THE
INDIAN QUESTION.
BY
ELWELL S. OTIS,
LIEUT.-COLONEL U. S. ARMY.
NEW YORK:
SHELDON AND COMPANY,
No. 8 MURRAY STREET. 1878.
Copyright, 1878, by Sheldon &» Co.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ? 1
CHAPTER H. COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY ....... 46
CHAPTER III. INDIAN POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT . 73
CHAPTER IV. INDIAN TREATY SYSTEM .117
CHAPTER V. INDIAN TREATY SYSTEM 157
CHAPTER VI. REPORTED CORRUPTION IN THE INDIAN BUREAU . .198
CHAPTER VH. CAN THE INDIAN BE CIVILIZED ? -__ .»-— - , . . .221
CHAPTER VHI. How CAN THE INDIAN BE CONTROLLED AND IMPROVED ? . 251
225382
THE INDIAN QUESTION.
CHAPTER I.
HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED?
THE long established belief, that the Indian population of the United States is rapidly disappearing, and that the time is not far distant when it will become so insignificant in size, that it will cease to give annoyance to the Govern ment, has scarcely received contradiction until within the past ten years. Among a large portion of our citizens an opinion still widely prevails, that the Indian tribes which formerly roamed over the country east of the Mississippi River, have almost ceased to exist. We are occasionally informed of the sad fate of the nations of the former North- West Territory, or possibly, of the advance in civilization which those small remnants of the Iroquois, and Cherokee nations which still remain with us have reached. The State of Delaware is about to place in his final resting place its only red native, while the summer visitors at Nantucket are shown the grave of the last representative of the original proprietors of the soil of that island.
The generation last past, were more firmly convinced of this alarming decay, than the people of the present. President Jackson found humanity weeping over the fact, and that fact was known to every succeeding President until the Mexican cession of territory partly replenished
2 HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ?
the loss. More than forty years ago the artist Catlin hastened to the far west, "' to lend a hand to the dying nations" and to snatch " from a hasty oblivion what could be saved for the benefit of posterity." In the official docu ments with which we are now furnished, we learn that this decay has been, in some instances, arrested, and that a few of the Indian nations are actually increasing in num bers. Yet we are asked to believe, that the Indian popu lation of to-day is surprisingly small, when compared with that which existed at the beginning of the seventeenth century.
The reliable data upon which this belief is based can not be discovered. Many of the reports of the French, and indeed of the Jesuit fathers, in regard to our early native population, appear as romantic as the Spanish ac counts of the population of the West Indies and of Mexico. We can as readily believe, that the Emperor Montezuma controlled a force of three millions of fighting men, or that Hispaniola contained a population of one million of souls when discovered by Columbus, or that the Spaniards destroyed within thirty-eight years the lives of fifteen mil lions of the inhabitants of the New World, or that the Spanish Jesuits in Mexico, in the space of twenty years brought nine millions of converts to the faith of Eome, as to place confidence in the ingenious stories which deceived the ministers of the fourteenth Louis.
And yet the current literature of a very recent time spread abroad these reports as historical truths, and added thereto unsupported statements of marvellous invention. We are told that the Six Nations of New York numbered at one time upwards of sixty thousand ; that more than two hundred thousand Indians subsisted upon the fish drawn from the Columbia River, and the game taken in its vi cinity ; that the missionaries on the California coast hap pily governed seventy thousand Christian converts, and that
HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ? 3
forty years ago the country watered by the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers, and their tributaries, contained an Indian population of four hundred thousand souls.
These, and similar fictions, in reference to population, have often arisen from the statements made by Indians themselves to the early missionaries, and to those whites who mingled with them for the purposes of trade. Nearly every tribe, however small, boasts of its former import ance. They all have their brilliant traditions. An ap parently well informed Tuscaroran will to-day place the population of his tribe, before its removal to the State of New York, at ten thousand. In the latter part of tne seventeenth century, the Sioux nation was supposed to number forty thousand, but in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-two the Rev. Mr. Riggs estimated their number at twenty-five thousand ; and during this interval of tir/ie, the nation probably received an almost constant numerical increase. These estimates were partially based upon In dian reports, and almost entirely so, as far as the early French writers were concerned.
Many fictitious accounts were spread abroad by the early Canadian voyagers, and gained more or less credence. Their desire to magnify the dangers attending their journeys into the interior of the Continent, influenced them to enter the field of romance in their descriptions ; and their residence upon the extended plains of the west, and their exciting labors upon its magnificent rivers and broad lakes, so enlarged their imaginations, that it was impossible for them to confine their statements to the strict limits of truth.
The received impression of a former numerous Indian population, has been supported by historical mention of frequent Indian wars, in which the Colonies and the United States Government have been engaged. History often satisfies itself by informing us that the Indians
4 HAS OUR IKDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ?
"were defeated with great slaughter," or it occasionally relates that in certain engagements, the power of certain nations was forever broken. It seldom gives numbers or losses.
Mention of exceeding great mortality from pestilence, also gives strength to this impression regarding popula tion. Vigorous nations are supposed to be reduced to in significant proportions ; and indeed this supposition has more to sustain it than the supposed destruction in battle.
The amount of Indian literature, as it is termed, still in existence, is very great. The number of authors who have exclusively treated of the Aborigines of the United States, and of the southern portion of the Dominion of Canada, may be counted by hundreds. Surely during the last three centuries these Indians have not been neglected by historians and chroniclers.
Congress appropriated and paid about eighty thousand dollars for the labor of collecting and digesting " such statistics, and materials, as would illustrate the habits, present condition, and future prospects, of the Indian tribes of the United States," and received its information, I be lieve, in six large volumes.
For several years, ethnology has been endeavoring to discover the origin, and peculiar characteristics of the iboriginal race, and has been enthusiastically assisted by skillful toilers in the various branches of science. Yet with all the research necessarily given to the collection of this mass of historical and scientific literature, the fact that the original Indian population of our territory has ever been extremely scanty, except possibly, within the valley of the Columbia, has but recently been discovered. An enumeration of this entire early population, either re latively or approximately, has not been attempted. It would be considered very rash to assert that it is nearly, if not quite as numerous as at the time of the first successful
HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ? 5
colonization upon our eastern border, especially since such a statement would conflict with that "curious fact, that savages waste away before modern civilization." Such a statement would directly oppose the received opinion and understood experience of the past century. We are told that the New Zealanders, the Australians, the Hottentots of South Africa, and the Moors of Barbary, are vanishing ; "that the Tasmanians have vanished ;" that many of the nations of the North American Continent have ceased to exist, and that the red men are doomed to disappear. But with the light which documentary history, and published correspondence of a private nature, have thrown upon the former condition of the aborigines, their slight punishments at the hands of the whites, their subsequent wanderings, and the varying political or social organizations, in which they were included ; from a careful consideration of theii habits of life, and the extent of country required to sub sist them, the assertion that this population has not dimin ished to any considerable extent, could be maintained with a fair degree of plausibility, even if it could not be sup ported by convincing argument. I am of the opinion, that upon our own territory it has scarcely decreased during the past two and one-half centuries, — if it can be considered to embrace both the full and mixed bloods, whether within or without present tribal relations. Or, to make the state ment more clear and emphatic, I believe that the Indian population of the United States, as shown by the ninth census, differs very little numerically from the actual ex isting Indian population of the seventeenth century.
The Smithsonian publication upon " Systems of Con sanguinity," prepared by the Honorable L. H. Morgan, of New York, traces the migration of the United States Indians from the valley of the Columbia river. It suggests the probable courses, or routes of migration, followed by those Indians who passed to the east of the Rocky Moun-
6 HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ?
tains, and sub-divides them into two great families of na tions, called respectively, the Dakotan, and Algonkin fami lies. The Mobilian Indians of the South are attached to the Dakotan branch. The Indians west of the Rocky Mountains are classified as the Columbia, Shoshonee and Apache families of nations, and the village Indians.
More than one hundred distinct nations are mentioned, and the leading characteristics and recent movements of many are discussed. Mr. Morgan's conclusions are gen erally accepted by the scientific world, and I am not aware that any attempt has been made to overthrow them.
His work furnishes the only comprehensive history of our Indian race yet prepared, and at the same time? it gives much valuable information concerning its present condition.
Many of the statements regarding population are ne cessarily based upon the opinion of others, for reliable statistics cannot always be obtained, and therefore in some cases his estimates of numbers are placed at too high a figure. Numerical losses, which many of the nations have sustained during the past two centuries, are also evidently exaggerated.
He however discovers to us many of the lost tribes living in new localities, and still within their former tribal organizations. He follows the remnants of once powerfuV nations, and finds them incorporated with kindred people of other tribes, or existing as small bands under new appel lations. He has undoubtedly put an end to the wild statements regarding Indian population which have been so universal, both in this country and Europe, during the last quarter of a century, and which cannot be better illustrated than by quoting the language of Sir John Richardson, recorded in the report of his journey from Montreal to the mouth of the Mackenzie River. He says of the Crees and Chippeways : " They are identified as a
HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ? 7
nation with the Algonkin, and Leni-Lenape, or Delawares, who once owned the whole country east of the Mississippi, as far south as Carolina, but who, blighted by the preco cious expansion of the Anglo-Saxon colonists, have dwin dled down to a few remnants of mixed blood."
A great many of the facts which Mr. Morgan presents in his work, are supported either by Indian tradition, or by information acquired within the present century. The character and numbers of those Indians inhabiting the interior of the former Louisiana territory, were almost entirely unknown until the expedition of Lewis and Clarke, in eighteen hundred 'and four and five, passed through the heart of that country. It is true, that for a long time previous to that date, the fur trade was actively conducted by many private individuals, and also by part nership enterprises ; but those who communicated with the Indians in the prosecution of that business, furnished little information upon which reliance could be placed. The factors of the great American fur companies were about to enter the regions watered by the Missouri and its tributaries. These men were shrewd, and intelligent, yet undoubtedly in many instances very imaginative, but they were competent to make important inquiries, and to arrive at seemingly satisfactory conclusions ; and through them, much of our knowledge respecting the Indians with whom they communicated has been derived. They often varied materially in their conclusions upon the same sub ject, and as to population they differed widely. Indeed the same individual was constantly changing his views, or at least his report of estimates, when giving, upon differ ent occasions, the population of those tribes with whom he was most intimately connected.
We possessed knowledge of the Indians of the Pacific coast at an earlier date, although meagre, and from very questionable sources. Long before the beginning of the
8 HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ?
present century, citizens of foreign nations were engaged in trading along that coast. In seventeen hundred and ninety, more than twenty vessels, part of which were owned in Boston, were solely occupied in that business. The natives were supposed to be very numerous from the confused accounts which sailors rendered. Little that was reliable could be obtained, until Lewis and Clarke reported their discoveries upon the Columbia. Bonneville in eigh teen hundred and thirty-three added materially to the stock of information, in the report of his journeyings among, and at the bases of the Kocky Mountains. Lewis and Clarke found thirty-four distinct tribes, or nations, along the above mentioned river, but Bonneville ascer tained that the population to the west of the mountains and south of that river, was exceedingly sparse.
On the coast of Lower California, missionaries had set tled as early as sixteen hundred and ninety-eight, and missions were extended to the north, under the auspices of the Jesuit, the Franciscan, and the Dominican orders. They exerted considerable influence over that native popu lation, numbering some thirty thousand souls, and dwell ing between the forty-second parallel of latitude and the southern point of the peninsula, and from the Sierras and the Colorado Eiver to the ocean.
The Indians of New Mexico, who have so long plun dered the extensive region between the Colorado of the West and the forks of the Colorado of Texas, are increas ing in population. Crafty and warlike, they have for three centuries held the territory over which they roam, against the white man. They drove out from that country the Spaniard, and the Mexican, and have successfully re sisted, until very recently, the attempts of the American troops to place them in subjection. The number of Mexi can captives among them attest their success, and their utter inability to understand the binding force of treaty
HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ? 9
stipulations is apparent from the frequency with, which they have made and broken faith with their neighbors — the Pueblos.
The Comanches of to-day, differ little from their an cestors of the seventeenth century, who robbed and mur dered the inhabitants of the Mexican border, and who even then mingled with their own wild rites and superstitions a barbarous imitation of the mass. Those who entertained La Salle on his voyage down the Mississippi Kiver. would doubtless compare favorably with their descendants, who are now puzzling the agents of government in their en deavors to invent some method of treatment which will secure their willing obedience. They should, from their long contact with European civilization, be very much wasted in numbers, but they are obstinate, and set natural law at defiance. They refuse "to melt away as ice and snow do at the approach of summer," and insist upon perpetuating and increasing their species.
The population of the Missouri and prairie nations is undoubtedly smaller than formerly. As a rule, strong Indian nations increase, and those which are weak, dimin ish. The Ojibways, the Sioux and the Crows, are stronger now than ever, while the Poncas, the Omahas and the Missourias are represented by feeble communities. Many causes produce this result. Frequent hostilities between powerful and weak organizations, as between the Sioux and Poncas, or the Sioux and Pawnees, make constant drains upon the population of the weaker, which is not replenished by natural increase. These weaker organiza tions, hemmed in as they sometimes are, within a small section of country, are often without sufficient means of subsistence ; or from continued residence in the same locality, without change of camp, they invite by their filthy condition the ravages of disease.
There is also an attraction for the young men of the 1*
10 HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ?
weaker tribes to join with stronger societies ; and for this reason, the agents in the Indian territory have great diffi culty in keeping intact some of the smaller bands. The Yanktons and Yanktonais are largely represented in the hostile Sioux camp, and the Delawares, who wandered into the State of Texas, resisted all attempts of the Govern ment to unite them with their own people. These causes have affected the Indians of the Platte and Arkansas coun tries, who, though probably in diminished numbers, are not by any means as depleted as commonly represented.
The Pawnees, who formerly roamed the arid plains south of, and along the Platte River, have been reported within the past forty years, to number ten thousand, but are now reduced to about twenty-five hundred. In the days of their highest glory, four thousand warriors de fended a nation twenty thousand strong.
A little reflection would show how utterly incorrect any such enumeration must be. An Indian population of twenty thousand, which totally neglects agriculture, and is deprived of the fruits of the earth, would require a herd of at least one hundred thousand buffaloes for its subsist ence. Twenty or thirty thousand must be annually slaughtered, and a great number retained for increase ; and one million of acres of those nearly barren plains would hardly nourish them, even if economically herded. How many millions of acres it would require to sustain a sufficient quantity of buffalo to subsist twenty thousand Indians, when the customs of the Indians and the habits of the buffalo are properly considered, is a problem exceed ingly difficult of solution.
It has been said, that it requires six thousand acres of land to support an Indian who follows strictly the hunter's avocation, and the assertion can be stoutly maintained.
The territory embraced within the present boundaries of the United States contains about twenty-three hundred
HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED? 11
millions of acres, and our estimated native population, Alaska included, is three hundred and eighty-three thou sand ; hence, the area of land in acres is six thousand times as great as the number of our Indians. Scatter this popu lation throughout the country, and give to each person his three miles square of land, would it be unreasonable to suppose that the game would be exhausted in a series of years, if that alone was depended upon for food ?
The great majority of the native population which in habited that portion of our territory now known as the plains and mountain districts of the west, subsisted on the products of the chase. They were not agriculturists. There are but few streams in that region from which fish could be procured. That population must therefore have been extremely scanty, and the stories of the early traders in regard to their numbers do not contain an element of truth. To this day the size of the wandering tribes is not known. Agents make wild estimates, based upon the statements of half-breed interpreters, or of whites long resi dent at their agencies, and whose convictions depend en tirely upon their feelings.
The estimates are embodied in their reports, and they refer to them in succeeding years as being probably correct. The thirty-five thousand Indians heretofore reported as in habiting Nevada, Utah and portions of Idaho, Arizona and California, dwindle to eight thousand upon actual count ; and when a correct census of tribes in other localities is taken, a great falling off in numbers will result.
Indians, when obliged to subsist on the game of the country, generally separate into small communities, and never remain in the same place for any length of time ex cept during the winter months. Large encampments can be maintained only where the buffalo are plenty. In cer tain seasons of the year when the buffalo appear, the small communities unite in large camps which break up and
12 HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ?
divide after the pursuit of the buffalo is ended. It is com mon to see small bands of five, ten, twenty or thirty lodges roaming the plains, or to see them encamped on the bank of a stream where wood and water are abundant.
In a section of country where the native population was great, the traveller would almost daily encounter these small bands ; but published accounts of journeys made forty years ago in the heart of our western territory show us that it was possible to pass from the Wind River Mountains nearly to the mouth of the Platte, without meeting a single Indian. The larger rivers of Colorado, of Utah, and of southern Idaho were explored about the same time, and but very few native inhabitants discovered. The Yellow stone Eiver and its tributaries were descended with com parative safety though the cunning and hostile Crow war rior was a dangerous enemy to meet.
The territory between the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers was, upon its first discovery, under the sway of the Sioux, and allied nations, to whom reference has already been made. They were even then pressing back adjoining tribes. Migration to the east had ceased, and the tendency of movement was in a westerly direction. The Crees were leaving the Lake Superior region and looking for a new home towards the setting sun. The Chippewas were en deavoring to wrest the banks of the Mississippi from the Santee Sioux, and they in turn were crowding on their Teton brethren. The latter were engaged in fixing the boundary line of the Crows and Blackfeet along the base of the great mountain range, and the Columbia River na tions had found an eastern barrier, beyond which they found it impossible to advance.
As our information of the territory beyond the Missis sippi River — the greater portion of which is still unre claimed, and much of the same still unexplored — has been obtained during the present century, our knowledge in re-
HAS OUE INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ? 13
gard to what is considered its native Indian population is very incomplete. The aborigines who inhabited the country east of that river, even those roaming along its banks, were visited by whites more than two hundred years ago. It is essentially the last mentioned population which is supposed to be so fearfully wasted ; for, it has been made to contend with a vigorous Europeon civilization, which was con stantly encroaching upon it, as it moved slowly to the west ward. Erroneous opinions now entertained of a large native population during the early colonial period, and the positive knowledge of to-day, of the insignificance of the present existing population which has descended from the aboriginal tribes and nations, brings the conclusion of the great decay.
As it is impossible, with all the carefully prepared data furnished during the past ten years, to make a correct esti mate of the number of Indians now within the limits of the United States, it is apparent that it would be difficult to even approximately approach the strength of the eastern Indians in the beginning of the seventeenth century, if we alone rely upon recorded opinions, which vary so mate rially that we can not escape the conviction that many of them had not the slightest foundation upon which to rest
This is not to be wondered at ; for should we consult government official statistics of a recent date, we would be involved in confusion. We there find that in eighteen hundred and twenty-two, an Indian population of four hundred and fifty-seven thousand is reported. In eighteen hundred and thirty, that population numbered three hundred and thirteen thousand. In eighteen hundred and forty, it was four hundred thousand, and in eighteen hundred and fifty-five three hundred and fifty thousand. We therefore discover a loss between the years eighteen hundred and twenty-two, and eighteen hundred and thirty, of one hundred and forty-four thousand; and
14 HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ?
between the years eighteen hundred and thirty, and eigh teen hundred and forty, a gain of eighty-seven thousand, which is followed by a loss of fifty thousand in the suc ceeding five years. But the official reports of the War Department during this time, show the estimated popu lation of the eastern Indians, and we can consider the estimates nearly reliable. In eighteen hundred and twenty- two, before Government had put in operation the policy of Indian removal to the West, the eastern Indians were said to number one hundred and twenty thousand. In eighteen hundred and thirty-eight, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs reported, that the total number of In dians with whom treaty stipulations had been made for their removal to the west of the Mississippi River, was one hundred thousand, of whom eighty-one thousand had then emigrated. Treaties had not been made with In dians living without the tribal relation, nor even with all those within the same. There were about twenty thou sand Indians not included in the report, so that the figures of eighteen hundred and thirty-eight agreed with the estimates of eighteen hundred and twenty-two. The plan of removal and the expense attending it obliged the War Department to know the number of individuals who passed the Mississippi Eiver under the provisions of treaties, and the most of those reported probably entered the new Indian country. The thirty-nine thousand still remaining were much scattered — many of them living in the populous States of the East. It was comparatively easy to enumerate them. The number in the north-west could not be determined with as much accuracy, but they were well known, and not over-estimated to any great extent. It is safe therefore to consider that the population of the eastern Indians in the year eighteen hundred and twenty-two was one hundred and twenty thousand. This is the earliest reliable enumeration that I am able to ob-
HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED? 15
tain. From this date until the present time, the eastern Indians can be followed in their migrations. The policy of removal beyond the Mississippi River, once inaugurated, was pursued through several successive administrations, and in eighteen hundred and fifty-three, the Secretary of the Interior announced that but eighteen thousand of the aborigines remained east of that river. The announcement must be taken with a grain of allowance, for the ninth census reports thirty thousand in that portion of the country. Of the ninety thousand removed, about sixty thousand are under the care of the Government within the present Indian territory, and a large part of the remainder might be discovered after diligent search.
But it is sufficient for our purpose, if it is admitted that the former population of the eastern Indian nations has not, within the past half century, met with any great numerical decrease. During the remainder of the discus sion upon the subject, it becomes unnecessary to refer to yery recent dates, except when an attempt is made to trace the movements of particular nations or tribes, and to discover their strength at different periods.
The question which presents itself, therefore, may be briefly stated as follows, viz : — Did that portion of our ter ritory lying east of the Mississippi River contain an Indian population numbering more than one hundred and twenty thousand at the time of European colonization ?
Thirty-five years ago, the historian Bancroft, after a careful examination of authorities, placed the eastern In dian population in the first half of the seventeenth century, at one hundred and eighty thousand souls. His enumera tion, he remarks, approaches and perhaps exceeds a just estimate of the number then existing, and if we examine official statistics, some of which are now generally accessi ble, we are led to conclude that many of his estimates are too large. Historians of particular nations however, writ-
16 HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ?
ing at more recent dates, intimate that he has placed at too low a figure the past population of nations whose deeds they were endeavoring to commemorate, but produce little authority to overthrow his calculations. Bancroft allows a past population of ninety thousand to the Algonkin family of nations, and a like number to the Dakotan division. His conclusions in regard to the strength of the latter branch are probably more nearly correct than his estimate of the size of the former. In one of the early French re ports, transmitted to the home government in seventeen hundred and thirty-six, an enumeration of all Indians claimed by that kingdom, as connected with the govern ment of Canada, is attempted. We find that the total number of Indians capable of bearing arms, and inhabiting the country lying along the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers ; from thence west throughout the entire lake region to Lake Winnipeg ; thence south along the Mississippi River, sufficiently distant to include by an eastern line the former Cherokee country ; thence north to Lake Ontario, including part of the Five Nations, was placed at fifteen thousand eight hundred and seventy-five warriors. Two thousand of the Sioux nation are embraced in the calcula tion, and might be excluded. Supposing therefore, that every five inhabitants could furnish one warrior, a fair pro portion, we shall have within the territory above described less than seventy thousand Aborigines. Deduct from this number the ten thousand Indians of the Huron and Algonkin nations, dwelling north of the present United States boundary, and less than sixty thousand remain ; and by making a further deduction of seven thousand one hundred warriors, or thirty-five thousand inhabitants, which this French report credits to the Cherokee and Iro- quois nations, we find that the entire population of all the Algonkin nations west of the Blue Ridge, and Alleghany Mountains, was placed at less than thirty-five thousand
HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ? 1?
souls. To the east of these mountain ranges, the Algonkin population was little larger, as we shall hereafter attempt to show, although it occupied the entire Atlantic coast from the thirty-fourth parallel of latitude to our northern limit of territory.
Sir William Johnston, who was in charge of the great American Indian Department, reported officially in seven teen hundred and sixty- three, the fighting strength of those Indians inhabiting the State of New York and north ern Pennsylvania, and of all that territory included within the present United States lying north of the Ohio River, and between the western boundaries of the States above mentioned and the Mississippi River. He reports twenty- one hundred and fifty warriors among the Six Nations, and their allies living upon the Susquehanna, and nine thou sand one hundred and twenty among the remaining nations. This fixes the number of Indian inhabitants within that territory at fifty-six thousand.
The Six Nations composed of the former Iroquois, and the Tuscaroras who joined them in the year seventeen hundred and thirteen, are credited with a population of nine thousand seven hundred and fifty. Bancroft gives as the numerical strength of the Iroquois in the seventeenth century, ten thousand people, and to the Tuscaroras seven thousand. If he is correct, and Sir William Johnston's report is reliable, the Tuscaroras had lost more than six thousand of their number. This cannot be possible. Their former condition has been romantically portrayed, and their former importance overestimated. They were undoubtedly much reduced before they removed to the north, but their fifteen villages in Carolina were not as populous as gener ally supposed. If they were not larger than the villages of Cherokees they could not have contained more than thirty- six hundred inhabitants. Sir William Johnston finds up wards of nine thousand of the Five Nations proper, exclud-
18 HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ?
ing those bands which had already removed from them. Bancroft's estimate of their former strength can not there fore be exaggerated. He is strongly supported by French and English authorities, dating from the middle of the seventeenth century.
A French report of sixteen hundred and sixty-six con tains an account of nine Iroquois nations of small num bers, and Greenhalgh, who visited the Five Nations in the year sixteen hundred and seventy-seven, admits that they were able to muster twenty-one hundred and fifty warriors. They attained their greatest strength about the middle of the seventeenth century, at the time of the establishment of the French missions among the Onondagas and Cayugas. The Senecas were then friendly to the French arms, and they were known to include within their organization fully one-half of the entire population of the Five Nations. The earliest missionaries among them do not estimate the number of the Seneca warriors above twelve hundred.
We have more correct, and more complete information regarding the Iroquois, than of any other portion of our early Indian population. They had pushed their con quests over the native race in every direction. Their war cry had been heard from the New England coast to the Wabash, and from Virginia far into the interior of Canada. They had reduced a score of nations to submission, and she resolutions adopted at their council fires might be enforced in far distant regions. The important geograph ical position which they occupied, their strength and determination, made them arbiters of the future of the French and English colonies. They did more to arrest French extension of empire in the north, than all other human causes combined. Of them Governor Dongan said in sixteen hundred and eighty-seven, " The five Indian nations are the most warlike people in America, and are a bulwark between us and the French and all other In-
HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ? 19
diuns. They go as far as the South sea. the North-west passage and Florida to war. New England, in its last war with the Indians had been ruined, had not Sir Edmund Andros sent some of those nations to their assistance ; and indeed they are so considerable that all the Indians in these parts of America are tributary to them."
In the same year the French send to Europe their complaints, and demand the destruction of the Iroquois. They say that war against the latter is absolutely necessary to prevent a general rebellion of the savages, which would bring ruin upon trade, and extermination upon the colo nies. " An exterminating war will be a merit in the sight of God, and for the glory of the King ; for it will assist to establish the faith in the west, and the King will have an empire from the mouth of the Saint Lawrence to the mouth of the Mississippi."
Louis listened to the complaint, and directed that a foroe be put in motion sufficiently strong to subdue the Iroquois warriors, which were placed at two thousand strong. He further directed that the captives should be sent to France for use in his galleys.
It seems incredible, that so small a nation could sweep over such an extent of our northern territory, and hold in subjection a large number of the inhabitants, who were of the same race and of equal advancement. If the country between the Ohio and the lakes was as populous as many early reports represent it, those small wandering bands of the Iroquois, which were frequently absent from their villages on the war path, could not have escaped destruc tion. The Miamis and Illinois were allied, and they boasted of large landed possessions. Had they been in any considerable number, the Iroquois could not have wrested from them and retained their territory.
It is extremely probable, that between our northern coast States and the Mississippi, the Indians located near
20 HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ?
the shores of the lakes and along the banks of the larger rivers, and did not penetrate the interior except in pursuit of food. That even there they were guided by the water courses ; for, prior to the introduction of the horse among them, their movements must have been slow and tedious, and they could not with safety separate themselves from water. It is extremely probable, that their villages were considered as permanently fixed, for without the horse or some other beast of burden, any movement would have been attended with great labor.
These conclusions are supported by the experience of intelligent whites who could judge from observation. If they are correct, do not the incidents connected with the journeys of La Salle and the French Jesuits convince u& of the insignificance of the Indian population ? The return of La Salle from the centre of the present State of Illinois to Canada, along the rivers and lakes, and in the winter, when Indians are collected in large bodies, and the wanderings of those men who absented themselves from his expedition, show that the country which he was exploring was almost without population. Joliet emerged from the mouth of the Wisconsin, and directed his canoe down the Mississippi when that river was replenished with the waters which the season, of Spring bestows, and was borne for many days upon its swift current, without detect ing any indications that the vast wilderness was inhabited by man. From the mouth of the Wisconsin to the mouth of the Ohio, he saw no Indians save a small band of the Illinois. Hennepin, in his journey to the north, reports and undoubtedly had, a different experience, although his enemies assert that his statements bear the stamp of falsity. The reader, after properly weighing these accounts, can not escape the inference, that the great bulk of the Indian population was in the north along the chain of lakes, and that the country immediately south, extending we might
HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ? 21
say, to the territory of the Southern Indians, could hardly be considered inhabited. I am of the opinion therefore that Sir William Johnston's estimate of numbers, men tioned on a preceding page, is large, and that the whole north-west to the Mississippi boundary, did not even con tain a population of thirty-five thousand.
A great difficulty is met when we attempt an enumera tion of the Algonkins of the coast. Romance and history have been artfully or unconsciously blended, and it almost appears to us that the first white settlers were men of ex traordinary mould and surprising prowess, who forcibly beat back into the wilderness the hordes of savages which had determined upon their annihilation. In New England, the great Captain Standish slew and spared not, until the voice of the good Robinson was heard from across the waters, deprecating the deeds of blood, and recommending in their stead earnest Christian efforts for conversion. The European emigrants of to-day, who are located upon our Western plains, and whom the shadow of a passing Indian affrights, can herein find examples worthy of emulation ; but it would be very mortifying to them to discover how degenerate they are when compared with the lion-hearted giants who preceded them in their journeyings, two and one half centuries ago. We learn that two men prevented by their efforts, the destruction of the English settlements. — Miles Standish and John Eliot. The former by the appli cation of physical force spread terror among the natives, and the latter, who as early as sixteen hundred and twenty- eight, was deliberating upon the possibility of bringing the heathen under the power of the Gospel, shortly thereafter entered upon his mission, and subdued the savage passions of members of contiguous tribes. Standish enforced submis sion through fear of speedy retaliatory punishment. Eliot counselled obedience to the teachings of Christ, and taught the brotherhood of man. These two men averted impend-
22 HAS OUR INDIAN" POPULATION DECREASED ?
ing ruin. Without the one, our Pilgrim Fathers and their children would have been destroyed ; and without the ex ample and labors of the other, which were attended with beneficent results, the English settlers would have been driven by King Philip and his warriors, into the sea.
Such conclusions may reflect great credit upon our an cestors and exhibit in us a proper filial appreciation of merit. But in attempting to reconcile the contemporane ous testimony of the past, one can not escape the belief, that the number of the straggling, naked savages of New England, has been magnified above all proportions. The Indians were unfriendly to the whites and retired at their approach. They left it to their Penobscot friend to extend the hospitalities of their country, in that memorable brief speech of welcome. We can not understand how an iso lated, wasted, and famishing colony numbering but fifty souls, could become so firmly fixed upon the New England shore, that the hostile natives could not dislodge it ; uoi how one hundred persons, composed of men, women and children, could penetrate the country to the Connecticut Kiver, and in the midst of savage neighbors, separate and successfully found, Hartford, Springfield, and Wethera- field. I am unable to determine whether Captain Mason with his eighty men, slew one hundred and eighty, or seven hundred of the Pequods, in that battle which broke the power of the Pequod nation.
Nor is one able to obtain any satisfactory information regarding the numbers of the Indians of New England in sixteen hundred and seventy-five, at the breaking out of King Philip's war. When eminent historians vary so materially in their estimates of its white population at that time, how can any similarity of well matured opinions re garding Indians be expected. History is very undecided upon the entire subject of population. New England may have contained one hundred and twenty thousand whites,
HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ? 23
as Marshall avers, or only fifty-five thousand, as Bancroft maintains. The latter however introduces sufficient cir cumstantial evidence in support of his position to convince the general reader. Now it is very strange, that when statements concerning the white settlers are so irreconcil able, there should be unanimity of opinion in respect to the Indian. Marshall, Bancroft, and Trumbull place the number of Philip's warriors at three thousand, and the entire native fighting force was assembled under his com mand, except the Praying Indians, the Mohegans, and a portion of the Abenekis. He also drew from Eastern New York, as far as the land of the Mohawks. Bancroft says of this war, " More than six hundred men, chiefly young men, the flower of the country, of whom any mother might have been proud, perished in the field. Of the able bodied men in the country, one in twenty had fallen." From this we infer, that out of a population of fifty-five thousand whites, twelve thousand were capable of bearing arms. Apply the same rule in proportion to the Indians, and we find that three thousand warriors could be secured from a population of less than fourteen thousand. But how has it been ascertained that Philip controlled a force of three thousand men ? They were never seen and counted. They never met the whites in a general engagement. They fought in small numbers and depended upon sur prise. The same band could attack at different points thirty or forty miles distant, within twenty-four hours. In less than one week it could pillage and murder on the Connecticut Kiver and on the Eastern coast. How then could the number of his warriors be known ? Were the re ports of the armed men opposing them received ? They would be remarkable for uncertainty. Was the estimated strength of the tribes of Indians in hostility considered ? Correctness could not be attained in such computation. New Hampshire and Western Massachusetts must have
24 HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ?
counted, as do now our Western Indian census-gatherers, for Connecticut in the days of the elder Winthrop, but forty years before the war of Philip, claimed four thou sand native warriors. How then could the number be de termined ? The difficulty seems to be settled by the asser tion that, " between two and three thousand were killed or 'submitted. 5J: To one acquainted with the modes of Indian warfare, and who naturally supposes that the In dians made the act of submission through their chiefs and representatives, and were not individually present at the time of its consummation, the assertion is very unsatisfac tory.
But it might be well to ascertain the size of this Eastern population at a more recent date. One century later, Governor Tryon of New York made report and expressed himself as follows : " The Indians who formerly possessed Nassan and Long Island, and that part of New York below Albany, are reduced to a small number, and are so dispersed that no account can be taken of them. They have generally been denominated river Indians, and have about three hundred fighting men. The tribes of Indians within the Province of Massachusetts, and the colonies of Connecticut and Rhode Island, are in similar circumstances with the river Indians, and the Stockbridges living on the eastern border of New York, are in number about three hundred. The Indians near Montreal, and on the St. Lawrence number about thirty- five hundred." What became of the thirty or forty thousand Indians of New England, whom fifty millions of acres could not sup port ? Did a single century destroy them and their de scendants ? We are told that many perished in King Philip's war ; that many fled to the French in Canada, and some to their brothers on the Hudson. That many died during the war from starvation and exposure is undoubtedly the case, although Indians have great tena-
HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ? 25
city of life, and are not easily overcome by the ills of the flesh. A few fled to the friendly French country, and but few, else they did not cease their flight until they put the St. Lawrence between them and their enemies. The rest of course decayed, and with astonishing rapidity ; for it is doubtful if three thousand Indians could be found within all New England, at the time when Governor Tryon wrote. A careful consideration of the habits of the New Eng land Indians in sixteen hundred, and the conditions which climate and the scarcity of large game imposed upon peo ple following their modes of life, outweighs the uncon- sidered statements of Europeans who early visited them, when an attempt is made to approximately determine population. Some of the nations rudely cultivated the soil, and grew their winter's supply of corn ; but the majority of them depended upon the chase, and the sup ply of fish which the streams abundantly yielded. Game was scarce and the territory limited, and they must have settled on the banks of rivers, or the shore of the ocean, for the purpose of obtaining their support. The sparse population found in such localities, except along the coast of Connecticut and Khode Island, dispels our ideas of great numbers. The climate was rigorous, and the win ters long and severe. The exposures to which the Indian children were submitted, and the hardships which adults were compelled to endure, together with the consequences of tribal hostilities, prevented numerical increase. If New England ever contained twenty thousand natives, it was densely populated when compared with other portions of our eastern territory. At the time the Puritans landed on its coast, the Indians, wasted by pestilence, were too feeble to make resistance, although of unfriendly disposition. Disease must have visited the interior and rendered them likewise weak, or the tribes could soon have gathered to drive off the invader.
26 HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ?
Of the Indians of eastern New York, Long Island and New Jersey, the Dutch left few accounts ; for they were not interested in their condition, unless they possessed valuable articles of trade. Prescott remarks, that " the French missionaries took up their dwelling among the In dians without protection ; they sought martyrdom : the Spaniard came as the knight-errant, the Dutch came for money, and the Saxon for a home." The Dutch trade, first confined to its Indian Company, was finally thrown open to all of the inhabitants. They resembled some of the individuals with whom the West is now peopled, who leave their morality and Christianity in their eastern resi dences, with the intention of returning, and assuming former social and spiritual relations after the acquisition of fortunes. They mingled familiarly with the natives, and drove sharp bargains. Such conduct naturally pro duced unpleasant consequences, and terminated in strifes, which the valorous Dutch maintained with loss to their opponents. They relate, that in some of their engage ments, they slew as many as eighty Indian warriors. Du ring the forty years they retained possession of New Neth erlands, the Indian population decreased. Before their arrival, the Leni-Lenape, and kindred people of the Hud son, had their masters in the Five Nations of New York, and could not have been numerous. The Delawares alone were able to make a formidable show of strength, and of them we shall speak hereafter.
