Weekly Calaveras chronicle., 1867-04-06
Our Indian Policy.

IN America nowadays, which prompts the
treatment of all rascality in the gentlest and
most rose-water manner. Some society or
another has taken every description of vaga-
bondism and villainy under its protection,
and its pet nuisance cannot be hurt without
its raising an everlasting clamor. The next
we shall hear of will be some benevolent as
sociation for the protection and improvement
of snakes, which will demonstrate the folly
of the present existing prejudice against rep
tiles, and which viii promise to reform the
propensity of the descendants of the tempter
of Mother Eve to bruse our heels, by dellv-
ering to them course of lectures upon the
impolicy of their persisting in such untrlend-
ly proceedings. The principal cause of our
assuming benevolence arises from the big
head rather than big heart. Weare labor
ing under the delusion that the eyes Of the
world are constantly fixed in rapt attention
upon our minutest actions, and our people
are like any vain individual who lives for
display and applause, and sacrifices the COM
fort and even safety of his own household to
crafty his ruling passion. 1t would be an
almost endless task to enumerate all the in
stances where we have sacrificed public JUS
tice and the protection of the private rights
of person and property in our attempts to
appear grandly benevolent and noble heart
ed. One class of such cases will suffice for
the present. Our Indian policy, for many
years past, has been founded on the feelings
excited by that EXPLANATORY phrase of "Lo.
the poor Indian more than upon any just
conception of what is really due to and from
him in his relations to the whites. When
Lincoln pardoned a thousand Sioux murder
ers it was more from fear of what the world
might say if he permitted justice to be exc
cuted than from any fine feeling. The fear
of the clamor that the worlds benevolent So
cieties would have raised about his ears was
more potent with him than the demands of
justice for the exemplary punishment of the
unprovoked and bloody massacre of settlers
wives and children, and the future protec-
ton of the Western border. Our policy with
the Indians, while specifically human, is in
reality ignoble, and very disastrous to the
hardy pioneers who seek homesteads on the
outskirts of our civilization. We buy peace
from the Indians when we should dictate it
to them, and the treaties we make with them
are only observed by them so long as it suits
their convenience, and are broken by them
with impunity. A broken treaty and war
of determination on their part is no signal for
war on ours, but only the incentive to new
negotiations and the payment of large boun-
ties from US. Mad Anthony Wayne and
Andrew Jackson, in their day, each brought
peace to the settlements on the borders-a
peace which lasted for many years-but they
obtained it by first soundly thrashing the red
men and negotiating with them afterwards.
In dealing with the Indians we have to deal
with people who are unlike the rest of hu-
manity, and only respect superior force, and
its avails us nothing to be in fact superior in
force, if we make no display of it. but treat
with them as though we are afraid of them.
The maxim that it is cheaper to feed the In
dians than to fight them, is penny-wise and
pusillanimous. 1t is never cheaper to buy
peace from anybody. and whoever takes such
course is bound, some day, to rue 1t. The
noble savages on the plains are bent on
learning US wisdom, and will at last teach us
the only true policy to be pursued toward
them. Money spent for presents to placate
their wrath is money thrown away. The
recent massacre on the plains ought to go for
something toward opening the eyes of the
people to the situation of our overland routes
of travel, and the spirit of the pestiferous
vermin who infest tie vast stretches of coun-
try which lie between the borders of the cas-
tern and western portion of the States of the
Union. 1t is to be hoped that General Ham
cock, who commands an expedition about
to penetrate the Indian country, will change
his programme and fight the hostile chiefs
and meet them in council afterwards. "Vig-
orous war; should by all means preceae his
negotiations. There is a disposition in hu-
man affairs to run, like rivers, in channels
only to be diverted by catastrophe. Let us
hope that the late calamity to our victimized
soldiers, sacrificed in the post garrisons on
the plains, will change the bed of the chan
mel of our old Indian policy, and start it run
ming in new and more efficient direction.
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