize the social homogeneity of an Indian tribe, and the complete domination of the accepted ideas of right and wrong, of honor and baseness. Public opinion is there conclusive upon every individual; and the spectacle, seen in every town and village with us, of large numbers openly practising that which public opinion reprobates, or refusing to do that which public opinion prescribes, is wholly unknown. We do not say that this is the most desirable as the ultimate form of society; but this tyranny of sentiment may and should be made a most powerful auxiliary for good in the early stages of industrial and social progress for this people.

Second: it is unfortunately true, that, when the Indian is, by the powerful attraction of a race which his savage breast never fails to recognize as superior, released from the control of the public sentiment which he has been accustomed to obey, he submits himself by an almost irresistible tendency to the worst and not to the best influences of civilized society. While there are undeniably exceptions to this statement, it is supported by such a mass of melancholy evidence in the history of scores of tribes once renowned for all the native virtues, that no one has the right to advocate the introduction to such influences of uninstructed and unprovided tribes, unless he is prepared to contemplate the ruin of nine-tenths of the subjects of his policy.

Nor is it the worst elements of the Indian which thus submit themselves to the worst elements of the white community. The very men who bear themselves most loftily, according to the native standards of virtue, are quite as likely to fall, under exposure to white contact, as are the weakest of the tribe. Their familiar attractions all broken, their immemorial traditions rudely dispelled, their natural leadership destroyed, the members of a wild tribe, strong and weak together, become the easy prey of the rascally influences of civilized society.