The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1900-05-29

lille the HOuS OF heDr6SelI4CN6S udu uAO
few weeks ago the fOllOwing speech (which, we
cred by CONGRESSMAN John ID. Bellamy of this :
new, but most of the older people and nearly al
s'Mr. Chairman, I had the honor
some time since of introducing into
this House a bill providing for the
education and support of the chill
dren of the Croatan Indians of North
Carolina. On yesterday the Chair
man of the Committee on Indian
Affairs very cOurteOusly accorded to
me an opportunity to address the
committee upon the subject. Sew
eral of the members requested me to
reduce my remarks to manuscript
and to present them.
"Mr. Chairman, the Indians of the
United States are peculiarly the
wards of the Nation, and very justly
they should be so regarded and so
dealt with. They wer once the
proud -possessors of OUr soil, but to
the memorable decree of fate they
have succumbed, and the TeutOnic
race, against which in it's progress
all less civilized people have given
away and retired, has pressed them
westward, and the1plains and forests
of the,eastern slope and seaboard of
America, once their happy haunts
and hunting grounds, is inhabited
no longer by them, except by the rem
nants of afew scattered tribes which
almost have been, but not entirely,
absorbed by contact with the white
man and his allies.
1.-The white settlers of America,
while they wrested from the aborgi-
mes the soil on which they dwelt,
which, on account Of the nOmadic
habits of the Indian tribes could
hardly be said to be possessed by
them, have been from the earliest
period of our history imbued with a
laudable feeling that justice and hu-
humanity required that the Indians
should receive Government cOnsid-
Grafton and protection, that they
might acquire fixed abodes, and by
civilizing influences they might, in
the course of time, become cO-sharers
in the blessings of a free Govern
ment.
1.-The last tribe left lingering on
the scene of these once royal do
mains is the Croatans or Hatteras In
dams, inhabiting the State of North
Carolina, about 60 miles from the
seaboard, in the counties of Robson,
Scotland, Richmond, and Columbus,
and there they have been for a pc
Rod SO long that the memory of
man runneth not to the contrary
thereof That they have not claimed
attention of the National Govern
ment before is a matter which ex-
cites great surprise and is hard to
be explained unless the smallness of
their number and the lack of educa-
ton and enlightenment among them.
and the want of proper philanthropy
among their neighbors, has caused
them to be entirely overlooked. And
yet the public mind has been direc-
to them on more than one occasion
when they have shocked the country
by some atrOcity which is incident
to ~the'Indian character.
There are in the settlement in
Robson county, where they chiefly
reside, about 5000 souls, and with
the scattered families in adjoining
counties the number may run to 1000
men, making the tribe about 5000
people. A number of them have
migrated to Georgia, Mississippi and
Florida, where they have become alb.
sOrbed in the body polite. They are
the most interesting people in Amer
lea. and no tribe can appeal stronger
to the tender sympathies and the