The Minnesota pioneer. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn. Territory) 1849-1855, 1849-08-16
The American Indians.

! Many circumstances cOnspire to give, at
this moment, degree of interest, If not i'm
portance, to the tribes of Red Men, now
ranging the vest selitaties-,.l.ieh are, how
ever, only the huger prison house-of the
praires: than they ever before possessed
since the foundation Of the Republic. The
annexation OF Texas, the acquisition of the
Mexican territories of New Mexico and
California, and the colonization OF Oregon,
have erected around them, on the south and
the west, new barriers, by which they are
now hemnied in, and are hereafter to be
confined in territories, and by bounds and
limits, continually diminishing. There is
no longer far West for the Indian. If he
seek to journey, as of old, in quest of the
setting sun, it is only to find the white man
meeting him suddenly behind the Rocky
Mountains, as in Oregon-oi amid them, as
in the Alpine hollow of the Salt Lake-or,
in advance, at their eastern foot, as in New
Mexico, on the head springs of the Arkan-
sas and Rio Grande. At the same moment,
he feels pressure from the north, through
Iowa and Minnesota, driving him inwards,
toward the bank of the Upper Missouri, and
from the south, through Texas. affecting
him senSibly as far as the valleys of the
Canadian and Arkansas. The desert left
to him beg ns to assume boundaries capable
of being neasured; and it is pierced in three
or four different directions by the white
mans highways, before whose white wagons
and unerring rifles, the wild animals of the
prairie<, the Indians food, are melting rapid
ly away.
| " allied inland destined to I've more close
ly pressed every day-their hunting grounds
converted into thronged emgrant roads, and
the bisons ultimately destroy ed; what is to
become of the race of North American In
-dians? who are already, in many quarters,
beginning to experience the full horrors of
their situation, and to he reduced to the al
tentative OF sitting down to die of starva-
ton or of taking food by force, by aid of
tomahawk and scalping knife, from the
| Anericans-Only the more certainly to per-
ish under the weight and fury of their VEN
geahce! We are beg inning to understand,
in this country, the reason why the Apaches
aud Camanches, whom we, by treaty, have
solemniy contracted To keep on their good
behaviour as regards Mexico, are robbing
aud numbering in that country. with the SUI
nremest contempt of US and our treaties;
that reason being that they rob and murder
for food. The Apache country is totally
destitute of game; the Camanche country
Is nearly SO; and both those tribes, being
,
porting themselves on the produce of the
fields, depend upon the herds of domestic
animals of Mexico for their ordinary means
of subsistence. In short time, unless
something he done to prevent or remedy ii,
tthere will be a similar state of things found
existing throughout our Indian territory at
home-no bufialoes-no corn-no fOod-ex-
lcept among the settlements, i'll American
Holds and granaries, where the wild tribes
must seek it, or be content, we said, to
istarve. What should we think of the Sioux,
the Blackfeet and Arapahoes toraging in
Iowa and Arkansas, making such bold and
bloody descents there, as the APacbes and
Camanches are now making in Mexico near
Nv all the time! Have we not some reason
to believe tina, the late extraordinary excnr-
sions-for extraordinary they were-of the
ICamanches on the American side of the Rio
Grande, were caused rather by the desper-
alton of distress than by any real ignorance
on their part of our overwhelming power,
and our ability and determination to punish