The New York herald., 1874-08-18
Reform or Our Indian Policy.


Lieutenant General Sheridan, in the inter-
view printed in the HERALD of Saturday, made
some valuable suggestions towards O reform of
our Indian policy. and among them, two of
capital importance, though neither is original
except in the application he makes of it to
present circumstances. We allude to the
supreme importance he attaches to collecting
oil the Indian tribes upon limited reservations
and resolutely holding them there, and to his
opinion that the management OF all the Wild
and rowing tribes should be transferred to the
War Department. These two cardinal features
in the reform of our Indian policy need to be
supplemented with others OF nearly equal i'm
portanee but without these all others Will
prove nugatory The time has come for
new departure, for complete change OF
measures and it gives additional weight to
General Sheridan's ideas that they are not
only the conclusions of an active-minded Off
Ger Of large experience among the Indians,
| but that they are in strict logical pursuance of
principles which our ablest statesmen Of
former generation adopted ana applied in
more limited field.
has very diligently explored early precedents.
His views are the fruit of strong common
sense acting Immediately on his personal ex-
perence If Calhoun and Jackson, the two
former statesmen who had the deepest insight
into Indian questions, had never existed,
Sheridan would have discovered their princi-
pies tor himself, and have applied them on a
broader scale commensurate with the greater
magnitude of the problem. There is needed
no light from the past to show the utter In
compatibility Of the settlement and civiliza-
ton OF the vast regions which we have re-
! Gently organized as Territories with the ex-
! istence of wild and marauding tribes over
running the country in pursuit OF game, and
exposing the settlers to violence and outrage.
Aside from the terror inspired by the Indians
| it will soon become impossible to tolerate the
prodigious waste of land incident to the
habits of savage life. A tract barely suffi-
/ cient to supply food for balf a dozen
can shoot, would maintain ten thousand
people in comfort and opulence by civilized
agriculture The nomadic occupancy of the
Indians cannot be much longer permitted
and if they are not to overrun vast regions
and exclude civilization it is evident that they
must be either exterminated or confined to
small reservations determination is too hor-
rible az alternative to be deliberately adopted
by humane people, and nothing practical
remains but to collect the rowing tribes on
reservations and keep them there.
1t is too obvious for argument that this can
be accomplished only by military force The
Indians will never voluntarily surrender their
wild, wandering life and submit to the re-
straints of regular labor in the cultivation of
the soil. They have got to be put upon the
assigned reservations by force and forcibly de-
tained there. This force can be exerted
only by the army, and until the work
is accomplished the army should not be
thwarted or interfered with. Of course
it must always remain subject to the
authority Of Congress and the control of the
War Department, and little discretion will be
given to individual commanders except in
matters of detail But the Interior Depart
ment, which has at present the management
Of Indian affairs, would only be obstruc-
ton and nuisance when so serious and
essentially military piece of work is to be
undertaken as the gathering in of all the fierce
and warlike tribes and their forcible detention
in limits only sufficient for agricultural life
We do not at all understand General Sheridan
as desiring Congress to reinstate the War De-
partment in the complete control of Indian
affairs, which it held for more than half a
century. The tribes which were earliest put
on reservations, like the Cherokees, Creeks,
&C., and have become quiet and comparatively
civilized communities, he would leave under
the control of the Interior Depart
ment, claiming for the War Depart
ment the exclusive management only of
the rowing and unquiet Indians, such
as are not yet collected on reservations or
mutiny against their confinement. Once ad-
NIT that the reservation policy is the only
means of saving the Indians from extinction
and we do not see how this conclusion can be
resisted-let this be once admitted and it in
evtably follows that while the change is
! going on the unsettled Indians should be put
in exclusive control of the War Department;
and, what is still more important, the army
! should be so increased as to expedite the work
and render resistance On the part Of the
savages hopeless When the government de-
ter1nined to remove the Cherokee nation to its
present home beyond the Mississippi it sent
General Scott in command of q volunteer
army SO large that opposition by the Indians
would have been sheer madness. In the ad-
dress he issued to the Cherokees Scott said
''My troops already occupy many positions in
the country you are to abandon, and thou
| sands and thousands are approaching from
every quarter, to render resistance and escape
alike hopeless" But how small was the