A more natural tone was assumed as regarded the Indians. They were declared to be free and independent nations; not citizens of the United States, but the original proprietors of the soil, and therefore as purely irresponsible to the laws of the United States as any neighbouring nations. They were treated with, as such, on every occasion; their territories and right of self-government were acknowledged by such treaties. “There is an abundance of authorities,” says Mr. Stuart, in his ‘Three Years in North America,’ “in opposition to the pretext, that the Indians are not now entitled to live under their own laws and constitutions; but it would be sufficient to refer to the treaties entered into, year after year, between the United States and them as separate nations.”
“There are two or three authorities, independent of state papers, which most unambiguously prove that it was never supposed that the state governments should have a right to impose their constitution or code of laws upon any of the Indian nations. Thus Mr. Jefferson, in an address to the Cherokees, says—“I wish sincerely you may succeed in your laudable endeavours to save the remnant of your nation by adopting industrious occupations. In this you may always rely on the counsel and assistance of the United States.” In the same way the American negotiators at Ghent, among whom were the most eminent American statesmen, Mr. John Quincy Adams and Mr. Henry Clay, in their note addressed to the British Commissioners, dated September 9, 1814, use the following language:—“The Indians residing within the United States are so far independent that they live under their own customs, and not under the laws of the United States.” Chancellor Kent, of New York state (the Lord Coke or Lord Stair of the United States), has expressly laid it down, that “it would seem idle to contend that the Indians were citizens or subjects of the United States, and not alien and sovereign tribes;” and the Supreme Court of the United States have expressly declared, that “the person who purchases land from the Indians within their territory incorporates himself with them; and, so far as respects the property purchased, holds his title under their protection, subject to their laws: if they annul the grant, we know of no tribunal which can revise and set aside the proceeding.” Mr. Clay’s language is quite decided:—“The Indians residing within the United States are so far independent that they live under their own customs, and not under the laws of the United States; that their rights, where they inhabit or hunt, are secured to them by boundaries defined in amicable treaties between the United States and themselves.” Mr. Wirt, the late Attorney-General of the United States, a man of great legal authority, has stated it to be his opinion, “that the territory of the Cherokees is not within the jurisdiction of the State of Georgia, but within the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the Cherokee nation; and that, consequently, the State of Georgia has no right to extend her laws over that territory.” General Washington in 1790, in a speech to one of the tribes of Indians, not only recognizes the same national independence, but adds many solemn assurances on behalf of the United States. “The general government only has the power to treat with the Indian nations, and any treaty formed and held without its authority will not be binding.
“Here, then, is the security for the remainder of your lands. No state nor person can purchase your lands, unless by some public treaty held under the authority of the United States. The general government will never consent to your being defrauded, but it will protect you in all your just rights.
“But your great object seems to be the security of your remaining lands, and I have, therefore, upon this point, meant to be sufficiently strong and clear.... That, in future, you cannot be defrauded of your lands. That you possess the right to sell, and the right of refusing to sell your lands.... That, therefore, the sale of your lands in future will depend entirely upon yourselves. But that, when you find it for your interest to sell any part of your lands, the United States must be present, by their agent, and will be your security that you shall not be defrauded in the bargain you make.... The United States will be true and faithful to their engagements.”
These are plain and just declarations; and, had they been faithfully maintained, would have conferred great honour on the United States. How they have been maintained, all the world knows. The American republicans have followed faithfully, not their own declarations, but the maxims and the practices of their English progenitors. The Indians have been declared savage and irreclaimable. They have been described as inveterately attached to hunting and a roving life, as a stumbling-block in the path of civilization. As perfectly incapable of settling down to the pursuits of agriculture, social arts, and domestic habits. It has been declared necessary, on these grounds, to push them out of the settled territories, and every means has been used to compel them to abandon the lands of their ancestors, and to seek a fresh country in the wilds beyond the Mississippi. Even so respectable an author as Malte Brun has, in Europe, advanced a doctrine in defence of this sweeping system of Indian expatriation. “Even admitting that the use of ardent spirits has deteriorated their habits and thinned their numbers, we cannot suppose that the Indian population was ever more than twice as dense as at present, or that it exceeded one person for each square mile of surface. Now, in highly civilized countries, like France and England, the population is at the rate of 150 or 200 persons to the square mile. It may safely be affirmed, therefore, that the same extent of land from which one Indian family derives a precarious and wretched subsistence, would support 150 families of civilized men, in plenty and comfort. But most of the Indian tribes raise melons, beans, and maize; and were we to take the case of a people who lived entirely by hunting, the disproportion would be still greater. If God created the earth for the sustenance of mankind, this single consideration decides the question as to the sacredness of the Indians’ title to the lands which they roam over, but do not, in any reasonable sense, occupy.”—v. 224.
