Edwardsville spectator. [volume] (Edwardsville, Ill.) 1819-1826, 1825-10-01

ancient habits, for the customs and acts
o civilized life, we seek TO despoi them
oil her lands BY fraudulent treaty, and
to drive them again into the forest, with
hablls united TO sustain the hardships oil
the hunting life, and with a longing wish
Tor that civilization which we have en-.
couraged them to hope, and Gebarred
them from obtaining. In such a silua-
uou, shall we prohibit them from com.
planning, or thaeaten them with the bsyo-
net, BECAUSE they visit justice upon those
viosalors Of their laws, who have been
the authors of their distress? We stand
IN delicate relation 10 those Indians.
We inhaoit the land of their ancestors.
We are powerful people, beyond the
reach oil tleir arms, or of the arms of any
who may undertake to avenge them.
They are weak and few in number.
indebted 10 our sense OF Justice for pro.
tee I'm, upon the soil, which they once
owned IN absolute right. They have at
tempted TO civilize the rising generation,
and have suffered the white men to en-.
compass them in their settlements, in
The hope that they may be preserved I'M
der the protecting arm of this great rcpub
lc'antil,n the iulness Of time, they shou Id
be received into the bosom of the A merj-
can family, and be identified with US, as
one people. We still have it in our pow
or TO drive them beyond the precincts Of
civilization, where hall sayages, half ci.
vllzcd, they viii soon fall victims TO the
difficulties OF their situation; or, in re-
sis'Ing, they may bring upon themselves
universal destruction. They may pc
rsh as they have resolved to do, nbcp
he smoking, blood Stacked ruins other
huts, and leave not a soul TO tell the tale.
Their race may disappear from the earth,
and no historian, nor orator, of Indian
extraction, existto narrate their wrongs.
or 10 call down vengeance upon those,
who have possessed themselves of their
fair Inheritance. Bat will public opinion
be annlhiated I? Gao we forget our own
injustice Will not the pages of our his
tory be indelIbiy stamped with the ex-
tirpaion of the abogiginals? Our descen.
dants will read, that in the nineteenth
century, the American Congress ratified
a fraudulent treaty, by which an Indian
nation was deprived Of It's territory a.
gains, its will, and without its CONSENT
that this treaty was made with a small
party of these ignoran, creatures, who
were ca]oled and bribed to be the instru-
u,enis OF deirauding their countrymen--
that the Senate sas.iuduced.by deception,
to ratify it; and that still the national
government, in conjunction with the state
proceeded to. execute it at
the point of The bayonet, by the exlermi-
nation Of the Indians.
Shall this las, sentence close the re.
cord of this disgracoful transaction? Shal,
our descendants see the bones of these
aboriginais whitening the western plains
of Georgia, as enduring testimony of
our cruelty and injustice ? Such deed
you'd not be entirely without preceden,s.
We may find them in the conques,s oil
fIispaniola, in the subversion of Mexico
and Peru, and in the records of the En-
glish East India COMPANY. We may
fine them in the trial of Warren II sings;
and we shall also there find, the almost
denuncialions of his ava
racious cruelty, by Sheridan, Fox and
Burke, when they indicated the rights
of India on the hoor of the British
ParlAmen,. Shall these Greek,
meet in the American Congress with no
corresponding feeling? Rome listened
to the cries OF Sicily, and Britain to the
complaints of India; is this Republic
alone to be inseDsibe to the voice OF
supplicating man? To Congress only
can these poor children of nature look
for relief. Their lands appear by our
stalute.book to be vested in the United
States. They feel unable to resist the
power of our arms; but they have re-
solved never to leave their native land,
and though they cannot resist, they know
how to die. Their savage education has
taught them to despise death, both APP
preaching and present, and they have
resolved to die upon their lands in pre-
ference to removing.
There is wisdom and mental great
ness in this resolution. They know
what they have been-and they feel
what they are. When they reflect upon
the power and independence of their an.
cestors, and contrast their state with the
dependant and uncertain condition OF
their escendants-tantaIized with hopes
of civilization, which we forbid them to
realize--protracting a miserable exls-
tence, rendered wretched by repeated
and, compulsory removals far into the
Wilderness az the while man aDDroach-