The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-06-06
The Indian Imbroglio.

The Indian ImbrOgliO.
VIZ are already engaged in a general Indian
war. From Montanato Arizona, and from Kansas
TO California, the wild Indians are On the war
path, robbing and numbering as they so. Besides
the regular forces engaged under the direction
of Lieutenant General sherman, the people OF
Montana are organizing volunteer companies
under General Meagher, to carry on the war
on their own account, and the authorities OF
Colorado have asked permission to DO the
same. We shall probably have continuous
campaign during the whole summer.
We observe that in some quarters it is
taken for granted that in every difficulty that
arises with the Indians, the fault is all or
mainly on the side of the whites, and that if
the Indians were unmolested there would
never be any trouble with them This view
exhibits great ignorance of the true state Of
the case. The Indians of the plains are mere
savages, who subsist by plunder and by the
chase. They have no civilization. They cul-
tivate no land. They are nomad5 wandering
over the vast wastes of our Western interior,
and when not at war with the whites are en-
gagged in the pleasant pastime of taking one
another's scalps. The idea that they are
peaceable, quiet, tractable, ETC., is all errO-
neous. They have robbed ana murdered the
emigrant trains passing across the continent
from the days of Lewis and Clark down to the
present. They are thieves and muir
derers by instinct. The pretense that
they are driven to their eXcesses in
retaliation for wrongs done by the whites is
false. They robbed and murdered the
emigrant trains to California in 1947-S-9,
when there were no white settlements from
the Missouri to the Sacramento, and all that
the white man did was simply to pass across
the country, just as persstently as they do
now. They are simply set of numbering
savages, who have no more idea of good faith,
and no more compunction at taking the life of
man, woman, or child, than have the grizzly
bears of the mountains. The country has had
no difficulty with the semi-civilized Indian
tribes of the West, such as the Delawares, the
Wyandots, the Kaws, the Osages, and the
Indians of the Indian Territory. Many of
these live on reservations surrounded by the
whites, and minglng with them daily without
collision. 1t is only with the wild Indian, the
unadulterated savage, who until within very
short period still used the bow and the arrow,
that the troubles have occurred.
The rapid settlement of the great regions
beyond the Missouri during the last few years,
and now the building of the two great lines of
the Pacific Railroad, have brought the whites
in contact with these Indians much more fire.
quently than formerly. Great emigrant and
trading routes to New Mexico, Colorado, Utah,
Montana, ETC., traversed by thousands at all
seasons of the year, have penetrated the plains
in every direction.
The Indian question must now be settled.
The settlement of the country, and the con
struction and operation of our great national
lines of railway, cannot be suffered to be OBJ
structed by a few thousand miserable savages,
who live by plunder and the chase. pro-
posal has been made to concentrate these wan
dering tribes, and locate them together in the
Indian Territory south of Kansas. The plan
has its difficulties, but something of that char
acter is essential if the Indian would be saved
from determination. The rapid settlement of
the interior will soon of itself abolish the
ancient hunting grounds, and leave these wild
tribes no means of subsistence. The buffaloes
are already disappearing rapidly as their pas
ture-ranges are being invaded by the advance
of civilization. The Indian must give up his
nomadic habits, or he too must perish. The
savage and the civilized man cannot live to-
gether. 1t is only question of time. Could
the wild tribes be located together somewhere
on agricultural ground, they might, perhaps,
be brought finally to support themselves; but
it would be matter of great difficulty to col
lect and remove them. The stronger proba-
bility is that We shall live in chronic state
of hostility with them until they gradually
fade away.
The Mercantile Library.