News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1885-11-12
THE WHITE INDIANS.
White Men Acquiring Indian Rights by
Marrying Red Womens
FFrom the Milwaukee Sentinel

From the Milwaukee Sentinel
An intelligent Indian recently, in re
porting the marriage of an Indian oc
toroon to white man, said eff TIL:
process goes on, we will soon have the
whitest race of Indians you ever die
see." The accomplished daughter OF
the old missionary, DR.. Robertson, mar
ried full blood Creek. Her sister has
secured money at the East to establish
seminary among the full bluods, and
it has been question where the semln-
airy could be located to meet the object
aimed at. Parties stepping from the
train at Vanita, within the Cherokee
nation, the only railroad crossing the
Indian Territory, commonly ask, Where
are the Indians 2' On being told that
those about them are Indians, they re-
ply, ''No. They are not Indians, These
are white men,
By marrying an Indian maiden, the
white man secures all the rights OF In
dian citizenship. The "headright" OF
! the girl helps the matrimonial contract.
To hunters for land, those looking for
wide ranges for cattle or agriculture, the
temptation is very strong to take this
short cut to obtain an extent of soil they
could never hope to secure in any other
way.
The encouragement given to the
whites on the part of manageable In
dian females is quite observable. They
think that by marrying white men they
gain socially, and have prospect of an
easier and better-cared-fo life. And
they think rightly. In all depressed
civilizations women have hard time of
it. The Indian men do not like this con-
slant raiding through their land and
capturing the most attractive of their
race, whom they would WOO and wed,
but they cannot help themselves, and
retaliate by stealing the affections of
white girls and marrying them. White
girls entering an Indian rese. walton ara
very soon picked up; not SO often by full
blooded Indians, but after the process of
intermarriage has commenced, not so
seldom by half-breeds, quadroons and
octoroons
White persons who marry into Indian
blood almost invariably remain on Indian
soil. The white man, in defense of In
dian ideas of communal interests and
Indian questions as related to the whites,
becomes more intensely an Indian than
the Indians themselves. l think the
fiercest defenders of the tribal systems
are white men who by marriage have be-
come Indian citizens and are making
money out of it. The large crops on
Indian lands are invariably raised by
white men. Four-tifths of the mechan-
les are white men. brothers-in-law to
the Indians. So on both sides the pro-
cess of dilution of Indian blood goes on
until it becomes very thin, white Indian
habits and Indian characteristics still
remain.
The common notion among Indians is
that Indian blood never runs out, and
that wherever the slightest trace of it
can be found, there the fullest rights of
land and privilege follow. For man
who has one-sixeeenth or one thirty
second part of Indian blood, the claim
FOR his right as an Indian is assured as
strongly as for the full blood. A white
nan has married an Indian girl, light |
blonde, of -thirty-second Indian |
blood His children will be one-sixty- |
ourth Indian. The family consists of
i've members. On account of that one
Indian blood, that family
f five, living on the border of the In
ian land, is entitled, by equal division
f the tribal land, to five times 995
ores, or 2, 975 acres.