The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1876-08-18
AN INDIAN VIEW.
What an Indian says of the Sioux War
Af and the Custer Massaere.
IFrom the Pawkuska a. - IrulAh News.I
Indians who believe that God Furnishes

What an Indian says of the Sioux War
an and the Custer Massacre.
IFrom the Pawkuska Il. To IpdiAn News.l
Indians who believe that God Furnishes
men for their wickedpess and rewards
them for their good work will very GER
tainly look upon their success in killing
Gen. Custer and his troops while invad-
ing the Sioux country for no better a
purpose than the protection of whites
who were violating law and justice as
being significant of the will of the Great
Spirit. The Sioux did nothing more
than defend their homes and their rights,
az would have been the case with any
people on earth under like circum-
stances. Indians though they be, and
of rude and unpublished habits, too, there
are men possessed of as keen sense of
honor, as noble and as brave hearts, in
this tribe as may be found anywhere.
Though the mass of the Sioux are, of
course, uneducated, they are men, senti-
ent and reflective, after all. They know
as well as any that in the matter that has
proven SO disastrous to the noble boys
who were led into the jaws of death by
rashness, to say the least, of the famed
and gallant Custer, that they have moth
ing to answer for. Whenever pecuniary
profit has offered it has proven a sufficient
inducement to treachery on the part of
the whites in violating treaties made by
the Government though when they
were made they were to be as binding in
nature as gold is indestructible, and as
lasting as is the tendency of water to flow
and grass to grow.
The relation of the Government to the
Indians of this continent is spotted with
treacherous acts, and the late trouble
with Sitting Bull and his adherents is
nothing more than a result of an elm
famous policy" though not "peace
policy" but policy that was inaugu-
rated aud has been perpetuated by
class of men who ignore obligations of
honor and seek the glories attending the
ruie of military despots while struggling
in their efforts to exterminate a whole
race who have been doomed, unheard
and unsung, toignominy and death by the
hands of those whose hearts nave been
hardened by criminal acts and desires.
ooh, shame, where is thy blush %
A right to the country in which there
is now trouble with the Sioux is yet in
their hands. Their right to the soil is
unimpeachable, and the unsuccessful at
tempt to purchase the Black Hills did
not in the least invalidate treaty obliga-
tons, nor release the Government from
its pledge to protect the Indians of that
country from invasion or other trouble
by whites until purchase was effected
at some future time. But, notwithstand-
ing all this, as we said in our last issue,
reckless whites focked to the reruted
country of gold, in violation of law and
justice, and then, because the Indians,
who were the sufferers in this case, and
in consequence of this unfortunate and
dishonorable circumstance, tried to de-
fend themselves, in the entire absence of
help from the Government that had
pledged itself to protect them in their
rights, Gems. Crook, Gibbon and others
were sent into the Indian country to
operate against the Sioux for protection
of whites who were obtruding themselves
where they and everybody else knew
that they neither had business nor privi-
lege TO be. And now, in the face of
these facts, which are SO well known to
everybody, and our boosted disposition
to do justice to all and to do unto others
as we would be done by, doing Gods
will in grave matters as well as small
things, the cry to exterminate the In
dams goes up from the mouths of hitherto
respectable contemporaries. What may
we not expect next!