'The Indians were grievously disappointed with their bargains, and from that time the control of affairs passed from the chiefs—who, it was believed, had been bribed—to the young men. They had now nearly disposed of all their lands, and received scarcely anything for them. They were six thousand two hundred in number, and their annuities, when paid in full, were hardly fifteen dollars apiece.
'Their sufferings,' continues Mr. Heard, 'were often severe, especially during the winter and spring previous to the massacres.'
Their crops failed them; a heavy fall of snow, late in the season, came to increase their miseries, and delayed the spring hunts. The Sissetons, of Lac Traverse, had to eat their horses and dogs—and at least fifteen hundred of the old men, women, and children had to be supported by the Government at an extra expense; and this was so inadequately done that some died of starvation.
The history of these iniquities is no new thing in Indian affairs. It is, from first to last, a record of the most shameless lying and fraud. The Agency seems to have been established there as a sort of Jonathan Wild's shop, for the purpose of carrying on the trade of thieving. What did these storekeepers—who credited the Indians for tobacco and rum, for bread and beef, for clothing, and such other luxuries as they had come to regard as necessaries—care for the winter prospects of the wretched Indians, after they had lined their pockets with that four hundred thousand dollars? Not a dime! And when subsequently it was found that only half the regular Government payment would be handed over to the Indians during the next year, these storekeepers—on the 'Wild' plan—not only refused to give them credit for articles indispensable to life in the wilderness, but insulted them to boot; and this so exasperated the proud, revengeful nature of the Indian, that he remembered it afterward in many a bloody murder which he committed, and the innocent suffered for the guilty!
Mr. Heard acquits the Agency, and all connected with it, of being in any way the causes of this outbreak. But his own statements of their dealing with the Indians hardly bear him out in his judgment. I do not mean to say that the people of the Lower Agency were a whit worse in such dealings than those of the Upper, or any other similar Agency. It is an understood thing, and mercilessly practised, that the Indian shall be fleeced whenever the white man has a chance to fleece him. It is the law and the gospel of these Agencies; and we must not allow ourselves to be hoodwinked in this matter by the mistaken humanity of Mr. Heard.
And yet, if we think of it, there could not have been devised a more evil scheme, either against the natives or the settlers, than these wellnigh irresponsible Agencies. From all parts of the Union, from every country of the Old World, emigrants had come to settle in the beautiful Minnesota State; they had built themselves good, substantial houses, ploughed, fenced, and planted their rich and prosperous farms, conquered the savage wilderness into blooming cornfields, orchards, and gardens—and here was their true El Dorado! where they hoped to live in peace, plenty, and security. They were not afraid of the savages, but their wont was to make friends of them, and to be their friends, entertaining them at their homes when they visited the settlements, and doing all they could—with some exceptions—to perpetuate among them a good feeling and an intelligent understanding.
To a certain extent, and in some cases, they succeeded in this straight-forward diplomacy. But the predisposition of the reds to enmity with the whites was still there, slumbering only, not eradicated; nor could all the kindness and generosity of the whole Caucasian heart, heaped upon them in the most lavish profusion, ever root it out. Nature put it there—I wish she hadn't—for reasons of her own, just as she put murder into the cruel heart and brain of the tiger in the jungle.
There was this 'original sin,' therefore, to contend against always, without reference to any tangible causes or provocations. All knew this. All knew, from the youngest to the oldest, that the true policy of the whites was to conciliate the Indians. They knew his inextinguishable memory of wrongs, his dreadful vengeance, his power, and his constant opportunity to do irreparable mischief. And, as I said, the settlers were, for the most part, anxious to smoke the pipe of peace and friendship with him.
But what was the good of all this? What, think you, did it avail in the councils of the savages, when they sat over their fires discussing their wrongs and prospects? What the good-hearted settlers did in the way of reconciliation and good will was undone a thousandfold at the Agency. It is true that the Agency had become necessary to the subsistence of the Indian, and that this fact made him bear much which, under other circumstances, he would instantly have resented and punished. But they well knew how they were robbed; and when did a wrong of that, or any sort, pass muster upon the Indian's roll of vengeance? Every fraud against an Indian, every lie told him, every broken promise, every worthless article sold to him at the Agency, was more than a set-off to any act of kindness shown to him by the settlers. Add to these local crimes, the great error of the Government in unduly withholding the Indian payment for their lands—and you have the Indian's casus belli, the grounds, or some of them, on which he justified himself to his own bloody and remorseless conscience, for his inhuman deeds! For the Indian beeps a conscience, such as it is; but of a truth, better no conscience than an Indian's conscience! It is like an appeal to hell, one's appeal to this! all the accursed passions imprisoned there coming up from their limbos, their eyes glaring with the malice of ineradicable hate, and bloodshot with murder, to support the conscience, and strengthen its resolution for an unspeakable vengeance.