That we may obtain a true impression of one of the conditions on which peace is maintained with certain Indian tribes, let us take a leaf out of the official record of the dealings of the government with the Sioux during the past year. Early in 1872 an unusually large number of Indians were assembled at the Red Cloud agency, near Fort Laramie in Wyoming. By far the greater part were habitués of this or some other Sioux agency; but among them were many Northern Indians, who were for the first time the guests of the government, and who, not having become accustomed to eat the bread of dependence, were much more intractable and insolent than the others. The presence of these Indians produced great turmoil at the agency, and considerable apprehension on the part of the agent. Nothing in the nature of an outbreak occurred, however: the strangers gradually went away to their summer hunt on the Powder River; and the agency was brought back to its usual condition. But, while this was being effected, a ranchman named Powell, who had a large drove of cattle near Fort Laramie, was robbed and murdered. The bloody details were soon known; for Indians are such inveterate gossips that they can keep no secret, however dangerous disclosure may be to them. The murderers were Northern Indians, who had instantly left for their own country. At two successive councils, both the civil and the military authorities demanded the surrender of the guilty parties and the return of the stolen stock. The chiefs present and the great body of their followers most unmistakably disapproved and regretted the act, if for no better reason than because they apprehended the consequences; but they disclaimed any responsibility therefor,—the murderers not being of their own proper number,—pleaded their inability to arrest the fugitives with their bloody spoils, and, for the rest, did nothing. The government, for that matter, after much expostulation, did the same: troops were not marched northward to seize the murderers; the rations of the Sioux were not ordered to be stopped until satisfaction had been given; and the murder of Powell remains to-day unpunished by the government of the United States.

A second condition on which peace is maintained is the subsistence of certain tribes at the expense of the government, without reference to their ability or disposition to work. Every five or seven days, twenty thousand Sioux, big and little, assemble around the agencies for the distribution of food. Soldiers' rations are dealt out: flour by the hundred sacks is delivered to them; beeves by the score are turned loose to be shot down and eaten up in savage fashion. The expense of this service is a million five hundred thousand dollars a year,—one-seventh the total cost of poor-support in the United States. About one million more is expended for the total or partial subsistence of other tribes, especially in the South-west. Coincidently with this, occasions for increased expenditure have arisen in connection with tribes not upon the feeding-list; so that the average cost of the Indian service has gone up from four millions in 1866, 1867, and 1868, to seven millions at the present time. It should be remarked, however, that it is only the increase which measures the cost of the "peace policy," so called, more than one-half of the four millions of expenditure in the former period being the lawful due of the Indians under treaty stipulations, in consideration for the cession of lands; and the remainder covering the general expenses of the service. The following table exhibits the expenditures of the government on account of the Indian service for the twelve years 1861 to 1872:—

Year.Expenditures on
Indian Account.
1861$2,865,481.17
18622,327,948.37
18633,152,032.70
18642,629,975.97
18655,059,360.71
18663,295,729.32
18674,642,531.77
18684,100,682.32
18697,042,923.06
18703,407,938.15
18717,426,997.44
18727,061,728.82

Now, it must honestly be confessed, that the United-States Government, in such dealings with Indian tribes as have been recited, does not act a very handsome part. To pay blackmail to insolent savages (for that is simply what it amounts to); to feed forty or fifty thousand people who make no pretence of doing any thing for themselves, and who appear to think that they are conferring a distinguishing honor upon the government by accepting its bounty; to allow the murder of an American citizen, of whatever character or degree, to go unpunished,—these are not things pleasant to contemplate. It may be a duty to administer Indian affairs in this way; but it must be a duty far more disagreeable to any man of spirit than would be a call to take part in the punishment of the savages, at no more than the personal risk usually incident to a campaign. And yet, in the face of all this, we do not hesitate to say that the general course of the government in such dealings as have been described above is expedient and humane, just and honorable. This is a proposition, which, in the view of such admissions as have been made, may seem to impose a formidable burden of proof; yet is it not only consistent with the highest reason of the case, but susceptible of very simple and direct demonstration.

In the first place, it should be remarked that there can be no question of national dignity involved in the treatment of savages by a civilized power. The proudest Anglo-Saxon will climb a tree with a bear behind him, and deem not his honor, but his safety, compromised by the situation. With wild men, as with wild beasts, the question whether to fight, coax, or run, is a question merely of what is easiest or safest in the situation given. Points of dignity only arise between those who are, or assume to be, equals. Indeed, nothing is at times so contemptuous as compliance. It indicates not merely a consciousness of strength, but of strength so superior as to decline comparison or contest.