The Algonkins,, to the south of the Dutch provinces, were scattered and found in feeble bands, as far as the country of the celebrated Powhattan Confederacy. Its capital at Richmond, Virginia, the home of its distin guished chief, consisting in sixteen hundred and seven of twelve lodges, gave law to the numerous people of the confederated tribes, who had acquired a dislike for the whites, as their coast had been plundered by the slave-
HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ? 27
traders for nearly a century. In the heart of this un friendly nation, and but a short distance from its capital, one hundred Europeans planted a settlement, and were so reduced in a few months by famine and sickness, that but fifty remained alive. Of this fifty, but five able-bodied men remained to guard the defences, and still they held their post secure against the natives. The losses were re plenished from the old world, only to be reduced by desertion and disease. In sixteen hundred and ten,, the colony numbered but sixty souls, and " these were so fee ble and dejected that if relief had been delayed but ten days longer, they all must have utterly perished." While this colony bravely maintained its position, the Indian tribes plotted for its destruction. Its wanderers in search of food were cruelly murdered.
The relentless savages hung upon their footsteps if they emerged from their palisades. In the meantime, Captain John Smith, with twenty sturdy followers, attempted an exploration of the land, and was unsuccessful, only because his little army separated into independent columns, which were overpowered by their enemies. He made a subse quent attempt, and reached the mouth of the Susquehanna River, from whence he returned in triumph to Jamestown. During this expedition, Smith met many Indian tribes which he vanquished and reduced to submission, and then sought their friendship and alliance. Upon the arrival of Lord Delaware, the condition of the colony com menced to improve, and to increase in numbers. It grew to seven hundred men, extended itself, and drove back the Indians, whose lands it forcibly appropriated. From sixteen hundred and seven to the time of Rolfe's marriage in sixteen hundred and fourteen, the native population warred against the intruder, but without suc cess. Its numbers were great, and the warriors could be counted by thousands. Within sixty miles of Jamestown,
28 HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ?
there were five thousand Indians, and the banks of the Potomac, Rappahannock, and other large rivers of Vir ginia, were thickly populated.
Such and similar accounts, history records as truth, and permits the reader to reconcile the inconsistencies as best he can. History proceeds in its deception, and not only receives within its elastic folds, the unrestrained state ments of imaginative persons, which posterity has pre served, and which the evidences of circumstances over throw, but it so presents supposed statistical facts, as to give color to those statements, and the deception can not be detected, unless a careful analysis is made.
Immediately following the narration of the Indian out break of Virginia, in sixteen hundred and twenty-two, is given the number of the white inhabitants of the colony. The London Company sent out nine thousand people, and still the population in the year above mentioned was but eighteen hundred persons. Bancroft however speaks more guardedly, and says, " A year after the massacre there still remained two thousand five hundred men ; the total number of the emigrants had exceeded four thousand." These figures must be in a great part, matter of conjec ture. A loss of six thousand in the colony in fifteen years, could not be accounted for, except on the supposition that the action of the Indians produced it. A loss of fifteen hundred could be mostly attributed to natural causes. The colony extended itself upon the lands lying along the rivers, where the deadly miasma would rapidly diminish its numbers. The first three years' experience at James town, show what destruction the diseases of that climate can accomplish upon emigrants from a healthy European country.
A candid examination of events convinces us that Vir ginia contained but few of the aboriginal race, even if the extended territory necessary for Indian subsistence is un-
HAS OUR IKDIAN" POPULATION" DECREASED ? 29
considered. Forty or fifty sick men, within rude fortifica tions of hasty construction, (and we can imagine them ex tremely rude, if we take into consideration the character of the first Virginia immigrants,) could not maintain their position against hundreds of hostile savages for successive months, notwithstanding the latter had only weapons of their own manufacture. Days and nights of painful watch ing and waiting depress the spirits of the most determined, precedes despair, which is followed in turn by submission to what seems an inevitable destiny. Neither could eigh teen hundred, nor twenty-five hundred men furnish need ful protection to the settlements of Virginia, and at the same time exterminate, drive out, or subdue, a numerous native race, furnished with fire- arms of as good pattern as they themselves possessed. That the Indians had many European arms when the war inaugurated by Powhattan's successor was waged, has been placed upon record as a fact ; and that they obtained them in trade with the whites as early as sixteen hundred and seventeen, appears evident from the prohibition contained in our first colonial inter course law, issued by Governor Argal, in which it was for bidden to " any person to traffic privately with the Indians, or teach them the use of fire-arms, under the pain of death."
We might descend in Virginia history, through the ad ministration of Governor Jeffreys, and discover many ac counts, equally as marvelous and as difficult of comprehen sion, if the belief in a numerous Indian population is entertained. We intend no disparagement therefore to the memory of the great Powhattan Confederacy, when we state our conviction that it never contained ten thousand individuals. It would be to its credit rather to place its numbers at a lower figure, and to represent it as too weak and scattered to resist the feeble attempts of the whites during the early years of colonization, or to allay the
30 HAS OUR INDIAN" POPULATION DECREASED ?
fears which seized it at the approach of the Mohawk warrior.
To the Southern nations, namely, the Gulf nations, and the Cherokees, Bancroft allows at the beginning of the seventeenth century a population of fifty thousand, and says, that since that time their population has in creased. Early information regarding them is very meagre. The Spanish and French missionaries in Florida and Georgia knew little- of the interior. Some of the state ments might be as worthy of belief as the sad story of the extinct Hatteras tribe, which in the days of Sir Walter Raleigh had twenty thousand people, and lost all but one hundred of them in a century and a half. De Soto. in his expedition along the Southern coast, from Tampa Bay to the Mississippi River, during fifteen hundred thirty-nine and forty, found a number of small Indian villages, and quite a city upon the site which Mobile now occupies ; but he did not penetrate into the interior of the continent. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, when French colonization in the South was begun, the wars between the Chootaws and the Chickasaws had produced deadly enmity between the representatives of those nations, and the Chickasaws excluded the French from their territory. The Spanish priests in Florida had gathered the Indians of the peninsula into towns and villages, and were endeav oring to impart to them the benefits of a European civili zation ; but they were confined in their labors to a small section of the Spanish possession. When hostilities between the English and Spanish colonies broke out, it was possi ble for Carolina to summon one thousand Indian warriors to its assistance, and Florida could count its native allies by hundreds. It was possible for the French to call twelve hundred Choctaw warriors to aid in the proposed chas tisement of the proud Chickasaw nation, and that nation was able to resist the invasion, and to drive back the
HAS OUR IKDIAN POPULATION DECREASED? 31
combined force. It would seem then, that the Southern portion of our territory, east of the Mississippi River, had a large native population, and that Bancroft's estimate is not an exaggeration. Within this section, if anywhere, the presence of great numbers would be expected. Here a warm and genial climate protected infancy, and gave comfort to the sick. A luxuriant soil returned an abun dant harvest of corn for the seed carelessly planted, and nourished a great abundance of game. Winter did not compel a summer's labor on the part of the inhabitants, and famine and frost had no victims.
Thus have we hurriedly considered the Indians who roamed over the eastern portion of our territory, and briefly noted the suggestions which arise in the mind, in regard to their strength. When we study their habits of life, and the relation which they sustained to the French, English, and Spanish colonies, does it not seem that Bancroft might have made a great reduction in his estimate of one hundred and eighty thousand, and supported it with equal consistency ? If to the Algonkin nations there should be allowed for population, sixty thousand, and to the Dakotan nations, after deducting the Sioux tribes which voluntarily crossed the Mississippi, sixty-five thousand, would the esti mate appear to be too greatly reduced ? Upon such a basis, the population of the Algonkin family west of the Alleghany Mountains could be placed at twenty-five or thirty thousand ; and the nations of that family east of the same at thirty thousand ; the Five Nations of New York, and the Tuscaroras, at thirteen thousand, and those of the Gulf, with the Cherokee included, at fifty thousand.
