The herald., 1897-07-03

attrition began between the Anglo
Saxon and the red man Of America, and
this conflict Of the two types Of civiliza-
tion has driven the Indian from the At
lantic to the western verge Of the conti-.
nent, and today he has hardly foot Of
soil he can call his own, without it is
too poor and sterile to arouse the Gu
pidity Of the white man.
The law of the survival Of the fittest"
then not known as the law Of social life.
has continuously operated on his race
and now his habitation covers only a
few specks on the map OF the United
States. He has been but the driftwood
on the stream of western migration and
has been lodged on the most sterile spot
on our western empire.
Legends tell US that the Wandering
Jew" in his rambles over the earth has
never heard but two words in response
to his salutation, and that is Pass on"
Before spring had clothed with verdure
the bleak hills of Massachusetts,, after
was given to the Indian. Pass on" aud
he passed. Like the buffalo, he Travelled
toward the setting sun, and like the
buffalo his race is almost extinct.
The report of the secretary Of the in
terror for 1869 shows that there were
then in the United States 29S, ,528 Indians.
The records from the same authority
show that in 1894, twenty-five years
later. there were only 251.so7, making a
loss in the twenty-five years Of 46,S21.
Even among our Indians in California
there were Ill more deaths than births
in the last year, and from the statistics
of 1894 among all the Indians in the
United States there were in that year
more deaths than births, and this. too.
when neither war nor pestilence ragged
among them.
The Indian ought to be at his best in
physical and educational development
in the great state OF New York, where
Christian civilization hedges him in on
all sides; yet in that state. with an In
dian resident population of 5235. the
birth rate for 1894 was 125, while the
death rate was 1853.
1t requires no argument to prove that
q people whose annual death rate is
greater than its births is on the sure
roaa TO an early extinction.
WAT has wrought this decadence Of
Indian life would open up a profitless
discussion. When our ancestors landed
on the Atlantic coast the Indian believed
he owned every foot of land from sur
rise to sunset; but this illusion was
soon rudely dispelled.
For the past thirty or forty years the
United States have made great efforts to
arrest the decline of the Indian, by sup
plying him with schools, Christian CIV
death rate has continually increased
When the last slave ships landed their
cargoes in the United States the Indian
population was perhaps greater than
that Of the Africans, but now the ex-
slaves number more than seven millions,
while the Indianshave dwindled down to
a quarter of million. However rapidly
the Indian is making his.exit to the
happy hunting grounds" he will al
ways be picturesque character in our
history. So long as the world reads the
romances of James Fennimore Cooper,
or w. Gilmore Simms, so long as Long
fellows muse sings of the love of the In
dian maiden, and the unlettered gallan-
try OF the Indian man, 80 long will our
literature proclaim the history of a
lost tribe, once the masters Of this con-
tinent.