The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-07-22
MRS. NARY CLEMMER AMES' OPIN.
ION OF THE NOBLE RED MAN.


We invite the attention of our read
ers to the following extract from Mrs.
Ames' letter to the NJ Y Independent
Mrs. A. is one of the ablest writers
among American women. She enter
tains just views concerning poor SO"
1t is healthful to turn away from such
maudlin sentiment about justice to the
red man with which nearly every paper
east of the Mississippi is filed, and read
such plain, practical and truthful words
as these. Mrs. G. A. has been in such
proximity TO the Indians as to have
learned something about their disgust
ing habits of life, and their blood-thirsty
character:
No, there is nothing in Washington
this moment so wonderful as the trees !;
not even Mr.. "Spotted Tail" and his
compatriots, who this morning are dis
porting themselves on Pennsylvania
avenue, in huge blue blankets, lined
with fur, with palm-ieaf fans in their
hands, which they are whisking vio-
lently before their frightfully painted
faces. For Mr.. "Spotted Tail" have
deep disgust. am sorry the Lord ever
u1ouC ally VI LIS hluus = WO
respectfully advise all who have an un-
feigned desire to see the .'poor Indian"
as he is to visit ''the land of the Daco-
tabs, the land of falling waters" If
Longfellow had cultivated him there,
he would never have written the song
of "Hiawatha." If there is anything
on the face of the earth malicious, cruel,
filthy, and dreadful, it is "Sioux" In
dian. Mr.. Spotted Tail" and Mr.. "Red
Cloud" are no better. Their never
ending pastime is the outrage and
slaughter of innocent women aid child
rem. They are as craven as they are
their doing is shame to human nature,
has been so long the sentimental fashion
to cry 60, the poor indiana and to
lay the blame of his long decades of I'M
exampled treachery and butchery to the
treatment of the white man, that all just
perception of the true Indian character
has been lost. Doubtless, he has been
wronged many times. For every wrong
he has endured most horribly has he
avenged himself How horribly. the
half-tilled graves on the far-off plains,
the long tresses on many a bleeding
scalp, the eagle feathers on his own
fiendish head do well attest. For afro
III
wrong done himself there is, at least,
some excuse. But his objectionable
deeds of cruelty have been committed
(and by some of this very band) against
the weak and the innocent within a very
few years, and while everything posi-
BILE was being done by the government
for the protection of the Indians. No
less would L have absolute justice done
them. Nothing that they have done
could justify white men in descending
to their level of rapacity. But 81 do
object" to the maudlin sentiment which
makes Logan of every disgusting Da
cotah. We might just as well accept
the fact that the Indian of the magma
the Third Reader. Nevertheless, these
wretches are strutting up and down the
avenue as if they had never murdered
lovely women and pounced on poor
emigrants in their lonely wagons. They
gibber and grunt when the Great
Mother" as they call little Mrs. Grant,
gives them tobacco; and "the Great
Father" her husband, with touch of
fellow feeling, gives them pipes. And
the diplomatic corps put on their court
regalia the other evening, and came to
the White House to meet these Indians
in theirs. ''The elite of Europe and the
bon ton of barbarism met" and it is
difficult to tell which looked the most
ridiculous. If the elite had seen the
''6on ton" sitting naked in Minnesota,
hideously painted, eating decaying en-
trails, interspersed with unearthly yells
and whoops, as your inscribing friend
has, perhaps they would have concluded
that they were not worth astonishing,
even with European gold lace. If it is
possible for the government to enter
into some compact with Mr.. Spotted
Tail and Mr.. Red Cloud and their COM
peers which will insure them all their
native rights, and our citizens their
lives in their homes and on the road, we
may devoutly thank God. But the
trouble is not with the government
which sincerely seeks to secure to the
Indians all protection and privilege
The chief trouble is in their own blood
thirsty souls; and, while there is a
human scalp to be taken, an eagle
feather to be won, if they don't take
them, it will only be because they can't