We will again recur to the eastern Indian population of eighteen hundred and twenty-two, which we know to have been about one hundred and twenty thousand, and ask how supposed great losses in numbers can be accounted for. We wish to discover the causes of this great decline
32 HAS OUK INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ?
or decay of population, and ascertain how effective they have been in producing supposed results. Any definite determination is of course impossible, but many long ex isting fallacies may be exploded. The mere presence of the European does not produce a miraculous blighting effect upon Indians. The white man's food does not in stantaneously kill, nor does it shorten their span of life. On the contrary, they thrive admirably upon it, and the wild tribes of to-day which government is feeding, furnish sufficient proof of the fact. The European injures them, because he limits the hunting grounds, and assists to de stroy the game, their chief subsistence. Distress and fam ine may follow, unless they remove into the wilderness, or become tillers of the soil and depend upon the earth for nourishment.
But it may be said that the European brought pesti lence. Undoubtedly he is responsible in a certain degree for its frequent recurrence, but the results of its ravages were apparent when he reached the American shore. In dians never attained that purity and simplicity of living which defies disease, and European intercourse was not necessary to originate it among them. Those contagious and infections diseases, which medical skill has partially placed under its control, and which occasionally visit white communities, are particularly severe upon our Indian race. During the year eighteen hundred and seventy- three one-ninth of the Santee Sioux of Nebraska died of small pox. That contagion swept away great num bers in eighteen hundred and thirty-two. It will never be known how serious have been the consequences of commu nicated maladies, or pestilence in its varied forms, to the aborigines ; but that they have been sufficient to prevent much increase in population, or to periodically cut off in creased population, can be believed. The plagues of Europe appeared to have almost depopulated sections of
HAS OUR INDIAN- POPULATION DECREASED ? 33
country. Towns and cities were scourged, until the re maining inhabitants seemingly constituted but a small fraction of former numbers ; yet a few years of ordinary health and prosperity restored the wasted strength, and brought society to the condition attained before it was visited by malignant disease. So with our native stock ; pestilence has sought it, and destroyed the accumulated increase of favorable periods. A few strong nations are brought low, while others escape, and in a short time the united population is found to vary little from that of a preceding century.
Another supposed cause of Indian numerical decrease is war. As a rule, distinct races of men, when brought in contact, contend for the possession of territory. Antipa thies of race add energy and cruelty to hostilities, which continue until terminated by the submission, removal, or extinction, of one or the other of the combatants.
Impressed with this fact, which universal history sup ports, and which the philanthropist ascribes to the moral weakness, depravity, or degeneracy of humanity, and not to natural law, we think of the poor Indian as forcibly driven from his home through great tribulations and slaughter, and bemoaning in his present exile, departed glory and past importance. Or, remembering the un christian contention of the Christian colonies settled within the land, and the base uses which they made of Indians as allies, we are prepared to believe, upon slight investigation, that great destruction of Indian life ensued. We forget, that before the European undertook the task of native subjection, or before he attempted to give direc tion to the impulse of savage passion, the Indian nations were engaged against each other in open, relentless wars. — Irving, in speaking of the traditions concerning the con tests between the Sioux and Cheyennes, remarks, that " there appears to be a tendency to extinction among all 2*
34 HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ?
the savage nations, and this tendency was in operation long before the advent of the white man." Iroquois and Huron, Mohawk and Mohegan, Choctaw and Chickasaw, Pawnee and Crow, Chippewa and Sioux, were arrayed against each other in uncompromising hostility. Tribes were constantly provoking each other's enmity, and severing the rude national organizations.
New combinations or affiliations were continually being made, and small bands were being scattered never to be re-collected. The entire population, uncivilized, unsettled, and divided against itself, expended its surplus energy in violation of moral law, in deeds of atrocity and blood. At the approach of the European, it was necessary to com bine. As he slowly but steadily advanced from the ocean shore toward the interior, firmly grasping in his progress the hereditary possessions of the Indians, the latter were obliged to force him to retreat, or else to retire before him. The situation compelled a healing of long nourished ani- mesities, in order that they might unite for the struggle. "The advent of the white man" therefore, arrested ''the tendency to extinction," which was in operation before his arrival.
What now, we ask, was the result of this struggle upon Indian population ? Did it produce a greater reduction than the natural increase would be likely to supply ? Or, to give a broader signification to the question, we will ask whether or not the battles between the whites and Indians, and the battles between the opposing colonists in which Indian aid was employed, materially reduced our native population ? The question admits of considerable discus sion, because of the dearth of accounts, or rather positive, historical statement. We will refer to particular instances, in order to show how erroneous prevailing opinions are, in regard to the destruction of Indian life consequent upon European interference, The Cherokee nation for instance.
HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ? 35
is understood to have received fearful punishment at the hands of the whites, upon three different occasions : — in seventeen hundred and sixty-one, in seventeen hundred and seventy-nine and in seventeen hundred and eighty. The injuries received in seventeen hundred and sixty-one are generally stated to have been an overwhelming defeat, the destruction of the middle settlement, and the wasting of the country to such an extent that the nation sued for peace, which it obtained by the ratification of a treaty. Loss of life must have been slight, or the speedy recupera tion which followed would have been impossible. In the engagements of seventeen hundred seventy-eight and nine, the Cherokee loss is thus stated, in a communication writ ten by Jefferson addressed to Gen. Washington : " The damage done them was killing half a dozen, burning eleven towns, twenty thousand bushels of corn, and taking so many goods as sold for twenty-five thousand pounds." Referring to the last mentioned punishment, Jefferson thus describes i;t in a letter dated February 17th, 1781 : "The militia of this State and North Carolina penetrated into the Cherokee country, burned almost every town they had, amounting to about one thousand houses in the whole, destroyed fifty thousand bushels of grain, killed twenty- nine and took seventeen prisoners." From these reports it appears that the Cherokees lost but thirty-five of their peo ple in two invasions which devastated their country.
In seventeen hundred and seventy-nine, General Sulli van, in command of a body of troops numbering four thou sand, undertook to chastise the Six Nations of New York. He was but slightly resisted at Chemung and Newton and found their villages deserted. After destroying their abodes, their fruit orchards and stores of grain, he retreated.
Here were two powerful and warlike nations, which could not be forced into regular engagements when even their country was invaded, and houses destroyed ; but after
36 HAS OUR IXDIAST POPULATION DECREASED ?
the manner of Indians, they retired at the approach of armed bodies, ready doubtless to strike, when they thought success might be obtained without much danger to them selves.
But how did the French and English allies conduct themselves, and did they make attacks or resist those of the enemy, in honorable warfare ? Montcalm's Indians were useful when concealed by timber, or rude breast works, and they delighted to slaughter a conquered and unarmed foe. Sir William Johnston with his thousand Iroquois, might have furnished substantial aid to Amherst, in the progress of his march to Montreal, had he sooner joined him, but could do little after that city was invested. The French, who controlled the entire native population of the North and West, except the Six Nations of New York, strengthened the small garrison at Fort Du Quesne with a large body of Indians, who deserted at the approach of the English, and without waiting to contest the position. Upon the capture of the fort, the Indians, from the lakes to the Ohio, transferred allegiance to the British crown. In seventeen hundred and fifty-nine, the French garrison at Niagara, deserted by its Indian allies, found itself too weak to make resistance, and was obliged to capitulate.
