Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1872-12-12

TIE INDIAN QUESTION.


Commissioners in their report TO the gov
eminent make fair summary Of the
whole Indian question. In a few words
they tell how the Indians have been treat
ed aud who is responsible for the barbar
Gus acts which they have committed
against the whites, also for the expensive
Indian wars which the government has
borne. There is a disposition to look at
the policy of the administration towards
the Indians as weak, sickly humanitarian,
costly, unsafe to border settlers, and des-
tined to failure, but the Commissioners
who have been engaged in carrying for
ward the plans of the President, show by
their report that the policy has prevented
blood-shed, saved money to the treasury,
and is preparing the way for the final
extinction of this difficult question
in peaceful and christian manner
A policy which produces such results
cannot be weak OF inefficient one even
when regarded in purely material point
of view. Leave ont entirely the idea of
educating, civilizing, outstanding the
Indians, and there is balance in favor
of the new policy over the old If it is
pursued with the same zeal and faithful
ness which have characterized the labors
of the Commissioners under it thus far, it
will achieve great victory, accomplishing
results which will add to the honor of the
administr alton and increase respect for
the unselfsh agents who give their time
to the work
For nearly hundred years it may safely
he said, public opinion in regard to the In
dian question has been generally guided by
class of persons on the borders of civiliza-
ton, whose interests were best secured by
misleading it. The migrations Of our peo-
pie in the last thirty years have multiplied
their numbers and field operations and
strengthened their hands.
Hundreds of innocent settlers upon every
frontier who have suffered from the ravages of
the savage, drawn upon them by the acts of
desperadoes, and their coadjutors of higher
class, who profted by the disturbances, were
unwittingly made instruments and partici-
pants in the deception.
Time and again has the nation been made
to pour out its treasure like water, and sac
rifce the priceless lives of its citizens and
soldiers to accomplish the objects of desper-
ADDE'S, or satiate the greed of spectators aud
land robbers.
Mormon gives an Indian a crippled COW
When it RECEIVERS, frontiersman covets and
attempts to take it from him, and being re-
sisted, demands the aid of soldiers, and
Sioux war results. Twenty millions of mon
o~l &.
Fette-man and ninety eight OF his command
are killed in a day, and hundreds Of innocent
lives are sacrificed,
The negro servant Of y military officer en-
tees the wife of Navajo chief and is killed
IN the consequent atfray. The Navajos have
large herds and fine lands, which are wanted
They are pastoral and agricultural people, not
wariike, but war ensues. In two years they
are conquered and moved to q distant reser-
Walton as prisoners of war; half their num-
Der die, and the remaining five or six thous-
and are brought back at last, poor and mis-
cradle, to occupy part of their former home
What did it cost IN lives and treasure TO &c.
complish the crime:
The greed for gold and land carries its ra-
pacious subject to overrun the country of the
Cheyennes and Arrapahoes when the ink of
the treaty which guaranteed them its posses
sion is hardly yet dried on the paper, and
with no proyocation proved, a regiment of
volunteers perpetates the infamous Sand
creek massacre, at the expense of the depop-
uiation of the border, and thirty millions Of
dollars.
1hese humiliating wars-humliating alike
IN their origin and their end-are but some of
the more recent of many still less Unsuitable
IN their origin, and are only suggestive as to
the degree to which that public opinion has
been perverted which made them possible.
Eighty years ago George Washington de.
mandec laws "for restraining the commission
of outrages upon the Indians, without which
all Pacific plans must prove nugatory."
''If measures like these were adopted" he
said, 1--WE might hope to live in peace and
amity with these borderers, but not while our
citizens, in violation of law and justice, are
guilty Of the offenses have mentioned and
carrying on unauthorized expeditions agains
them; and when for the most atrocious mur
ders, even Of those Of whom we have tn.
least cause of complaint, jury on the from
tier can hardly be gotten to listen to a charge
much less convict a cplprit"
"They, poor wretches, have no press
through which their grievances are related
and it is well known that when one side only
of q story is heard and often repeated the hu-
man mind becomes impressed with its nsen.
sibility." Speech in Congress and letter tc
Pendletol.)
Now and then, during the long period since