The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1892-10-02

49, bAE"f AAo ~ = IA ~ HNA so
lazy sayaRes CT the start. bat onpable OF
being made Christians and useful
citizens. Why should not they be led to
help develop America--a Developments by
which they would benefit fully a. much as
tho SpaniardB? Aud that was the elew on
which Spain worked steadily and consist
emily from 6rst to last.
Inc "enconlenda was a tera eIpedi-
emit to this end. The very first attempts of
Spain In the Antilles had demonstrated
that the Indian would not Voluntarily work
for his W Advancement. 10 some means
must be devised 10 help him to better
things. The encomienda or the reparti-
miento were exactly parallel politically
with our own present policy of taking the
Indians into our regular army to be in
Spain was to make them not soldiers,
but farmers. and house-dwellers. and
citizens.
The Spaniards were very few. the In
dians enormously numerous. Tit teach
ing seemed a hopeless task, unless gone Mt
as we are now going ct the instruction OF
our few remaining ~IndiAns--bY schools
at their very hom7s. That Is what the en-
comisnda was--a home school for Indians;
a school not only of 'tha three Rs,' but
alao of religion and manual training. A
~Spaniard was given in charge a certain
tract of land with the Indians upon II.
They were not his serfs, but his pupils
hls servants, in a way, but his apprentices.
and not in any sense his slaves. AT the
longest an encomienda could be held but
three generations. and presently only. for
one. Ihe encomendero. or Spaniara In
charge. could neither abuse nor sell the
Indians. He could not oven sell the land
on which they were. Indeed, he merely
had the use of it for a certain time, in re-
turn for the benefit the crown was to
get from his tuning so many Of
it's worthless subjects into good ones by ed
yrn,Ain, n vua l~..l rnlos utpint l IA ya
and severe penalties to treat them consider
ately and to educate them at his own OK
pense. How far the encomienda was from
a system of slavery may be gathered from
this fact; SO serious were the obligations OF
the enoomenderos to the Indians and the
crown that they could hardly be endured,
and a grant or lease of this peculiar sort
came to be considered rather q punishment
than a reward to the grantee. No, 1t was
by no means a slavery-it was rather an ap-
premiership to civilization. To sec that
the laws were carried out. there was always
an official protector Of the Indians. If any
aborigine was set at work that was too hard
or too unhealthful, he had only to com-
plain to the protector or nearest priest, and
Don Encomendero was apt to find himself
in very hot water.
] do not wish to pretend for a moment
that the Spaniards were ~Buperhuman. They
were men with the Weaknesses and passions
of the rest OF ue. There were bad men
among tham-some thorough brutes-as
among all nations; and "a many. perhaps.
IL would have been TRANCE If many bad
Spaniards had not got to the now country.
Our own frontier was and is to-day largely
peopled by a class of characters not the
most admirable.
But what . do say without hesitation. and
what no man can successfully contradict, Ia
that no other nation ever made suoh noble
laws for the protection and elevation of In
| IJ,ro or vna1An %harn aO yrnll r,ur-
ished offenders 80 conscientiously. In
other words, NO other nation WAS ever &C
manly to a conquered savage race. The
occasional individual outrages we're the
fault of neither the Spanish government
nor the Spanish ~blood--they vera merely
government officially and severely
punished them. Where there was one
Spanish official who was recreant to his
duty, we have had probably a dozen thiev
ish Indian agents, and we have never pun
ished ono of them as the Spanish FINISHED
such Offenders, and while our attitude as q
nation toward the indians has been such
that one of the oblest women that Amer
lea ever produced felt constrained to write
of our Century of Dishonor," the spanish
government was never guilty of such an at
titude at any time.
1t is not pleasant to draw such compare
sons. But / feel shat VIXEN we nave lone
broad injustice to a gallant race, and have
all our lives called them ''cruel extsrmin-
ators'' and then suddenly see by plain
proof that they nave been more humane
than we, the manifest and therefore the
most American thing to do is to say: well!
you were brave fellows. and manly ones,
and Pm ashamed to have called you names
in my ignorance that L much better de-
served myself. You are Americans as we'll
as /, and good ones. too. Let's shake hands
and be friends"
Copyright, 1892. by the author.