Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1868-11-17

their vanity by aimpeaching their right
of possession. AS we would ike no
man to make a road across our lot they
hold their reservations to be, absolute
property, as indeed they are, given them
lin exchange by Government. We pro-
jected the Pacific road in their country
without permission, ana the grand coun!
ell that we held two or three years ago
was1to arrange for their removal and
compose them to it" "'roi.-e,, .a.,,r, 7 H..
"Do the. Indians object to taking new
reservations :"
"Certainly, when they must do it at
our convenience. No people are more
fopdly attached to- the graves of their
forefathers. h We fix them upon reservaI
tions, and as our; resistless population
catches up to their frontiers, our van
guard, often made up Of rufians and in
solent people, collisions ensue and then
the Government dispossesses the Indian
and pushes him further toward the Pa
ciic. The Indian mind is not so obtuse
that it cannot see that the world must
end somewhere. Where will they push
the Indian when he gets to the end ~
IT" You think that manyIof the Indian
wars begin by our disregard of the In
dams rights ?'' .s.u
"I do. The majority, if not all, the
Indian wars either begin in this way or
byaa failure on the part of the United
States9to perform its stipulations. Take
the war at present going on at a large ex-
pense. We wanted the lands of the
Cheyennes and Arrapahoes for the pur--
poses of the Pacific railroad. We said
to these tribes in grand council teWe
will give you other lands, and teach you
upon them how to till the ground, for
which we will give you plows and seed,
and also sheep and cattle, by which you
may be fed till your land becomes pro7
| 90 Therefore the Indian consented to be.
removed, and he remained upon his dis
tant reservation peaceably SO long as we
fed him according to contract Suddenly
our appropriation ran out aud we said to
the Indian: "Wei shall now be unable
to feed you, our money is gone UnB
liable to live without nourishment, the In
ldians,in melancholy bands, roamed back
to their former lands, and what did they.
behold? Our people, pushing out along
the spine of the railway, following up
the beds of the streams and the fertile
belts, had already aoverhowed the ,coun-r
try. Surprised and jealous, the Indians
regarded it all with wonder and mortifi-
cation. 0N 80 >''''' ~ 7''- 'ti'''''D 757I
"Welli they are hungry, and into
some isolated house they go and say
I'VE are hungry i we want food!'i Here
is cause for affront. Perhaps the food is
refused;, then they take It,. Or perhaps
too much is exacted. Perhaps there is
a lone woman in the house and some of
the young savages offer violence. In
any event bad feeling begins, and war
ensues, involving millions of dollars
Now, had the Indians been sustained
by the Government as we promised,
all collision would have been prevent
ed''5s5h 10 d1nw aiii ,1a9T Das q45is no
"Whose fault was it that the appro-
priation ran out ?"
"The fault of the false position of this
bureau The Government has never
had uniform policyitoward the Indians.
A. succession of aexpedients has been
adopted from time to timeto temporarily
4 satisfynithe Indiansg but the Commits
sionersof the Bureau is without influence
either with Congress, or with the Presi-
dent. He is an officer of the Secretary
ofthe Interior, who meantime is busted
with the vast and complicated affairs of
his other Bureau, and courtesy and. GUS
tom demand of the Commissioner that
he should have no independent dealings,
but make all his applications to the Sec
retary only. in fact, Mr.. Townsend,
the Indian Bureau ought to be an inde-
pendent departmentH'io zaailo sLf aqr-
t-Arel it's functions so relatively i'm
p)rtant 2''gs sais19ib risiq sds 10 za-
s.'tYes, sir.tG We have as many treaties
with the Indian nations as with foreign
nations. An Indian cannot understand
why a political dead lock- at the Capital
should make the Government break its
word. He demands the fulfllment of a
promise as between man and man. If the
Indian Bureau were even as indepen-
dent as the Agricultural Bureau / could
go to Congress and tell them thesneces-
sites ofsmy department. Now i must
often delay to satisfy courtesy at the ex.
pense of Misunderstanding, massacre,
and expensive warfare sueijei90szs has
"HaYe you any notion of what should
be definite policy toward the Indi-
] ans l"ai. 70 -ii1Ff = ,-r1aJra sze.. ~aa
cit is the province of craftsmanship
to meet this squestion. [ am satisfied
that the transfer of this Buream to the
War Department would be unjust, pro-
woke the helpless massacre of the Indi
ans, and be altogether the most unstates-.
nanlike way to deal with them. Here
totore we have kept the Indians in the
surf of civilization, driving them ahead
of us,so that their habits have not ceased
to be nomadic.I AChristian policy to-
ward them would teach civilization to
60 beyond them and leave them in
closed by it, The cCherokees, Chicka-
saws, Greeks and Choctaws are exam
! pies of what the stable, stationary Indi-
an can do." Il a1guat}: ar 'taGai ai
z"noes any great per centage of the
Indians money get to him ~ F3harEI 4
A"There is reason to believe that trad.
ers get the bulk of it.. Our laws about
entering the Indian reservations are hon.
ored chiefly in the. breach. Any man
can trade on reservation by getting a
Judge and two citizens to certify that he
is an honest man. With two barrels Of
whisky in a wheelbarrow and some
beads the trader comes into the reserva-
tion, takes a squaw to protect himself,
and begins the systematic work of swim.
ding. The cost of the Indian military
\ expeditions is erroneous For example
the military expenditures on account of
the Indians in the territory of New Mex
leo alone have exceeded four millions of