The Portland daily press., 1883-02-15
The Inoian Question.

--A- rannrt. Of NJ Herbert Welsh's lecture
other column. Mr. Welsh does not put the
case too strongly. This Nation has been
guilty of gross and systematic NAL treatment
of the aborigines. 1t has robbed them of
their lands, it has cheated them in every
conceivable way, it has murdered their men
and outraged their women, and has broken
treaties with them time and again. To the
Indian the name of this government is
synonym of treachery. The cases of our
wrong-doing are SO many and SO conspicu-
Gus that they need not be mentioned here.
Some of the worst ontrages were discussed
by Mr.. Welsh last night. 1t would take
many nights to recite all of of them It
evidently high time that an organization
like the National Indian Association be
formed, and all American citizens owe it to
themselves to further its objects. The reas-
ons for its existence and the prosecution of
its work put forth by the lecturer last even
ing and in its pamphlets will commend them
selves TO all fair minded men. Our national
wrongs to Indians continue. Indians are
still robbed. Still, as in the past, "when the
Indians horses and cattle are big enough to
be of service, they are driven off in herds by
white renegades." Indians are still 'sre-
moved" Still, when their lands are coveted
they too are driven from home, though har-
vests are ready to garner, with the ruthless
message that stall the land in the State is re-
CURED for its white settlers" They may not
make contracts. Many years since we pro-
dad hot Al I1, r.,
dams should be null and void, and, with
few exceptions, unless specially permitted,
an Indian cannot himself sell on the reserya-
ton anything he can raise or manufacture,
except to the traders appointed for the pur-
pose by the Government, and with such reg
ulations as may be established by the Secre-
tary OF the Interior. The agent set over
tribe may suspend all trade, as well as sus-
pend the chief of the tribe, and drive off or
arrest all visitors of whom he may disap-
prove. Indians have no legal ''title or inter-
est in the natural productions of he soil.''
Indian self-support is prevented. Almost
every appropriation made has been with the
professed purpose of making the Indian
self-supp0rting: but he has been banished to
wild reserves and required to farm where
farming would be impossible even to white
men, and still, though his arms and ammu-
milton have been taken from him, so that he
could not hurt, he has been forbidden to
: leave the reservation. If he would try lum-
bering he has been told, after the logs from
his own land were ready for market, that
the title TO them remains in the Govern
ment. The great seal and salmon fisheries
of the Pacific coast and Oregon rivers were
once his, and gave him support from work
he loved and could well do; yet in these,
too, the white man has by fraud been bis
supplanter. With trapping and hunting for
furs and robes, the only means of trade per-
mitted him by our intercourse laws, it has
been almost the same. The Indian is nat
ural herder of cattle, yet it has been made
felony for him to sell them. And these
are representative facts-if any enc feels
compelled to doubt this let him look into
our official Indian records for himself and
they are facts which under present laws can
be and will be repeated. We have practi
caily prohibited the Indian all the lines of
work natural to him, and have falsified our
promises to furnish him the means to do |
farming, the one kind of labor prescribed
and insisted upon for him.
Even when we have affected to be phlan-
thropists we have done i'll by those in whose
welfare we have protested to feel an inter-
est. The following letter, addressed to Sen
ator Logan by native Indian woman, and
just made public, is the latest illustration of
our hypocrisy:
BOHEMIAN, Mont. Jan. II, 1883
Hon John a. Logan:
Dear Sir,-It is with profound satisfaction
and deep sense of qualification that l take
the liberty of addressing you to tender my sim
csre thanks and the thanks of my people for
your very able effort in opposing the Indian