Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1871-08-18
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The Indian policy of the Administration
is that of civilization. IIatterly, despite
the unpromising character of the material
to be nodded into peaceful and industrious
communities, there has grown up strong
hope that the long-studiod Indian problem
is to be solved by treating these wild C crea-
lures as human beings, teaching them the
arts of peace, and winning them to habits
Of thrift. The results of some OF the ex-
periments of the Government have given
us reason to believe that, after all, the abo-
rigines, or what remains of them, may be
assmlated into the self-supporting popu-
lation of the country; so that the end may
not be determination, but absorption. We
believe that Gen. Parker, whose retirement
from the Indian Bureau was lately an
nounced, is to be credited with the sound
ost and most practical view of this whole
question ever entertained by any public
officer who has had aught to do with Indi-
an affairs and the present administration
will always be remembered as one that has
done much to prove the red man, bad,
ahiftlo 4, and disrepntable as he is, has yet
some spark of humanity, and is fit for
something better than bloody extermina-
tion.
Not 50, however, thinks aud believes the
average frontier settler. He considers the
Indians unmitigated nuisanccs, hinder
ances, vormin, whose lives are unnecessa-
ry and whose end is to be slaughtered.
Officers Of the Government-civil and mil
itary-who have passed much time among
the Indians, and have made them u study,
are convinced it is possible that they may
be measurably reclaimed from their cruel,
vagabond ways, and they have thus been
won over TO the latter humane policy of the
Government.
In Arizona, where the meanest, widest,
and most intractablc Indians-the Apaches
still rove, Il few were collected on a res
ervation at Camp Grant, not far from Tus-
con. From the official report of Lieut..
Whitman, commanding the post, we learn
that tho number Of Indians there assem-
bled had increased to five hundred and ten
with constant accessions. These people,
men, women nd children, were engaged
in gathering hay for the Government, and
their food was supplied in army ratons,
supplemented by such simple harvcstS n
were garnercd by the women and children
in the neghbering hills. The experiment
of bringing together Indians in a small
community, and gradually teaching them
to subsist peacefully, was q success at
Camp Grant. But we all know how the
bloody end came. The settlers at Tuscon
remembering that Apaches had killed white
men, made descent upon the defcnselcss
creatures, aud cruelty butchcrcd the wo-
men and children, the men having escaped
at the first alarm.
This WAS the protest OF white Arizona a
gainst the humane policy of civilizing In
dians. These settlers insist that the Apach-
"a shall be exterminated and when AN al
tempt is made to teach them to be peace
full, they break up the slowly succeeding
scheme by murder. 1t will not do, they
argue, for Indian wars to cease; If there
are no Indian wars there will be no troops
to feed and no military. contracts to fill.
The United States paymaster furnishes the
basis for prosperity for greater proper
tion Of the white people. To see the Indi-
ans at peace, bringing in hay at low prices
this is bitterness to the soul of the white
Arizonian, who chooses that there shall be
4 small army kept in the Territory, and
I hat he shall have no aboriginal competitor
i II supplying its quartermaster. IT is like
ly that the same obstacles to Indian civil
ization exist in New Mexico, where Gov.
Pile has just stopped causcless raid by
white men upon the Indians Of that Terri
tory. 1t is pitiiul, but it is true, that the
ch ief obstacle today to the humane policy
OF gradually winning the Indian from i'm
provident wildness is the selfish meanness
of the white MANY. Y. tribune.