The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1891-02-05
LO, the Poor Ind an.
fThe Baltimorean.l

If there is such thing as national
punishment, and history shows very
plainly that there is, the United States
is likely to have to face a very heavy
reckoning at some future day, when its
Indian account comes to be settled up
by the Ruler of the Universe. If we
had been a nation of avowed thieves
and murderers, without respect for any
human rights but our own, and with
plumber and conquest as our motto, we
could not have been more ruthless and
rapacious in our dealings with the In
dlans. We raise our hands in holy
horror at the brutal and bloody tyrrany
which the English empire has exhibited
in the East, but our treatment of the
aborigines of this country has been
fully as bad ifno worse.
With the cry of fraternity, justice,
liberty and equality on our lips, we
have dealt with the Indian as if he were
wild beast, and have pushed him back
remorselessly from the East to the
West till we have scarcely left him a
foothold in his own country. The In
dian was a savage in the beginning and
is still a savage to-day, but whose fault
IS it that he has remained for more
than two centuries impervious to the
sottening influences of Christianity and
| civilization? 1t is the fault not of the
Indian, but of successive generations Of
white men bearing the name of Chris
tians and pretending to be actuated by
the democratic spirit of universal broth.
| erhood.
Not much more than twenty-five
years ago some four million people
were set free in this country who at the
time of their emancipation were for the
most part but little better than savages.
In general intelligence and natural en-
dowment they were not equal to the
Indians. Yet the Government and the
white people kindly took them by the
hand and provided means for their
moral and intellectual development,
and to-day the savages of a quarter of a
century ago are becoming useful and
intelligent citizens. Kindness and
Christian charity have converted the
serf into civilized man, but the oppo-
site course has kept the Indian bar
barian through over two hundred years
of armed contact with civilization, and
has degraded him from a noble into an
ignoble savage.
The recent killing of Sitting Bull,
which has been proclaimed as splen-
did piece of military prowess, was prob
ably little better than cowardly assas-
sination. The resolution of inquiry
introduced in the House of Representa-
tives on the subject this week is GER
tainly warranted by the facts of the
case, and for the sake Of decency and
humanity it is to be hoped that all the
circumstances connected with these In
dian troubles will be probed to the bot
tom. Sitting Bull cannot give his YER
sion OF the story, as a dead Indian is
not only good Indian but bad wit
ness for his own side, but it is likely
that enough honest white men will be
found, if the investigation be pushed,
to bring out the whole truth. It will
then be shown in all probability that
the Indians were deliberately goaded
into hostile attitude to pave the way
for the wholesale stealing of more of
their lands.
The programme in these cases is very
simple. The Indian is cheated, bullied
and starved out of his reservation. He
is then declared to be in a state of re-
volt and about to take the war path,
and the army is summoned to the front
to irritate him into some overt act. If
he still declines to take the initiative, a
force is sent to swoop down ON him
and let a little blood.
Then at last he retaliates, is crushed.
and made to move ON to a smaller and
more remote reservation. And so it
continues from time to time. When an
Indians lands are wanted by specula-
tors, railroads or settlers, he at once
becomes bad Indian and is only can
onized when he is dead and the white
man is comfortably settled on his prop
erty. We speak Of the Indian as re-
vengeful, but if the people of this
country had suffered from any other
race one hundredth part of the wrongs
they have wantonly inflicted upon the
Indian they would never have forgiven
the oppressors to the end of time. The
Indian is just as much a man and
brother as the negro. Why not try on
him the effect of justice and kindness: