The New York herald., 1874-09-22
The True Indian Policy-The Army
the Only Effective Agent of the
Govern IN ent.


The Eastern States have ceased to under
stand the Indians, because they have been for
many years deprived of their society. They
have become greater curiosities than the Chi
nese, who were once marvels but are now
commonplace laundrymen; and when tribe
of chiefs, squaws and pappooses comes from
the far West to the Eastern cities it is taken
in charge by the government or the Young
Men Christian Association and exhibited as
wonderful novelty. An Indian In full cos
tune on Broadway would attract nearly as
much attention as o bull in o china shop,
though he would probably do less damage
Indians in fact, are more common in the
spirit than in the fesh for no good spiritual
medium would be without some dead chief or
medicine man to tell us the secrets Of the
Indian of to-day exists for US only by the tele-
graph and the correspondent.
This actual ignorance of the Indian nature
is increased by the traditions we have of the
great tribes which long ago disappeared. We
confound the Indian of to-day with the Indian
of the past. King Philip, Tecumseh, Osceola,
Uncas and Mohegan, the chiefs of fact and
fiction, are to US the same as Red Cloud, Little
Swan, Cochise, Big Bear and other warriors
of the prairie. Our ideas Of the Indian nature
are, to great extent, derived from the novels
of Cooper and poems like Campbells Seer
trude of Wyoming" We imagine the red
man Of the West to be noble, chivalrous,
hospitable; something like the Arab of the
desert or the ideal Italian bandit, the romantic
Fra Diavolo of the opera. This is as great
an error as it would be to con-
fuse Lord Byron's Corsair with the
bloody, murderous Greek brigands who
have made the Plain of Marathon as in
famous in modern times as it is glorious in
history There were two races of Indians
when America was first settled, and those of
the East were certainly the far superior We
admit the truthfulness of Cooper's novels
There was something noble in the Pequots,
the Mohicans and the Lenni Lenapes. And
as these historic Indians were cruel in war
they were capable of noble actions in peace.
Even John Randolph, of Roanoke, one of the
proudest of Virginians, boasted of his descent
from the Indian Princess, Pocahontas Cap
tain Rolfe married her and took her to
England, but he would probably have made
different arrangements had he met one Of the
dusky herones of New Mexico or Colo
RADIO. There are no Indian prlncesses now
there are only squaws. The Indians of the
Atlantic States seem to have been
race of savages who had honorable traits.
They were intellectual self-respecting and
faithful to their pledges. Our forefathers
dealt with the Six Nations, whose rule ex-
tended from Massachusetts, to the lakes, and
with the Lenni Lenapes, whose dominion
reached from the Delaware far beyond the
Susquehanna, upon almost equal terms.
Treaties were made with great chiefs which
were as often kept as treaties are now in
Europe, and the savage was sometimes nobler
than the white man. These aboriginal tribes
were far superior to those which now exist
The Six Nations and the Delawares should not
be compared with the Comanches, the Sioux
and the Pawnees of the Plains. The differ
ences between the Atlantic and what may be
called the Pacific tribes were not merely
social, but, to certain extent, chronological.
The superior tribes are now almost entirely
extinct.
Thus, as our ideas of the Indian may be
said to be derived from Cooper, our Indian
policy is derived from Penn. The Quakers of
Pennsylvania imagine that they can deal
with Modoc as William Penn did with o
! Delaware, and they have tried the experiment
out West But General Candy lost his life in
the lava BEDS and some of the commissioners
narrowly escaped with their scalps These
Quaker philanthropists not only forget the
difference of race, the marked distinction
between the Indians of the Allegheny Noun
tains and New England and those of the
Plains, but they also fail to consider the inf1u-
ence of time upon the latter 1t is nearly
three hundred years since William Penn
bought an empire for few beads, and since
then the Indians have learned to hate the
whites. Persecution, whiskey and war have
made them revengeful, treacherous and cruel
and PENIS scalp would be taken by a Pawnee
now as coolly as a glass Of rum. No longer are
the friendly counsels of ''the children ol
Miauon" listened to by the Indian. He be.
lieves in rations and rum, getting drunk al
winter and hunting the buffalo and stealing
horses in the summer. The forest child o.
to-day is generally pretty much of thief ant
good deal of a rowdy, and has acquired al
the vices of the whites without even one O
their virtues. AS our conceptions of the In
dian character and our Indian policy are botl
founded upon traditions, and not upon th'
facts of the present, it is not surprising tina
we should have an Indian war every summer
and that the government should spend mill
ions of dollars without any useful results l
is certainly full time for the country to asl
William Penn to retire from a task he i
unable to perform. He cannot civilize tn
Indians, and they are simply becoming NOR