And yet when exigencies have seemed to require, we have treated them as nations, and have pledged our own national faith in solemn covenant with them. It were the baldest truism to say that this faith and covenant should be fulfilled. Of course it should be fulfilled. It is to our own unspeakable disgrace that we have so often failed therein. But it becomes us wisely and honestly to inquire whether the spirit of these agreements might not be falsified by their letter, and whether, in order to give the Indian his real rights, it may not be necessary to set aside prerogatives to which he might technically and formally lay claim. If the Indian Territory and the Indian reservations have been given to certain tribes as their possession forever, the sacredness of this guarantee should not shut our eyes to the sacredness also of the real interests of the people in whose behalf the guarantee was given. We ought not to lose the substance in our efforts to retain the shadow; we ought not to insist upon the summum jus, when this would become the summa injuria.
Of course the utmost caution is needed in the application of such a principle. To admit that a treaty with the Indians may be set aside without the consent of the Indians themselves, is to open the door again to the same frauds and falsehoods which have so darkly branded a "Century of Dishonor." But our great trouble has been that we have sought to exact justice from the Indian while exhibiting no justice to him; and when we shall manifest that all our procedure toward him is in truth and uprightness, we need have no fear but that both his conscience and his judgment will in the end approve.
Julius H. Seelye.
Amherst College, December 10, 1880.
AUTHOR'S NOTE.
All the quotations in this book, where the name of the authority is not cited, are from Official Reports of the War Department or the Department of the Interior.
The book gives, as its title indicates, only a sketch, and not a history.
To write in full the history of any one of these Indian communities, of its forced migrations, wars, and miseries, would fill a volume by itself.
The history of the missionary labors of the different churches among the Indians would make another volume. It is the one bright spot on the dark record.