The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1888-08-17
THE COLUMBIAN AND DEMOCRAT. BLOOMsBURG. COLUMBIA

acres. Inc "OnerOkee Outlet "a vast
tract conditioually granted to the
Cherokces simply a. highway for
them to get out from the reservation
to go buffalo hunting on the plains, but
which they have no use for now, since
there are no longer any buffaloes to
hunt--has in it little over 6,022,000
acres. The rest of the country which
it i, cor emplated shall be set apart to
form the new Territory of Oklahoma,
within the boundaries | have mention
ed, brings the grand total up to some
where about 25,000, 900 acres.
Concerning Oklahoma, which gal
liant Captain Payne, now dead, and his
confrere, Captain Couch, had made
such heroic efforts to have opened up
to settlement, it is simply wicked alb
surdity to say that any Indians have
any rights there at all, and that boni
fide white settlers shall not be allowed
to go in there and develop its rich nat
ural resources. The government
bought back the land from the Semi
noles and Creeks, with the idea of
hiving there some of the dangerous
Northern Indians, particularly the
Sioux, and more or less of the freed.
men of the South, but the latter, being
elevated to the dignity of citizenship,
preferred to stay where there was more
bootblacking, whitewashing and wait
ing to be done, and nobody had any
right to send them to reservation.
As for the Sioux, there was grand
concerted kick among the more or less
civilized Indians already on other re-
servations against such dangerous
neighbors forced upon them, so the
project, so far as they were concerned,
was abandoned, and that beautiful,
fertile, wel-watered, finely timbered
and healthful country lies idle.
TRANspLANTING THE INDIAN KILLS HIM.
Even if the Sioux had not been kill
ed off by the joint efforts of their
neighbors-had they been sent down
there-the measure would have been
fatal to them. However bleak, inhos.
pitable the country may be in which
the Indian is born and bred, you kill
him when you transport him to anoth-
er, even though the new may be in all
respects infinitely better than that to
which he has been accustomed. He
pines away and dies. That was de-
monstrated in the case of the Nez Per-
ces. They were brought, down from
the North aud given a reservation
that was a paradise in comparison
with their former home, right in the
best part of the indian Territory, yet
they got so homecick that they died
off like rotten sheep, and the govern
ment had to send them back whence
they came to save them from utter
determination.
Much of the strongest opposition to
the encroachments of civilization upon
the Indian territory comes from the
"cattle barons." The cunning Che
rokees assumed the responsibility of
leasing to the "Cherokee Live Stock
Association" fer term of five years,
the vast track known as the "Chero-
kee outlet" over which they had actu.
ally no more right of disposal than you
or l have, and got 100000 for 1t.
Then the still more cunning white
men who had got the lease sublet it
in sections to nearly one hundred cat
tie barons end spectators for an ag-
gregate of S5OO,OOO. All those leases
expire next October, by which time it
is to be hoped Congress and Demo
cratic administration will have settled
this whole question in the way that the
people of the West looking for homes
have right to expect and that is !
for the best interests
of the Indians.
The red man must be absorbed by
the white race, or, if they are unable
to adapt themselves to civilization,mus
pass away. do not think that the
latter will be their fate, though it is
altogether probable that their num-
bers will be sadly reduced before they
fully accept in spirit as well as deed
their altered conditions of life and the
reaction comes to save them. But the
logic of the situation is inexorable.
They can no longer live, as their an
cestors did, by the chase: nor can they
exist as the helpless, idle, dispirited
wards of the government. To be saw
ed from extinction they must learn to
help themselves. For a term of years
they should be protected in business
and in possession of their lands by
such rigid laws as would be for them a
safeguard against the willy white man,
for they are, as a mass, merely big
children. But they are not by any
means unintelligent children, nor are
they naturally vicious ones, except in
such vices as are to them the virtues
of their old predatory, lshmaelitish,
savage life. Throw open to civiliza-
tion the country about them and you
will ere long have them educated to
self-reliance, a sense of moral response
bility and an appreciation of the value
and dignity of labor. They will make
good citizens. And at the same time
YOU offer to hundred Thousand white
men, eagerly and anxiously looking
for it, the most inviting land of homes
on all this broad and glorious cQnti-
nent.