The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-05-21
INDIAN RIGHTS.

INDIAN RIGHTS.
: There is much sentimental talk about tn
treatment Of wild Indians by the people AM
government of this country. Owing to tn
occupation and utilization of their haunt
and hunting grounds, their territory has beef
narrowed down to an area about as EXTENSIVE
as New England, and their numbers hav'
} decreased to about three hundred Thousand
braves squaws and papooses. all counted
Aside from their undivided tenant right il
sundry territories, the wealth of the aborigi
nees will average very small sum of money
Their real estate is Of an exceedingly unrea
character, being only such property there
| in as the white may see fit to tolerate.
The deer, wild turkeys, squirrels, bears and
woodchucks owned the woods until the
Indians drove them out; the Indians owned
the forests, hills, valleys and prairies until
they likewise were driven out, the property
in each case being analogous. No more pre-.
posterous claim was ever set up than that Of
a small nation Of savages to great Cont
nent. simply because they needed it as a
pasture for game.
They wanted about fifty square miles
apiece. One little baconized gang of fifty
hunters occupied good land enough to sup
port the constituency .ot member of Con-
gress. Every copper-colored son, daughter
and baby of the forest occupied land now
worth fifty thousand dollars or more. The
game yield was scarcely one Indian meal to
the acre. Yet we should not be obliged to
hunt long in the ranks OF professional phil
anthopists to find men and women, in gold
spectacles. lamenting that the tawny barba-
risns were ever forced to fade away in the far
West, and to disappear from the path of
civilization,
We sympathize only in q modified way in
the regrets of those who lament the absence
of the gentle savage and who refuse to be
comforted. We have been inclined to look
upon the Red Mans claim to the continent as
something that will not hold good at law or
in equity. A little scalping, few hundred
victims burnt to death, few thousand MUIR
ders of captive whites, and few millions
worth of property stolen or destroyed, ought
q hundred years ago to have put the savages
decidedly upon the defensive in warfare
conducted partly lin their own characteristic
style.
They occupied lands which they had mel.
ther the sense nor the disposition to till Our
ancestors took these lands because they |
wanted them. There is no cause for tears Of |
penitence for this No compunctious visit |
ings need be entertained. From the mere
fact that our great-grandfathers occupied,
opened and cultivated the wild lands in spite |
Of the Indians, it does not follow that We are
under any moral bond to supply the great
of the same savages with
beads, bread, blankets, rifles, whisky and red
calico in definite quantities from year to year
without money and without price.
The truth is simple and old. When the
working races are present the non-working
races must simply get out of the way. Civil
.ation means labor, disciplined, regulated,
systematic toll of hands and heads. The
awny Wampanoags, Tuscaroras and Mohicans
would have left millions of descendants if
hey had only learned the lesson which thirty
centuries had taught to the invading colo
lists. They were essentially an idle race and
heir descendants will remain SO until their
ilaness drives them out of existence. The
aisfortunes of these non-producers may de-
erve pity and call for relief, but the claim
aust be that of charity and not that Of JUS
ice. 1t is a very old maxim that limits the
ight to eat to those who work. 1t is maxim
,hich civilization is constantly repeating in
be facts of everyday life. 1t is q truth whose
cho is heard among the idle wenches of
outhern cabins, among the idle vagabonds
Mexican villages, as we'll as among the idle
avages of Wyoming and Nevada.