The Kansas herald of freedom., 1855-01-27
The Aborieinss.

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impression in the public mind that his
reclamation and education are impossible.
That an unwise and injudicious policy
has been pursued in the attempts made
for their education, must be obvious to
every rejecting mind. To draw an un-
tutored savage from the wilderness. and,
after brief process of education, dismiss
him again to his forest home, is of no
conceivable advantage to him, as he is
returned to the society of those who can
not appreciate his attainments, and who
would be very likely to despise him on
account of them.
While their hunter habits of life re-
main unchanged, any attempt to ingraft
abidingly upon their minds the spirit and
genius of civilization and Christianity,
win prove unavailing. Such was the
opinion. of the celebrated chief, Black
Hawk, who sagaeiously insisted that any
attempt to reclaim the Indian from bis
barbarism and ignorance would be use-
less, unless preceded by permanent
breaking up of his hunter habits, and
changing his social condition.
The remark was recently made to the
writer, by an intelligent Indian Agent,
that, as the result of missionary labor
among the Delawares, for the past hun
dred and fifty years, there were about
fifty Christians. Their wild hunter habits,
and unchanged modes of life, sufficiently
unfold the causes of this failure to make
/ their intellectual, social, and moral i'm
provements more general.
As an indication of the truth of what
| is here set forth, we observe that there
are now in the State of New York about
four thousand Indians. Since the year
I846 they have shared in the benefits OF
the common school fund and an ample
appropriation is made, whereby limited
number of Indian youth are supported al
the State Normal School, inorder to meet
the growing demand for higher range
of education among their people. They
have, for many years, been surrounded
by civilization, shut in, and secured from
all intercourse with the ruder tribes oi
the wilderness-have therefore lost their
native 6erceness, and become tractable
and humane. They have become grad
ually initiated into agricultural pursuits,
adopted new modes of life, been swayed
by new aspirations, untilachange, though
hardly perceptible to the superficial
observer, yet in reality very great, has
been accomplished. Their decline has
not only been arrested, but they are ac.
tually increasing in numbers, and i'm.
proving in their social condition and we
maintain that the primary and potent
cause of all this is found in their feeble
attempts at agriculture, which has called
around them the means of more comfort.
able, and less precarious subsistence, than
can ever be derived from the chase.
There is now, in every Indian commu-
nifty in the State, a respectable class, who
have become habitual cultivators of the
soil, adopted our modes of life, speak our
language. and are, in every respect, dis
Greet and sensible men.
The ancient tenure by which Indian
lands are held in common, and cannot be
alienated, is source of great inconyen-
fence, whenever they incline to enterupon
the pursuit of agricultural life, and labor
upon the soil, instead of roaming idly
over it. In addition to this, the annuities
granted are curse, soon squaudered for
gewgaws, rather than for articles of sub
stantial utility while they, by inducing
dependence upon them, encourage idle
ness, and have the effect of paying a
bonus for ragrancy and aversion to labor,
when it should be the aim of public policy
to discourage those habits, and open to
their untutored minds other avenues oil
interest and advantage. Nothing will
ever. preserve the race from becoming ex-
tinct, except an entire change in their
habits of life and to effect this, pre-
liminary change of public policy must
also be effected.
Touproot tribe or nation in the zenith
of its intellectual spiendor is impossible
but the expulsion of contiguous one, in
state of barbarism and ignorance, is not
only of easy accomplishment, but be-
comes a matter of inevitable and absolute
necessity. The present system of national
supervision is obviously temporary in its
plans and purposes, designed for the
administration of our Indian affairs with
the least possible Inconvenience, rather
than their ultimate reclamation followed
BY the bestowment of citizenship.
The presence of the Indian on this con-
tinent is regarded as temporary; and the
impression is general that he must sur
render his possessions, when he shall
have been surrounded by the white race,
and the summons be sent in for his Gus
toulary capitulation. If the sentiment is
not as emphatic as that expressed by
Cato, and subsequently, adopted as the
policy of the Roman Senate. :. Carthage
est deleHda da"-Gartkege masf Be destroy
edit speaks in language no less siyy-
niiicant-the destiny of the red man is
determination.
Books for the Atheasum.
Several books have been received from