Grant that some petty Sioux chief believes that the government of the United States feeds him and his lazy followers out of fear, or out of respect for his greatness: what then? It will not be long before the agent of the government will be pointing out the particular row of potatoes which his majesty must hoe before his majesty can dine. The people of the United States surely are great enough, and sufficiently conscious of their greatness, to indulge a little longer the self-complacent fancies of those savage tribes, if by that means a desolating war may be avoided.

And in this we shall only do what other nations have done, and esteemed themselves wise in doing. The Greeks and Romans, except in periods of ambitious frenzy, recognized the fruitlessness and folly of fighting absolute savages, and did not scruple, in the height of their conquering pride, to keep the peace with Scythians and Parthians as best they could. The English, the Dutch, the Spanish, the Portuguese, in their American colonies, only fought the natives when for their purposes they must, preserving the peace when they could by presents, and even by tribute. Statesmen who would have embroiled Europe on a question of dinner-etiquette have fully recognized the principle that there could be no issue of dignity between a civilized power and a band of irresponsible savages, and have submitted, without any feeling of degradation, to demands the most unreasonable, urged in terms the most insolent.

Nor is there any savor of treachery in the government thus biding its time. In this the government simply, from a wise consideration of the exposed situation of the settlements, refrains from the full exercise of the authority which it claims. It in no wise deceives the Indians, but only indulges their illusion till the time comes when the illusion must be broken. It watches the troubled sleep of the maniac, ready to restrain his violence if he wakes, yet mercifully willing that he should remain unconscious. And this forbearance of the government is not less kind to the aborigines than to those of our citizens who are building their homes within reach of the red man's hand. If the savages—Sioux, Kiowas, Cheyennes, Comanches, whom the United States are thus playing with—realized in any adequate measure what the next few years have in store for them, how completely they will be surrounded and disarmed, how certainly they will be forced to labor like squaws for their bread, how stringently the government will enforce its requirements when their power of resistance shall have departed; it is inconceivable but that, in their present temper, ignorant as they are of the real resources of the whites, and conscious that they can still bring eight thousand warriors into the field, they would precipitate a contest which, though it would involve untold misery to our border population, must inevitably end in their own destruction.

If, then, there is nothing inconsistent with national dignity or honor in thus temporizing with hostile savages, it certainly can be shown to be in a high degree compatible with the interests and the welfare of all the white communities which are, by their advanced position, placed at the mercy of the Indians. Thousands and even tens of thousands of our citizens are now living within reach of the first murderous outbreak of a general Indian war. Since 1868, when the trans-continental railroad was completed, population has found its way into regions to which the rate of progress previously maintained would not in fifty years have carried it,—into nooks and corners which five years ago were scarcely known to trappers and guides. Instead of exposing to Indian contact, as heretofore, a clearly defined frontier line, upon two or three faces, our settlements have penetrated the Western country in every direction and from every direction, creeping along the course of every stream, seeking out every habitable valley, following up every indication of gold among the ravines and mountains, clinging around the reservations of the most formidable tribes, and even making lodgement at a hundred points on lands secured by treaty to the Indians. Even where the limit of settlement in any direction has apparently, for the time, been reached, we learn of some solitary ranchman or miner who has made his home still farther down the valley or up the mountain, far beyond sight or call.

It is upon men thus exposed, without hope of escape or chance of resistance, that the first wrath of a general Indian war would break. No note of recall would avert their doom. Long before friendly runners could reach them, the war-whoop would be in their ears; and alone, unfriended, undefended, unaided, they would perish, as hundreds and thousands of our countrymen have perished, at the hands of the infuriated savages. But it is not alone the solitary ranchmen who would be swept away on the first onset of Indian attack. Scores of valleys up which population has been steadily creeping would be instantly abandoned; streams that now, from source to mouth, resound the stroke of the pioneer's axe, would be left desolate on the first rumor of war; a hundred outlying settlements would disappear in a night, as the tidings of outbreak and massacre were borne along by hurrying fugitives. As the blood retreats, on the signal of danger, from the extremities to the heart, so would population retire, terror-struck and precipitate, from the frontier on the first shock of war. Towns, even, would be abandoned; and the frightened inhabitants, men, women, and children, cumbered with household stuff and overdriven stock, would crowd within the shelter of garrisons hardly adequate for their defence.