A more abominable doctrine surely never was broached. It breathes the genuine spirit of the old Spaniard; and, if acted upon, would produce an everlasting confusion. Every nation which is more densely populated than another, may, on this principle, say to that less densely peopled state, you are not as thickly planted as God intended you to be; you amount only to 150 persons to the square mile, we are 200 to the same space; therefore, please to walk out, and give place to us, who are your superiors, and who more justly fulfil God’s intentions by the law of density. The Chinese might fairly lay claim to Europe on that ground; and our own swarming poor to every large park and thinly peopled district that they happened to see.
“This single consideration,” indeed, is a very good reason why the Indians should be advised to leave off a desultory life, and take to agriculture and the arts; or it is a very sufficient reason why the Europeans should ask leave to live amongst them, and thus more fully occupy the country, in what the French geographer calls a reasonable sense. And it remained for M. Malte Brun to show that they have ever refused to do either the one or the other. They have, on all occasions when the Europeans have gone amongst them, “in a reasonable sense,” received them with kindness, and even joy. They have been willing to listen to their instructions, and ready to sell them their lands to live upon. But it has been the “unreasonableness” of the whites that has everywhere soon turned the hearts, and made deaf the ears, of the natives. We have seen the lawless violence with which the early settlers seized on the Indians’ territories, the lawless violence and cruelty with which they rewarded them evil for good, and pursued them to death, or instigated them to the commission of all bloody and desperate deeds. These are the causes why the Indians have remained uncivilized wanderers; why they have refused to listen to the precepts of Christianity; and why they roam over, rather than occupy, those lands on which they have been suffered to remain. From the days of Elliot, Mayhew, Brainard, and their zealous compeers, there have never wanted missionaries to endeavour to civilize and christianize; but they have found, for the most part, their efforts utterly defeated by the wicked and unprincipled acts, the wicked and unprincipled character of the Europeans. When the missionaries have preached to the shrewd Indians the genuine doctrines of Christianity, they have immediately been struck with the total discrepancy between these doctrines and the lives and practices of their European professors. “If these are the principles of your religion,” they have continually said, “go and preach them to your countrymen. If they have any efficacy in them, let us see it shewn upon them. Make them good, just, and full of this love you speak of. Let them regard the rights and property of Indians. You have also a people amongst you that you have torn from their own country, and hold in slavery. Go home and give them freedom; do as your book says,—as you would be done by. When you have done that, come again, and we will listen to you.”
This is the language which the missionaries have had everywhere in the American forests to contend with.[58] When they have made by their truly kind and christian spirit and lives some impression, the spirit and lives of their countrymen have again destroyed their labours. The fire-waters, gin, rum, and brandy, have been introduced to intoxicate, and in intoxication to swindle the Indians out of their furs and lands. Numbers of claims to lands have been grounded on drunken bargains, which in their soberness the Indians would not recognize; and the consequences have been bloodshed and forcible expulsion. Before these causes the Indians have steadily melted away, or retired westwards before the advancing tide of white emigration. Malte Brun would have us believe that in the United States there never were many more than twice the present number. Let any one look at the list of the different tribes, and their numbers in 1822, quoted by himself from Dr. Morse, and then look at the numbers of all the tribes which inhabited the old States at the period of their settlement.
| In New England | 2,247 |
| New York | 5,184 |
| Ohio | 2,407 |
| Michigan and N. W. territories | 28,380 |
| Illinois and Indiana | 17,006 |
| Southern States east of Mississippi | 65,122 |
| West of Mississippi and north of Missouri | 33,150 |
| Between Missouri and Red River | 101,070 |
| Between Red River and Rio del Norte | 45,370 |
| West of Rocky Mountains | 171,200 |
| ——— | |
| 471,136 |