The American Indians / Their History, Condition and Prospects, from Original Notes and Manuscripts

by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

We have underscored the last two sentences, because they express in forcible and just language, the experience of the American government, in relation to the subject, after an experiment of fifty years, dating from '75, and lie, indeed, at the foundation of the present Indian policy. It is also the experience of sound and calm observers, who have watched the operation of our laws and customs upon the isolated Indian communities in the States. Every year has exemplified the futility of raising them up to the European standard in industry, in intelligence or character, while thus situated; nor, indeed, has it been practicable to shield them effectually against the combined effects of intemperance, personal sloth, and of popular and vulgar contumely.

Mr. Calhoun, whose report on the subject was transmitted to Congress, with the message above named, communicates the details essential to the execution of the proposed plan. He states the whole number of Indians to be removed from the States and Territories, excluding those located west and north of Lake Michigan and the Straits of St. Mary's, at 97,000 souls, who occupy about 77 millions of acres of land. The country proposed for their location is that stretching immediately west, beyond the boundaries of the States of Missouri and Arkansas, having the River Arkansas running through its centre from west to east, the Missouri and Red rivers respectively as the northern boundary, and the vast grassy plains east of the Rocky Mountains, as its western limit.

The map which we publish of this territory, is drawn on the basis of one which was published by Congress in 1834, in illustration of the report of the committee on Indian affairs of May 30th of that session. It embraces all the locations of tribes to that period.

The plan proposed the gratuitous grant of the country to the respective tribes, and their removal to it at government expense. It embraces the transference to it, of their schools established by religious societies, and supported, in part, by the civilisation fund, and all their means of moral and religious culture. It is based on the pursuit of agriculture, the mechanic arts, and the raising of cattle and stock. It invests the tribes with full power of making and executing all their laws and regulations, civil and criminal. It stipulates military protection, to keep the surrounding tribes at peace. It leaves them their political sovereignty; being without the boundary of the States, under their own chiefs and local governors, with such aids as are necessary to enable the various tribes to associate and set up the frame of an associated government to be managed by themselves, and as subsequently proposed in Congress, to be represented in that body whenever the system shall be perfected so as to justify this measure. It proposed, as the basis of removal, a solemn act of Congress, guaranteeing the country to them, and excluding its future incorporation into the States. A second location, in the northern latitudes, was proposed for the Indians west of Michigan, where a further body of 32,266 souls were estimated to reside.

Such were the general principles of Mr. Monroe's plan, submitted in 1825, and subsequently adopted by Congress, in its essential features. It has now been in operation EIGHTEEN YEARS, and it is proposed, in bringing this paper to a close, briefly to examine the condition and prospects of the expatriated tribes, in the country to which they have been transferred.

By a report from the proper department, transmitted to Congress with the President's message in 1836, the result of the first ten years' experiment is shown to have been the actual migration of 40,000 from their original seats, east, to the allotted Indian territory, west of the Mississippi. Of this number, 18,000 were Creeks, 15,000 Choctaws, 6,000 Cherokees, 2,000 Chippewas, Ottawas, and Pottowattomies, 1,300 Shawnees, 800 Delawares, 500 Quapaws, 400 Seminoles, 600 Kickapoos, 400 Senecas, and an average of, say 250 each, of Appalachicolas, Weas, Piankashaws, Peorias and Kaskaskias. In this statement, small fractions over or under, are omitted. A location and permanent home has been provided for seventeen tribes and parts of tribes; a number which, in the succeeding seven years, we speak from documents before us, has been largely augmented. The whole body of the Cherokees, of the Creeks, or Muscogees, of the Chickasaws and Choctaws, &c., and also, with the exception of one principal band, of the Seminoles, have been removed. Portions of other tribes, not then full, have joined their kindred; and some whole tribes, who had not before come into the arrangement, and ceded their lands east, as the Miamas of the Wabash, and the Wyandots of Sanduskey, have since accepted locations in the Indian territory. The Chickasaws are all located with their affiliated countrymen, the Choctaws; and numbers of the ancient Iroquois confederacy, the Six Nations of New York, as well as the ancient Mohegans and Munsees, have, within a few years, selected locations south of the Missouri. The entire number of red men now concentrated on those plains and valleys, where winter scarcely exerts any severity of power, may be set down at 77,000 souls, leaving, from the official report of 1841, but 21,774 of the original estimated number of 1825, to be removed; exclusive of those west of the straits of Michilimachinac and St. Mary's.

From the documents accompanying the annual report transmitted to Congress by the President, in December, 1840, the amount of funds invested by the government in stocks, for the Indians, was $2,580,000, on which the annual interest paid to them was $131,05. Twenty-four of the tribes had permanently appropriated, by treaty, $60,730 per annum, for the purpose of education. The number of schools maintained, and the number of pupils actually taught, are not furnished. It is gratifying to know, from this source, that civilisation, agriculture, and the mechanic arts, are making a rapid progress, and that education and Christianity are walking hand-in-hand. Planting and raising cattle are adopted generally. Portions of the most advanced tribes have devoted themselves to the mechanic arts, supplying themselves, to a limited extent, with smiths, wheelwrights, carpenters, and joiners, and some other branches. Spinning and hand-loom weaving are practised to some extent. There are native merchants, among the three principal southern tribes, who ship their own cotton and other products to market, and supply their people, in return, with such products of the East and West Indies, and other parts of the world, as they require. A large part of the contracts, particularly for Indian corn, required to subsist the United States troops in that quarter of the Union, is furnished by native contractors. Their legislation is performed in representative councils, and is well adapted to the actual and advancing state of society. Many of their leading men are well educated; some of them classically; and the general moral and intellectual tone and habits of the tribes, are clearly and strikingly on the advance. It requires, it is believed, but time and perseverance in civil associations, to lead them to the same results arrived at by other barbarous nations, and to demonstrate to them the value and importance of a general political confederation, founded on the principles of equal rights and equal representation, supported by public virtue and intelligence.

Having sketched the cause of the decline of that portion of the North American Indians, who were seated along the Atlantic, and the plan proposed for checking it, we shall now, with the map and documentary evidence before us, devote a few moments to the present condition and prospects of the more prominent tribes.

1. The Choctaws, beginning at the extreme south of the territory, are the first in position. They occupy the country above the State of Arkansas, extending from the Arkansas to the Red river, following up the Canadian branch of the former, comprising an area of about 150 miles in breadth, by 200 in length. They are bounded by Texas south-west. The country is well adapted for grain and the raising of stock, in its middle and northern parts, and for cotton on the south. Many of the natives have large fields, where, but a few years since, the forest was untouched. Saw mills, grist mills, and cotton gins, are either erecting or erected throughout the country. Salt is manufactured by an intelligent Choctaw. Iron ore has been found, and specimens of gold have been picked up in various places.

This tribe is governed by a written constitution and laws. Their territory is divided into three districts, each of which elects, once in four years, a ruling chief, and ten representatives. The general council, thus constituted, and consisting of thirty councillors, meets annually, on the first Monday in October. Voters must be Choctaws, of age, and residents of the districts. The three chiefs have a joint veto power on all laws passed; but two-thirds of the council may re-pass them after such rejection.