Year: 1877

New York Tribune


Ten Of the men drowned on the
Circassian ION the long Island
shore few nights ago) were Shin
necock Indians. The village from
which they came is made up of the
fragment of a tribe, and is reported
to be very poor, but orderly, God
fearing community. "The drown
ing red men," we are told, "cheered
each other by hymns and prayers
during the eight hours in which
they hung helpless, waiting for
DEATH" f" The brief account shows
us an Indian SO different from the
familiar demon of the newspapers
drunk, dirty, lazy, scalping- knife
in one hand and whisky bottle in
the other-that it tempts us to
look behind the newspapers for the
other side of the story. The Sxodes
who settled among them as friends
report the "wild peoples as honest,
kind, easily taught to believe in
Christ" Penn, who followed, had
no more faithful followers than his
red brethren. Heckcwelder, who
for eighty years lived in daily com
munication and labored with them,
gives it as his deliberate opinion
that they are by nature a devout,
just, generous people, slow to an
ger, hospitable to strangers, and
respectful to the aged. The vices
of lying and cheating, which have
begun to creep in among them,
they have learned from the whites"


Coming down to later times, there
is not a single missionary who has
gone among this race who will not
testify to their eagerness to learn,
their teachableness, their loyalty to
their friends. Only the other day
Bishop Whipple, entering his pro-
test against the occupation of their
territory-the Black Hills-by the
whites, declared in effect that it
would drive to want and to arms a
peaceful body Of men anxious to
live as good citizens in their own
homes. The warning was unheeded,
and we have the consequences in
every days reports Of massacred
whites and massacred Indians. In
short, the story has been the same
from the beginning, The Moravian,
the Swede, the Quaker, the mission
ary, the old army officers, used 10
frontier life, all Of whom approached
the red man as a human being,
found him human as themselves,
ready to strike hands, keep faith,
and further, to till the ground, re-
ceiye and praetiee Christianity as
honestly as his While brethren I;
while, on the other side. the FGri-
tan who came with gun IN his
hand to the "red devils" the agent
and trader who make their living
by swindling them, and the young,
second.rate class Of soldiers who
see in them the only object Of their
yaulting courage, find an Indian
only in his right place when he is
dead.


We are asked to contribute to the
help of the destitute families Of the
ten Indians who were lost the other
day, and the appeal should be an
swered promptly. But . broader
question lies back Of that--justice
to the whole race of these men.
"We are bouud," says old Hccke-
welder, &" to acquit ourselves Of
injustice toward these people who
welcomed Hs TO their shores, hop
ing that they AID we should sit be-
side each other as krptbers| If
Indian atrocities" provoke our
wrath this winter, it is as well to
remember that the white man, as
the red, will fight for his home and
for the means of subsistence with
little regard to Justice in detail.
The worst use we can make Of these
men is to butcher them by the
sword or starvation. For nearly
two centuries our injustice to the
black man WAS the curse of the
country; expediency and the money
loss to the whites prevented its abo-
lition. 1t was wiped out--in whose