Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-01-18
General Miles Suggestion of Military
Supervision Seems the Only
Practical One.
4 VAST NATIONAL POOR ASYLUM
With Farms for Those That Will Work
and Force to Keep the Others
From Occupying
LAND THE STARVING WHITES NEED.
Facts About the Making and Breaking Of the Treaties
by the Government -
rFRoM A STAFF CORRESPONDENT


treaty with the Indians" L asked of a
prominent attorney of this city, who is
counsel for several of the tribes yet remain
ing OF the aboriginal Americans.
ASK me if know OF one it has ever
held sacred" he replied. ''To tell you those
which have been broken would take too
much of my life. 1 do not know of a
treaty between the Government and the
Indians that has been kept absolutely in
word and letter."
This terrible arraignment is all too true,
but 1t is at the same time quite natural. A
treaty is the result of certain conditions
which obtain at the time it is made, and is
usually somewhat to the advantage of the
most powerful side to the controversy.
Changing conditions make new demands.
The old treaty is found not to meet the con-
ditions of the present The old one comes
10 be partially or wholly ignored, and to
save the self-respect of the encroaching
party, it is formally annulled and a new one
made.
A Long Story of Wrongs.
That is the official history of the war of
extinction against the aboriginal Americans
ever since the first Caucasian settlement of
the Americas. The rapacity, the whisky,
the ever reiterated command TO ''move on"
of Christian civilization, has driven the In-
dians into few small corners of the United
States, and now the Government is as much
at a loss to know what TO do with the meager
remnant of a quarter of a million "souls"
that are left above ground as when the saw
ages were as thick as the leaves OF the for
est and as hard TO break down as the forest
trees.
To go into the history of the treaties that
have been broken and made over only to be
broken and made over again repeatedly,
would be an interminable proceeding The
books of the Indian Bureau are full of Them
Hillocks of big tones contain the intricate
narration of these made and remade agree
ments. They are not called broken treaties
there, however. There is in them Lo criti-
cIsm OF the acts of the Government. II
there appear anything but the official state
ment OF the fact, 1t is in the euphemistic
terms of an official appointed to gloss over
the acts OF the appointing power Gigantic
schemes and ''jobs," which we only know of
in vague way as having been the talk of
the lobby at the time of some new official
lncursion into the country of the Indians,
are not referred to in these solemn reports.
Experience of the Sioux.
Take. for instance, the treatise with the
Indians which have been engaged in the re-
cent uprising, principally the Dakota Sioux.
Arbitrament with the Sioux began as early
as 1906, when, by the treaty of Portage,
large areas were ceded to the United States
for military posts upon payment of s., 600,
or the same value in goods and merchan-
disc, :" the Indians to have the right to hunt
and fish on the ceded grounds, perpetual
peace to be maintained" and injuries to be
mutually forgiven
Notwithstanding this there was no peace.
The resistance of the reds to the encroacb-
lnentS of the whites made necessary treatise
OF peace in several of the following years.
As early 1926, at treaty made at Fort
Lookout, the Sioux acknowledged depend
ence ou the United States, and the right of
the latter to regulate trade, etc. From that
time to this a new treaty has been con-
cluded at periods varying from one to ten
years, and at each treaty it is notable that
the Indians had less to treat with than they
had before. Here is condensation of the
records
The territory covered by Dakota was a part
oil the Louisiana purchase of lS03- In 1905 the
recently acquired province was divided into
two parts that south of the thirty-third degree
north latitude being called Orleans and the re-
maiDder Louisiana. In 1872 the name of the
Territory was changed to Missouri. The State
OF that name was cut OFF IN 1890.
Long Series of Changes
In 1856 that portion of Dakota which lies east
OF the White Earth and Missouri rivers was in
cluded in the Territory of Wisconsin. In 1888
IL was transferred to the Territory of Iowa.
and to Minnesota in 1919. The eastern bound
airy was finally settled in 1857, when that Terri
tory became State. That portion of Dakota
living west of the Missouri aud White Earth
rivers was in 1854 made portion of Nebraska
Territory. In 1862, when the Territory of Da-
EOta was organized. its wesern limits were fixed
Gu the indefinite line called the summit of the
Rocky Mountains, the boundary line of what
was then " aShingto Territory. The bound
airy line of Idaho Territory in 1868 defined the
present western line of the Dakotas to be the
twenty-seventh degree of longitude west from
Washington.
Iu all these changes the Indians lost some
thing that had been conceded to be theirs be-
fore. By the treaty of 1926 the Sioux occupied
lands extending beyond the Mississippi to the
east Owing TO the hostilities of 1862 all pre-
vious treaties were ahrogated and in the fol-
the limits of any State" In lS55-66 treaties of
peace were made and reservations established
10 suit the conditions of that time In 1868
they ceded all their claims to lands except the
tract then set apart for their use In 1876 they
ceded their hunting privileges outside their
reservation and also the Black Hills.
What They Got in Return.
For all of these forced cessions, this tremen,
dous curtailment of their territory they ha q
received about So, 600 600, exclusive OF agency
expenses ana bne cost OF wars connected with
the conquest of the Black HILLS. The total In.
dian population of Dakota in 1884 was 81 600 of
which all but about 500 were under agency con-
troi, the miserable remnant of the once power
ful and terrible tribe of Sioux; and these are
yet able to scare the whole United States army
and engage in what is sufficiently large in its
proportions to be called Indian war" They
still. however, have IN their domain nearly 81
100000 acres of land. such as it is but this is
constantly being contracted by white settlers
~rTIn onh ~lan
common saying on the frontier that a white
man once planted an Indian reservation
never caa be uprooted.
The history of the Sioux is the history of
nearly every one of the Indian tribes of his
tory. Treaty after treaty represented each
broken treaty preceding, but in almost all
cases treaty which was the inevitable
creation OF the conditions of the time, due
to necessities of the whites or the miscon-
duct Of the Indians; and each one repre-.
sented something lost to the Indians and
something gained for the absolute, indomita-
bic and universal Caucasian, who will at no
distant day be the lord of. this entire little
globe called earth,
Views of Humanitarians.
But what is done will never be undone,
ana the burning question: now is not
what has been but what is and is to be-
Volumes have been written in regard to the
treatment and preservation of the Indian.
Tears, enough to make the fresh seas salt as
old ocean, have been shed over the unparal-
leled woes of Poor Lo. Humanitarians