The Abbeville messenger. (Abbeville, S.C.) 1884-1887, 1886-02-16
THE WHITE INDIANS.
White Men Acquiring Indian Right by
Marrying Rcd Women.
From the Milwaukee Sentinel

50.
An intelligent Indian recently, in re-
porting the marriage of an Indian oc-
toroon to a white man, said: 'If this
process goes IN, we will soon have the
whitest race Of Indians you ever did
see." The accomplished daughter of
the old missionary, DR.. Robertson, mar
ried a full blood Creek. Her sister has
secured money at the East to establish
a seminary among the full bloods, and
it has been a question where the scmin-
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, "Whcre
are the Indians 2" On being told that
those about them are Indians, they re-
ply, mo. They arc 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 marriagcable In
dian females is quite observable. They
think that by marrying white men they
gain socially, and lave u prospect of an
easier and DIFFERENTIATION life. And
they think rightly. In all depressed
civilizations women have n hard time of
it. The Indian men do not like this con-
cforf rnSinrr lro,b +1n;r l,,J ,,l
capturing the most attractive of their
race, whom they would WOO and wed,
but they cannot help themselves, and
retaliatc by stealing the affections of
white girls and marrying them. White
girls entering al Indian reservation are
very soon picked up; not so often by full
blooded Indians, but after the process of
lntcrmarriage has commenced, not SO
seldom by half-brceds, quadroons and
octoroops.
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 han
the Indians themselves. 1 think the
~fercest defenders of the tribal systems
are white men who by marriage have be-
come Indian citizens and arc 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. brothcrs-in-law to
the Indians. So on both sides the pro-
cess of dilution of Indian blood gocs 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 IL mun
who has onc-siXeeenth or one thirty
second part of Indian blood, the claim
for his right as an Indian is assured rs
strongly US for the full blood. A white
man has married an Indian girl, a light
blonde, Of one-thirty-second Indian
blood. His children will be o%nc-sixty-
fourth Indian. The family consists of
five members. On account of that one
thirty-second Indian blood, that family
of five, living on the border of the In
dian land, is entitled, by equal division
of the tribal land, to five times 995
acres, or 2, 975 acres.