The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-09 00:00:00

THE INDIANS AND THE UNITED STATES

The Pall Mall Gazette is scarcely fair to the citi-
zens of the Republic in its article on the Indians
and the United States. It commences by acknow-
ledging with some degree, of shame the cruelties
with which the English suppressed and punished
the Mutiny in India, while excusing them on the plea
that the victors were provoked by massacres, and
were hot from the desperate contest. From this
the article glides on to individual atrocities on the
part of United States soldiers and citizens against
the Red Indians, as detailed by one of the Commis-
sioners sent to protect them, appointed by the Admi-
nistration. Not a word is said in explanation ; the
position in which the men thus stigmatised were
placed is wholly ignored, and the American is left
with the odium of shooting defenceless women and
children, and crimes even more horrible, while the
excuse for the British in India is readily enough
forthcoming. In the newspapers of the United
States, British atrocities are often narrated in a similar
way, and the people are led to believe in a brutality
which has some, but no general existence in either
nation. If the Pall Mall Gazette wanted instances
of the unscrupulous and unrelenting dealing of
Americans with Red Indians, we could furnish
enough to fill a number of the paper instead of an
article, and if it required such instances of the Bri-
tish in India and in the islands of the Pacific, we
can supply it with all the material it can print for a
week. On inquiry it will be found that the Ame-
rican atrocities are more justifiable—if with Chris-
tian men such a word can be used—than the
British atrocities. From the first landing on the
shcres of America till now, the period has been one
continued contest with the Red skins. Wherever
settlements were formed this was the state of
aff.►irs, and the pioneers of civilization grew up from
generation to generation with an inborn feeling of
hostility to the race. The story of his life became
one of desperate conflicts and hair-breadth escapes,
of cruel wounds and great suffering, and his end
perhaps was to perish beneath the Indian bullet or
knife, and his hair to grace the wigwam of a chief.
The stories left as traditions in the frontier villages
as they grew into cities were of massacres and cap-
tures, of men dying under horrible tortures, and
no soldier or trapper, teamster, or other whose
movements brought him within reach of the savages,
ever so far emptied a revolver as not to reserve a
friendly bullet for his own brain or heart, when he
saw capture inevitable. The tales of devilish in-
genuity shown by these Indian fiends in extracting
from the human frame all the torture and indignity
it can bear, have thrilled many a man's blood with
horror, instilling into him a deep thirst for venge-
ance, an oath to spare none—warrior, squaw, or
papoose. It is of these men the Pall Mall writes
without telling these circumstances, which would
be the same as if a savage described a lunging scene
on an English gibbet as got up for the amusement
and excitement of the crowd. The man was hanged,
as he says, but to expiate the guilt of murder, and
Colonel Carrington, whose massacre of Indians
supplies the instance for all such denunciations,
was convinced that in exterminating the Indian
vermin he did as much good to the country as if
he had swept away a brood of man-eating tigers.
This is the feeling, and these are the causes
in the Far West ; but the causes not being felt, the
sentiment widely differs in the East, where many
and genuine philanthropic efforts have been made
to suppress this war of races, to civilise, and to
save the Indians. The task was next to impossible,
for who could control the acts of the hunters in
the Rocky Mountains, or the traders moving in
parties across the prairies ? and if they could have
been controlled, who was to control the Cheyennes,
the Sioux, and the Arapahoes, when they chose to
take to the war-path, and devastate the outlying
settlements ? Even when Congress gave force to
the national wish, and appropriated large subsidies

for the benefit of the tribes, by what machinery
could the grants be made to reach savages scattered
and wandering over a country in its vast extent
anmapped and unknown ? Of course the Indians
were cheated, and the intention of the nation
baulked ; but in discussing a subject headed " The
Indians and the United States," it is manifestly
unjust, while detailing individual instances of crime
against them, to ignore the attempts made by the Re-
public to save the children of nature found within her
borders, as well as her reservations, and appropria-
tions. On this subject the President had a policy
which he endeavoured to carry out the moment
power came into his hands. Ile appointed an Indian
chief, who had long served on his staff, as Chief Com-
missioner, as best qualified ; he selected from the
" City of Brotherly Love" as commissioners men
I well known for their universal benevolence, for the
general philanthropy of their nature, as well as for
their energy and good judgment; and with all the
power Congress enabled him to confer he sent
these forth on the mission of peace, and it is
from one of them, we believe, the Pull Mall has ga-
thered the cases, of which it makes what we con-
sider to be an unjust use against the United States.
Whatever may be the shortcomings of the Repub-
lic in its relations with the Indians and Negroes,
still it contrasts well with the conduct of any other

people towards aliens dwelling on their territory,
and we believe that no charge can be brought against
tlie policy however deeply individual
lnawtdieosns, and unscrupulous men who
citizens,
and of nation,
mix so largely with early settlers, may have in-
dulged in excesses. The slavery introduced into
America, and left as a legacy by England, the Re-
public abolished ; and a remnant of the aboriginal
tribes will be saved, or, if not, it will not be the
fault of the nation.—.Anylo-American TiineB.

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