The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1858-07-28
OUR FATAL INDIAN POLICY.

We doubt indeed if in anything else the Ameri-
can people have learned little that has been
dered available in practical life as from their inter
course with the Indianraces Of this continent. With
unimportant exceptions, we have maintained con-
tinuous warfare with the tribes, always pleading
that are the aggTessors and greatly in the wrong
aud when we have conquered the savages we have
set to work in good earnest effort to put them in po
stion to fight us again at the earliest practicable
moment The truth is, relations to the tribes
exhibit on our part total want Of appreciation Of
their and our circumstances and the states of mind
Of the two races. We commenced by recognising
them, in the first place as natonaities We did all
we could to dignity and exalt them--to infuse into
their councils an idea Of their legal rights peo
ple--rights which they could not comprehend and
which we have never in reality recognised in our
intercourse with them. We received them as CO.
equal inhabitants of the same country with US,
treated them as such have despatched to them dpo-
matte agents. concluded with them formal treaties of
alliance and friendship and have entered into large OBJ
legations to pay them annuties. Starting, We did,
with the absurd idea that they We're our equals,
what followed in the way of treaties was all quite
natural and inevitable. But, in truth, we have only
a theory Of equality mere form of recognition as
such Of the two races, When we have needed their
lands, we have taken them, rendering them COM
pensation in money, which was sure to demoralize
them and put them in the way Of rapid decline and
death When we found it necessary to remove them
from their old homes the work was put into the
hands of parties who did it by contract thus lifting
up and putting away whole nations of people who
were declared to be our equals
The Indian tribes never entitled to the con-
sideration which has been bestowed upon them.
They never had any right to occupy country which
they could not subdue and bring into fields of
production Their occupations never suggested to
themselves the rights Of real property. They are a
people who know nothing of such things and their
wandering habits utterly disquafy them to BIO landed
proprietors We gave them all they had by treat
ing them as the lawful owners Of the soil purchasing
it from them, and paying them in currency they
knew nothing Of and which they could use only as
q means Of their own swift destruction The moral
condition Of the tribes would be infinitely better if
they had never received money from the white race
With us who know how to use it, who employ it in
great enterprises, who build roads, churches and
school-houses with it, who appropriate it to pur-
poses Of universal Improvement, in the development
of the arts and the sciences, il is powerful insru
ment of good In the hands of savages who use it
only to procure liquor and to feed the passions Of
their people, money is curse which has carried off
an infinite number of them, and which has genera
ted nearly all the frightful border that have
inherited from our Indian policy.
We have never been able to get rid of the ITO
plan schemes Of philanthropiss yet frigfully prev
alent in the United States, of civilzing the Indian
tribes We commenced this work when the latter
were the dominant people of the continent, number-
ing millions, more than two hundred years ago. and
we have pursued it till we have scarcely than
three hundred thousand of them left, and these in
Hnitely more degraded and dependent than when we
commenced our process of Indian civilization. How
long will it require to bring people to correct APP
probation of these facts7 Are we philanthropc?
Then let us adjust our relations to the tribes on
some principle which shall elevate. not degrade
them. Do we expect to promote their welfare and
to render easy their rapid descent to humiliation
Then let us regard them they really are, wholly
them before the law, in any sense, as our equals.
Why should we put money into their hands? They
are savages and know nothing of its proper uses
Money has never failed to pave the way for their
quick decline---their certain Generalization Why,
then, should they be ntrusted. with its employ
msnta Money is medium of civilizaton--an in
strument Of infinite power when wisely welded
but like magazine it should be intrusted only to
!. those iwho know what it 10 and how it should be
used4
Population has been, and is, crowding so rapidly
upon Che great interior of the continent that our
tribes h}ave become literally circumvented. Their
hunting grounds are being traversed every day by
soldier And emigrant. This state Of things has
given tha Indians the alarm and the high duty ia
dsvolvsd upon the government Of raising the stand
ards Of tfse republic in every part of the Indian
country. Indeed, the necessity has become appar
ent that we shall no longer have an Indian country
II belongs to the white race. The great progress
our people from the Atlantic West and from til,
PACIFIC East is closing in over the savage tribes
who are hereafter to live, well they can unde
the immediate surveillance of and in subsection to,
frontiersMen This is no hardship. 1t is no unjus
invasion of the rights Of the tribes. They have NJ
rights They were created and placed here in tn
wise economy Of the Almighty, to be driven bscl