Again: we select the Pawnees, numbering twenty-four hundred and forty-seven, for illustration, for the reason that they have been long distinguished over all the plains for their warlike power and ferocity, yet, under the care and instruction of the government, have within three years made a great degree of progress in three most important respects, as follows:—
First, while the Pawnees, from their situation, are still enabled and disposed to go upon the summer hunt, they are already engaged to a small extent, and with encouraging success, in the raising of vegetables and garden products, and even of corn and wheat. Two hundred and ten acres were planted by them last year in the several crops.
Second, while the chiefs and braves of the tribe still look to their traditional resource of hunting, the children of the tribe generally are being carefully instructed in letters and in labor. The day-schools and the manual-labor schools of the Pawnees have elicited the most enthusiastic praise from all persons, official or private, who have visited the reservation.
Third,—and this is a point to which we ask special attention, as indicating capabilities of higher things than are usually credited of Indians,—the inveterate and ferocious animosities of the Pawnees toward the Brulé Sioux have been so far sacrificed to the requirements of the government and the personal entreaties of their agent, that the past summer witnessed the phenomenon, astonishing to all who were cognizant of the deadly feuds existing for generations between these tribes, of Pawnees and Brulés hunting almost side by side, the camp-fires of both being distinctly visible upon the same plain, without a murder being committed, or so much as a horse stolen, by either party.
If, then, we may assume that Indian civilization is not altogether impossible, let us inquire what should be the policy of the government towards the Indian tribes when they cease to be dangerous to our frontier population, and to oppose the progress of settlement, either by violence or by menace. In such a discussion, we are bound to have a reasonable consideration for the interests of the white man as well as for the rights of the red man, but above all to defer to whatever experience declares in respect to the conditions most favorable to the growth of self-respect and self-restraint in minds so strangely and unfortunately constituted as is the mind of the North American Indian.
First. The reservation system should be made the general and permanent policy of the government. By this is meant something more than that the Indians should not be robbed of their lands in defiance of treaty stipulations, or that the Indian title should be respected, and the Indians maintained in possession until they can be made ready to cede their lands to the government, or to sell them, with the consent of the government, to the whites. The proposition is that the United States, as the only power competent to receive such lands by cession, or to authorize their sale, should formally establish the principle of separation and seclusion, without reference to the wishes either of the Indians or of encroaching whites; should designate by law an ample and suitable reservation for each tribe and band not entitled by treaty; and should, in any reductions thereafter requiring to be made, provide that such reductions shall be by cutting off distinct portions from the outside, and not in such a way as to allow veins of white settlement to be injected, no matter whether along a stream or along a railway.
The principle of secluding Indians from whites for the good of both races is established by an overwhelming preponderance of authority. There are no mysterious reasons why this policy should be adopted: the considerations which favor it are plain and incontestable. The first is the familiar one, that the Indian is unfortunately disposed to submit himself to the lower and baser elements of civilized society, and to acquire the vices and not the virtues of the whites. This need not be dwelt upon; but there is still another consideration even more important, yet not generally apprehended. It is that an Indian tribe is a singularly homogeneous body,[F] and, if not disturbed by the intrusion of alien and discordant elements, is susceptible of being governed and controlled with the greatest ease and effect. It is not necessary to point out the ways in which this peculiarity of the Indian character assists the agent of the government in his administration of a tribe, or to show how much more complete it makes his success, as, little by little, he is able, through the authority of the government, and the means of moral education at his disposal, to effect a change for the better in the public sentiment of the people under his charge.
The number of Indians now having reservations secured to them by law or treaty is approximately 180,000. The number of such reservations is 92, ranging in extent from 288 acres to 40,750 square miles, and aggregating 167,619 square miles. Of these reservations, 31, aggregating 2,693 square miles, are east of the Mississippi River; 42, aggregating 144,838 square miles, are between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains; and 19, aggregating 20,068 square miles, are upon the Pacific slope. In addition to the above, 40,000 Indians, having no lands secured to them by treaty, have had reservations set apart for them by executive order, out of the public lands of the United States. The number of reservations thus set apart is 15, aggregating 59,544 square miles. The Indians thus located have, however, in the nature of the case, no assurance of their occupation of these lands beyond the pleasure of the executive.[G]
It must be evident to every one, on the simple statement of such facts as these, that the reservations, as at present constituted, do not consist with the permanent interests of either the Indian or the government. There are too many reservations: they occupy too much territory in the aggregate; and, what is worse, some of them unnecessarily obstruct the natural access of population to portions of territory not reserved, while others, by their neighborhood, render large tracts of otherwise available land undesirable for white occupation. Indeed, it may be said that the present arrangement of reservations would constitute an almost intolerable affliction, were it to be maintained without change. Nor are the interests of the Indians any better served by the existing order. Many tribes, even were they disposed to agriculture, would not find suitable land within the limits assigned to them. Others are in a position to be incessantly disturbed and harassed by the whites. Others still, while they stand across the path of settlement, are themselves, by ill-considered treaty provisions, cut off from access to hunting-grounds, to fishing privileges, or to mountains abounding in natural roots and berries, which would be of the greatest value to them. When it is considered that the present body of reservations is the result of hundreds of treaties, made, too often, on the part of the government with ignorance and heedlessness, and on the part of the Indians with the childishness characteristic of the race, both parties being not infrequently deceived and betrayed by the interpreters employed; when it is considered, moreover, that many of these treaties have been negotiated in emergencies requiring immediate action,—it would be wonderful indeed if the scheme as it stood were not cumbersome and ineffective.