The daily gazette., 1877-09-15
Is TIE RED MAN PLArEn our.


1t is the popular impression that he" Is;
that Father Time is permanently solving
the Indian question by doing away with
the Indian. Indeed, so we'll satisfied
were the people of this country twenty
years ago that it was all up with s'Lo,h
that they set the school boys to declam-
ing his death sentence. thousands of
the men of to-day used to get up and
spout ofa Friday afternoon that the Red
Nan ''slowly and sadly climbs the distant
mountain, and reads his doom in the set
ting sun. He has withered from the land
his council fires have gone out, and his
war cry Is fast dying in the untrodden
West" This belief of twenty years ago
is even more firmly held to-day, MIR.
Gray's recent paper, "The Last Indian
Council of the Genesee, "breathes of moth
ing but the decline and fall of the Red
Man. The leading members of the coun-
Gil descendants of Red Jacket, John
Brant, and ,Cornplanter, confessed that
their race was doomed, and that its Ian
guage and history would soonperish from
The Thoughts of men.
But if Colonel Mallory, who read a
paper on the IHdians bofore the Ameri-
eau Science Association last week, is cor
rect, the country including the distin-
guished chiefs to whom we have allud-
ed, is laboring under false impression
in regard to this matter. The Colonel
lays down the discouraging proposition
that the Indian is not disappearing, and
to disappear; and IN support of it present,
an array of statistics which, if correct,
make out his case. He thinks the error
into which those who believe the Indian
is gradually fading away have fallen, had
its rise in "a natural exaggeration of the
number of IAdians inhabiting this con-
continent at the time of its discovery and
occupation by the white men.
Their habits of life and methods of
sustenance were such, that immense
areas of territory gave food for compare
lively small number of inhabitants" 10
prove that the early writers on Indian
matters lost sight of this important fact,
Colonel Mallory calls attention to the
statistics furnished at various dates in re-
gard to the Iroeuois. The total number
was reported by one historian as 10000,
in 100, while Sir William johnson put
their number at 0,000 little over half
century later The Colonel, after a
careful comparison of all the estimates,
concludes that they numbered only 10,-
900, in 1857, and less than $4,000, with
the edition of the Tuscaroras, in IT'S.
But according to the latest figures there
are some $4,000 Iroquois now living in
the United States and Canada, and hence
if logic is logic, the Iroquois tribe isnum-
erically stronger to-day than it was a
century and half ago. The figures upon
which this sensational fact is based seem
to be trustworthy, and if they really are
true the author of Hidlodthd, and the
rest of the poets and romancers, as well
as the historian who have taken the red
man as their theme, will see the necessity
of revising and amending what they have
written. 1t is in the rising and not in
the setting sun that the Indian who takes
stock in Mallory's figures sees his "doom"
Posing from the Iroquois to the whole
Indian race, the Colonel finds the same
mistake in the original and current es-
innate, He is convinced that the NUM-
ber of Indians east of the Mississippi in
the middle of the seventeenth century is
| overestimated by Bancroft, who reduces
the original Inflammation of statisti cs
from over 200, 900 to about 1901 900. The
whole number of Indians IN the U nited
States, according to the last census, is
266. .15l, and. comparing these figures
with Bancroft's and with the most care
full estimates at his command, he feels
entirely warranted in the assertion that
the Indian is steadily increasing! Let us
hope that this paper of Colonel Mallory's
will not fall in the way of Sitting Bull,
Young NJ an A fraid- His-Ilorses, and
other leading aboriginal gentlemen. They
have evidently shared the common opin.
ion that their race was gone up. and If
they gain a contrary impression there is
no telling what airs and war-paint they
might not put on. The Utica Herald,
commenting upon the Mallory figures
and on the supposition that they are cor
rect. says that sit is no longer worth
while to look for settlement of the So
called Indian problem on the convenient
theory of ultimate extinction" Very
true; 1t Is not worth while, unless we fall
to and help nature He was a wise Wes-
tern sta ,esman who declared, few years
ago, that "we can't fetch the Indians un-
til we introduce the accordion among
'em." .... ..,t....
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