The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-11-22

still the owners of very large bodies of fertile lands
In the Indian Territory gathered about onethird OF
the Indians within borders, and they number
about 80, 600. They hardly many the PEG.
pie of Indianapolis They hold land enough to give
each man, woman and child about 500 acres, each
family about 2 900 acres. Other Indians upon reser-
vatons, are rule equally well supplied with land.
1t was the duty of Christian people to make the
Indian condition better and this duty has perhaps been
but partially discharged But he has on the whole
been improved by the coming of the whites and there
are more comfortable and wefed Indians within our
borders tonight than when the first white mans cabin
was built on the banks of the James
This being the net result of more than two centu-
res it is evident that much of the furious denuncar
ton of the whites for destroying noble which
fill the pages of books like this is without support In
fact The Indians have many curious customs, many
good traits OF character and the poetic fancy
common to all savages Their history has much
of romantic interest and has furnished infinite ma
terial for song and story. But poetry and romance
should confuse to the real facts The Indian
often good man to visit but rarely good neghbor to
live by The Indian when the matter is summed up has
lost nothing that he esteemed of value except his sup
ply of game. His right to the wild beasts of the for
est of course rather vague and indefinite at BEST
and they always afforded uncertain supply of food
When the whites began TO be his neighbors and to
settle upon lands often rghfully acquired upon
the theory that the Indians had title that they
could convey, the necessary effect was to drive the
game from large portion of the adjacent country
still claimed by the Indians. In other words, bear.
deer and buffalo could not be kept the Indian
lands so that he alone could xii them. But even II
could have been preserved for the Indian 1T Is
not the doctrine of his friends that this ought
TO have been done. Those who believe most in his
good qualities, and the most strenuous advocates
of his rights, the most Jealous in the assertion
that he ought to to rely upon the chase and de
pend upon agriculture for subsistence They con-
graduate the Indian and the confident of his
civilization, because he can no longer depend upon
the hunt for his supply of meat They hardly
claim that he has been injured by the removal of his
chief temptation to wild and migratory life. Mrs.
jackson doubt most excellent and earnest
but she saw but part of the truth and in this
book has not presented that part in such'a
ae n ms llV aid wi
real truth is
The other book which Mrs. Jackson says was
written in the interest of the Indian is Ramona" It
is romance, the scene of which is laid in southern
California at about the time the gold hunters and
other American adventurers began to overrun that
country. The characters are Spanish Mexcans, In
dians, and a few brutal frontersmen The prominent
characters proud and cruel old Spanish Mexican
woman, who owns large ranch, her softhearted and
soft headed son, handsome, educated young mission
Indian, and the heroine of the story Ramona. There
is very ardent love story, divers deep canons swift
horses, midnight rides an elopement, some father
confessors a few murders, some romantic lakes and
crystal springs and in short all that goes to make
up the modern novel of the Western frontier AS
it is neither better worse than hundreds
of the better stories of like character that load the
book shelves of every circulating library. The old
materials dear to at eighteen used in the old
familiar way. The heroine is young lady with
mantle history, whose father was wealthy Scotch
trader, and her mother Indian woman. She is
brought up by the Mexican woman at the old ranch
and given good religious education by the franciscan
monks. She is of those young ladies who abound
in novels that wondrously beautiful that
young man can look upon of them without losing
all ability to sleep for many nights. The young In
dian who became her husband saw her first at the
spring, at sunset, under unusually favorable crcum-
stances and obliged to hold to tree for support
AS representation of the Indian question the book
quite partial and unfair The Young Indian who is the
hero Of the book is plainly average Indian. He is
a Christon--a man OF education and refined tastes,
with poetic temperament and exquistely delicate
sensbilities. The heroine is not Indian at ALL and
never suspected that there was Indian blood in her
uptil Shp he iS of
cation with naturally refined tastes with the pride
and sensibility which from being reared in
old Mexican family which had long been among the
first families of that country This young man and
woman practically made to stand for the Indian
race in southern California After their marriage
they locate in various places and gather about them
the comforts of home such belong to civilized
people They attached to their home and posses
sions by all the sentiments of a domestic and af-
fectionate couple among civilized men. Added TO
this, they proud of their ancient homes and ances
try, and hate the Americans with all the erceness OF
the savage supplemented by the pride of the people
who had long held the SOIL and among whom they had
both been regarded as remarkable persons There
terrible eviction when the Indian people are
driven by the advancing and selfish horde from one
place to another. But almost nothing is said of the
condition of any of the Indians except the two leading
characters. What others lost by these removals or
how they affected by them, are left largely to
conjecture OF COURSE poor and humble Indian.
without special love of country and possessions
but tent and pony, has right to enjoy these
disturbed. But if he is obliged to move, it is often
nothing than he does voluntarily several times
year, and the going from valley to another
has the horrors for and does not entail the loss
upon, such persons that it does upon proud, sensi
tive, refined industrious and thrifty people like RAJ
mona and her husband. How nearly the Indians of
California approached this condition be def.
nteiy learned from the book The most touching in
cdent in the story is the refusal of doctor at of
the agencies to visit sick child. No read of
this man hearess conduct without indignation. But
still we must remember that before the whites did
anything for the indians there was no doctor to ap
show what the Indian title to the lands or howth
boundaries of their possessions determined One
lays down the book indignant at the horrors rected
but without any clear understanding to how they
could have been prevented Again is apparent that
while the Indians. being rule ignorant defense
less careless of titles and boundaries, suffered
than other residents of the region, yet
the wealthy Mexicans who were able
greater part of the lands they had pastured focks
and claimed as their own. Titles derived from
Mexican or Spanish sources were good when proved,
and the boundaries defined but in this respect there
had been the utmost carelessness aud all in
confusion The enemy keen and hungry, and
with American notions as to how land was held and
boundaries defined, and with the machinery of the
law and the courts largely in their hands it is not
prisng that little regard paid to the pretensons OF
Spanish grandee who claimed the land for forty miles
around him. because some predecessor had told him
he should have it, and his sheep sometimes drv-
that far to Craze. In short the trouble large
ly in the situation, and the Indians were not the Only
unfortunates. OF course would not be understood
as iustifyng what the Americans did, They almost in
variably pressed their claims too far and par
not infrequent. Indeed they not the
frontier between Americans themselves and of
race prejudice and the ignorant and often helpless
condition of the Indian adds considerably to his woes
and often does this in way for which government
is responsible and which any government is power
less to prevent. Wrongs committed in the wilderness
are often incapable of proof, and the ignorant and
careless often suffer for the very that they are
ignorant and careless when they seek to assert their
rights under the law.
The case of the mission Indians of California is
perhaps the very worst case in Indian annals. The
V,I1o for hoA4 Aha
whites who in contact with them were more
eager and INSCRIPTIONS than the average emgrant to
the West. Mrs. Stowe, in uncle Tom" gives in the
main a true picture of the average slave in his best
state in his average condition and at his estate
She had better than Mrs. Jackson and presents
it with much greater fairness and incomparaby great
power.
AS to the Indian question and its solution there can
hardly be two opinions to the general plan to be
adopted The time has fully passed when the In
dams to any advantage large tracts Of land
held in common. The game is almost entirely gone
IL