Los Angeles herald., 1892-02-04
THE INDIAN PROBLEM.

The trouble with the Indians OF THIS |
country is simply that they have been
all along, from the beginning, badly
managed by the government. 1t is per
haps smore the fault of the system
originally adopted than either the inn
placable nature of the Indians them
selves or the vicious administration of
the system primarily adopted. All
other countries, if we except old Spain,
have achieved better results with the
aborigines of this continent than the
great and serious difficulties with them,
and they have been far better recon-
ciled to the Canadian rule than the
American Indian has been to ours.
Spain originally sent out horde of gold
seekers, who in their greed for riches
subjected the children of the soil to
such expressions and hardships as
soon swept them almost completely
from the earth. The process we have
adopted has reached nearly the same
result, but not from the same causes.
Instead of establishing them In per-
uauenJ lOIutS Ou tilolT OWH soli, VIC
have pushed them westward. We have
treated them as independent nations,
and made treaties with them as with
foreign power; while at the same time
we have practically held them as wards
of the nation. The inconsistency of q
system that recognizes people as indie
pendent and at the same time estab-
! fishes a system of tutelage over them
needs only to be stated to show its alb
surdity.
After recognizing their right to great
strips of territory, we force them to
move further west as the wave of civil
lied emigration progresses towards the
setting sun. This process has about
reached the end of Its tether. There is
but little country now left available for
the purpose of Indian occupancy, and
the question arises: What shall we do
with these "wards of the nation" when
there is no farther west" for them to
be moved TO?
Had we adopted sensible system of
dealing with the red men at FIRST, the
remnants OF the great tribes that once
peopled the country east of the Missis-
sippi would have been imperceptibly
incorporated into the civilization of the
superior race. They would have been
scattered in small col onies or merged
into the body of the people all over the
Atlantic and transmississippi states,
and filling a useful, though per-
haps humble, position in society.
In this close contact with American
civilization there would have been a
goodly percentage of them who would
have gradually emerged from their
normal state and adjusted their customs
and habits to the new order of things.
Whether numerically they would be
greater than they are now, it is difficult
to say; but certainly those who. had
weaned themselves from their heredi-
tary habits would represent an
incomparably better and more
valuable race of people than the no.
mads who are now roaming around the
reservations of the far west. BY this
time, the friction OF ten decades of con-
tact with civilization would undou bted-
ly have given US many notable examples
of emlnence in the arts of peace amongst
the reclaimed Indians, and perhaps in
dividual instances of the highest de-
velopment of intellectual powers might
have been evolved out OF people who
may be said to be still on the warpath,
and tagging 'superfuous on the stage"
OF savage existence.
1t will always remain black page in
the history of the United States, the
wretched and indefensible way in which
We have dealt with the aborigines of our
country. The false policy so early
adopted and SO tenaciously adhered to,
is bringing forth its bitter fruit at every
short interval in Indian disturbances
and uprisings and in frontier murders
and trightful massacres. It has cost us
untold sums in treasure to keep the red
men in subjection, without any adequate
benefit to ourselves or advantage to the
Indian. It has made the original chill
dren of the soil our hereditary enemies,
and decimated their numbers until
there is only small fraction left of the
mobile race" that once peopled this
great country.
The conquistadores accomplished the
work of decimating the more feeble
natives of Central and South America by
deceit and brutal means. We have
achieved the same result by false
policy erected on false system and ad-
| miuistered by the most unscrupulons
combinations of white men ever en-
trusted with any responsibility by a
humane and civilized government.
We recur to the thought: What shall
we do with the Indian when there is no
more unoccupied land for him to be
moved to?