The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-11-22
TREATMENT OF THE INDIAN.
A Review of the Sentimental Theories
of Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson.
"A Century of Dishonor" and Ramona" Not
Founded on FactS-A Legal View of
the Case of the Innocents.

Read by John B. Elan, Before Plymouth Institute
Since Europeans began to settle in America in con-
siderable numbers there have been two extreme views
concerning the Indian. The nds terse expression
in the brutal saying That the only good Indian is the
dead Indian" The other opinion is that the injunction
to turn the other cheek when smitten, although per-
haps metaphorical between white men. should be
literally obeyed when white men are smitten by
Indians. Between these views there is enough room
for many shades of opinion, and the ground is fully
occupied.
1t has been very generally asserted and until recent
", very generally believed that the encroachments
and expressions of the white race have greatly re-
duced the numbers of the Indians and made their
condition very much worse than it was when WHITE
people began to settle the continent. Those who
are adverse to the Indian have attempted to excuse
this the ground of his bad character The TRENDS
of the red have denounced 1T as wholly 1nexcusa
BILE and criminal There has been little inquiry as to
the existence of the fact assumed The early settlers
were few in numbers, and the Indians seemed very
numerous in comparison. There was little opportu-
nifty to know how many Indians there were. Ihey
were scattered over an immense territory Inelf
habits were migratory and the same band appeared a
many remote places in the course OF a few months.
Few white penetrated far into their country ana
those who did had no means OF communicating WIN
each other and comparing results. Whe nothing can
be known with anything like certainty, men like
President Seeye of Amherst who have given much
attention to the subject and who are the champions
of the Indian race of opinion that there are as
many Indians within the limits of the United States
when Miles Standish first set foot on Ply
mouth Rock There is not The smallest question
that the Indians themselves always exaggerated their
power and numbers until there came time when
they must treat for favors.
An Indian orator in his speeches in council never
did anything by halves. His warriors were always as
the stars in the sky. as the leaves in the forest
There always the same extravagant pretensions
to their lands country Of late friends OF the
Indian have gathered the diaries of Jesuts reports of
army officers notes of surveyors, stories OF hunters
and all else that can be found relating to Indian life
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The
testimony of Hennepin, La Salle Brebaut and Mar
quette has been put alongside that of the Purtans
about Cape Cod. Furtraders beyond the Straits OF
Macknaw have added their testimony to, that of the
Spanards who set up the cross in Florida
From this great mass of evidence gathered from
men widely separated and engaged in pursuits which
led them to observe the Indian from very many differ
ent sandpoints beginning to be in position to
form more reliable opinions concerning him than have
been possible hitherto The result is not favorable to
the Indian The idea that powerful, proud and no.
BILE has been well nigh exterminaed by Injustice
and oppression is not supported by the facts.
Not only was the number great, but the evil
dence collected by Parkman and Others who have
wrought in the field settles other questions that
have been debated The facts have been collected and
presented by those interested IN Indian character and
who at least their friends if not their ardent
tisans. Arguments made in Their favor in many
of these books bur the facts rected are often at var
with conclusions stated. There are few Sadder
pictures than Parkmans account of the lives of the
Jeswts among the Indians. They were brave, un-
selfish men, and thoroughly devoted to their work
and mission any of the world martyrs They were
gentle and orbearing and in their letters and diaries
evidently seek to give good an account as possible
of their Indian pupils Yet the facts concerning In
dian life in their native wilderness set down by
these kind and patient chronicers present an almost
unbroken record of misery suffering and cruelty. No
one can read their books and speedily forget the long
gloomy winters among the Hurons the crowded and
wretched abodes the insufficient supplies of food, the
seanty clothing supplied by the precarous results of
long or provisions lost by care
less storing, the continual dread of the
fierce Iroquos, the horrible massacres of weaker
tribes by their powerful enemies, the long jour
news for game or to escape the pursuit of savage
and mercess enemy the degrading superstitons often
cruel in their consequences, the thousands who died
of pestience and exposure to the blasts of winter
and the fact that almost every one of these peSS
missionaries was murdered by the people they sought
to help and many of them cruelty tortured. Not
even enthusiasm that well nigh fanatlcism
could present facts revealing Indian life, in these
earliest accounts of it, without showing upon every
page how brutal, degraded and WTetched life it
Judging the Indian upon all the facts at hand,
judging of the race such, judging 1t IN the only
way that men judge of such things, by comparison
with of men in contact with it, and running to-
gether the of life there can be but conclu-
sion-the Indian raceis not noble, just truthful.
eloquent or brave. AS race they never have been
distinguished by their goodness cleanliness. That
there here and there a King Philip Logan, a
Red Jacket or Chief Joseph does not weaken the con-
clusion.
that he has been deprived of his lands by fraud
and force and driven by unjust and merciess
greatly injured and wronged. Those who bewail his
fate in this respect rarely stop to inquire to his
title to the lands to the items that
make up the damages sustained by his re-
moval from them Among the white people
who first landed these shores there was
fierce struggle for land This led all parties to
cede to the Indian better title than any tribe
coded any other tribe The policy of the white
to concede band of Indians the fee simple
of large tract of land and then the title him
self and magnify its ancient and exclusive character in
order to exclude everybody else. Until the whites
came there is record, so far know, that any
Indian sold any land to other Indians and moth
ing indicate that any of them regarded themselves
having any title that they could transfer until the
idea suggested by the white
But, for the suggested, white soon began
to talk about rights in lands acquired from Indians,
and courts compelled to decide between conflicting
claims recognized superior the rights of that claim
ant who had sort of title derived from the In
dams while his antagonist had no such advantage. In
this there crept into laws and decisions
recognition of the rights of the Indians that to
one reading without much thought discrimination
to be arecogniton of ownership similar to the ten
ures with which familiar. That certain tribes
occupied certain ValLeys or the lanos lyhg between
certain mountains with considerable regularity and for
a great length of time is unquestioned. But there
any definite boundaries to these possessions
and those who habitually resided upon them
spent much of the year abroad upon the
hunt the warpath. The Indian orator,
with poetic imagination and utter disregard of sur
extending from river to the setting from
some range of mountains to the great water" 1t
rare indeed, that Indian possessions had bound
aries on more than two sides, and even these we're
marked by the flight of bird the range of the buffalo,
or some equally indefinite line. When tract was
sold its boundary the eastern settlements pretty
we'll fixed but it extended westward to the setting
sum-, "a days journey five days paddle in a
canoe, "'to the lands of the Iroqus" and the like.
In the vague general indicated, perhaps the
whole country claimed by Indians, and most of it
by than tribe but thousands of square miles
were not occupied, and rarely visited by hunting
parties. 1t rare, indeed, that any Indian tribe
respected for any length of time the right of neigh
boring tribes to occupy any particular lands In great
measure each tribe held title against the Others by
virtue of its war clubs, Nobody will contend that
either white Indian could rightfully deprive
even such an owner of his possessions without con
sent But the fact remains that there must have been
doubts to whether large tracts of land
had any owner and even when the title was undoubted
it not very valuable title that constantly de-
| pended upon the number of braves that the owner
b ohe war pam nd a % tJ b h r
| ty of other tribes, wandered in few years from