Such instances might be multiplied ; but the foregoing recitals sufficiently illustrate the peculiarities of Indian warfare, and direct attention to the fact which is intended to be presented, namely that our engagements with Indians have not materially reduced them. In the long desultory war between the New England colonies, and the French of Canada, and their native allies, which continued from sixteen hundred and eighty-nine, until seventeen hundred and twenty-six, with only the temporary suspensions pro duced by the treaties of Eyswick and Utrecht, very few Indians were slain, though many white people were butch ered. The French sent small expeditions, consisting of
HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ? 37
not more than five hundred men into the heart of the Iro- quois country, and compelled declaration of future peace ; but those Indians characterized as that perfidious " people from whose promises we have nothing to expect but murder and treason," broke faith upon the withdrawal of force, and renewed allegiance upon a new invasion. In sixteen hundred and eighty-eight, eight hundred Seneca warriors, "skillful in the use of the gun, and all well armed," as sisted by the Governor of New York, attempted to drive off a French force which had landed on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, and although they are reported as having fought valorously, appear to have been easily scattered without suffering sufficient loss to make the battle memora ble. The former influence and advancement of the ex tinct Natchez nation, was glowingly described by early travelers, and its fame was spread abroad throughout Europe. Montesquieu thus speaks of its customs in his Spirit of Laws : — " Their chief disposes of the goods of all his subjects, and obliges them to work and toil accord ing to his pleasure. He has power like that of the Grand Signior, and they cannot even refuse him their heads. One would imagine that this is the great Sesostris." The destruction of such an important nation by war, would furnish support to an argument that the whites caused great loss of life among the native race. But when the position and relations of this Natchez band dignified by the name of nation, to surrounding Indians is considered, its importance dwindles into insignificance. It was destroyed, but few of its people were killed. They were scattered, and sought asylums with other nations, with which they remained. Their misfortunes were not the result of open determined hostilities on their part. They were surprised by the French and Choctaws, and defeated before they could prepare for resistance, and like the Tuscaroras in Carolina, they were unable to escape their fate.
38 HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ?
Our national expeditions against Indians, from the foundation of the Government to the present day, have not resulted in serious Indian casualties, except in two or three instances. Such a statement appears rash, in view of the fact, that during the first six years of our national existence, the western frontier was in a state of constant alarm ; and more than ten millions of dollars were expended in at tempts to conquer a peace. The victories of Wayne led to an a'djustment of difficulties, but did not put an end to the labors of foreign emissaries, who, as President Adams intimates in one of his messages to Congress, were engaged in attempts to excite the native population to continued hostilities. Their labor finally ceased some time after the ratification of the treaty of Grenville, and an almost unin terrupted quiet was maintained until eighteen hundred and twelve. President Jefferson, in his first message, speaks of the improved condition of the Indians, and their increasing numbers ; and in his third message, he is pleased to call attention to their advancement in civiliza tion. The war of eighteen hundred and twelve again brought the Indians in opposition to the federal armies. Great Britain, says President Madison, turned the savages against us in every possible quarter. While the policy of the United States invariably recommended "and pro moted civilization among that wretched portion of the hu man race, and was making exertions to persuade them from taking either side in the war, the enemy has not scrupled to call to his aid their ruthless ferocity, armed with the horrors of those instruments of torture which are known to spare neither age nor sex." The war was of short duration. The ninth article of the treaty of eigh teen hundred and fourteen, between Great Britain and the United States, restored the Indians to all the posses sions, rights and privileges which they enjoyed, or were entitled to, in the year eighteen hundred and eleven.
HAS OTJE INDIAN" POPULATION DECREASED ? 39
Those in the Northwest probably suffered more from star vation, after they were abandoned by Great Britain, than during the war, from the bullet of the enemy.
Since eighteen hundred and twelve, the Black-Hawk and Seminole wars, among our Indian disturbances, alone seem vested with importance. The latter, prosecuted for seven years at a reported expense of thirty million of dol lars, is said to have reduced the Seminole population from five thousand to three hundred. The most reliable ac counts, however, seem to place the number of the Semi nole warriors, at the breaking out of that war, at about seven hundred, of whom a considerable portion were escaped African slaves. The three hundred supposed to have remained, have increased to twenty-four hundred, as present statistics show — an increase too rapid to be easily comprehended.
The Indian loss in battle with the whites, since seven teen hundred and eighty-nine, might fairly be placed at about six thousand — certainly not above eight thousand. Both Harmer and St. Glair were defeated and routed at a cost, to the Indians engaged, of not more than two hun dred men. Their defeat by Wayne could not have taken from them more than three or four hundred warriors, even if one-fifth of their fighting force fell. Still our Indian engagements have produced sufficient political excitement to make and unmake Presidents, and have governed popu lar favor, to a certain extent, in the bestowal of its praises. "Who killed Tecumseh?" It is as difficult to make in telligent reply to the inquiry, as to ascertain whether or not Generals Coffee and Jackson destroyed in battle one thousand of the Creek nation.
Our expeditions have, for the most part, been either unsuccessful, or have terminated without the accomplish ment of desired results. The difficulty has not been found to exist in the incapacity of the white man to cope with
40 HAS OUR INDIAN" POPULATION DECREASED ?
this opponent, when brought face to face, but in his in ability to force the latter to openly contend with him. Indians cannot be driven into engagements, unless they are able to overwhelm the enemy by numbers, or to main tain great advantage by reason of concealed or covered positions ; and then only when a safe retreat is possible. If surrounded, they can make desperate defence to avoid death or captivity. The natural instinct of self-preserva tion will, in such an event, give them the courage of de spair. Yet they are not wanting in individual bravery.
It is their inability to cement force, and to unite in that concert of action, wherein the constituent parts are supported and propelled by each other, that renders them powerless before a well organized and well disciplined foe. Their past success has been mainly due to their cunning and deceit. They depend for conquest upon treachery and surprise. Their butcheries at Montreal, in New Eng land, New York, Virginia, Carolina, on the Mississippi, and more recently in our central States, and in the North west, all alike seem to show that they possess these iniqui tous qualities, and in so remarkable a degree, that they might almost be considered characteristics of their race. In the exercise of these qualities the European has not shown himself a match for the native. He has seldom been able to anticipate him in fraud, or to detect him, until after the injury contemplated was received. He has generally found him an enemy, who disappeared the moment a blow was struck, and who was ever present when vigilance was allowed to sleep. The former hath slain his thousands, but the latter his ten thousands. Such has thus far been the result of the long contest between these antagonists.
The subject of past population admits of another method of consideration. If the strength of distinct Indian nations at different periods can be ascertained, or
HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ? 41
to present the matter in its most simple form, if we can determine approximately the strength of certain nations at the time when our earliest information regarding them was obtained, and at the present day, we can decide with a considerable degree of accuracy, the effect which European communication has produced. In following an individual people with such an object in view, it will be necessary in some instances, to search for scattered bands, broken from what we know as the original organization ; also to seek out persons who have united with kindred or alien tribes, either from accident, marriage, or from other causes.
Take as an example the Delaware nation, which is sup posed by many to have been once great and powerful. It has been in direct contact with the Europeans and their descendants for the last two hundred and fifty years. It has always occupied the border of civilization, and retired slowly before its advance. It is the nation which first ex perienced the Quaker Indian policy of government, and to which William Penn announced the truth of the unity of man. With it, the colonies made many treaties, and our statute books record nineteen, which the several senates have duly ratified and confirmed. To it " Ministers Plenipotentiary " were sent nearly a century ago, to enter into "a treaty of alliance offensive and defensive," and it was counseled to unite its energies, become the head of a great confederacy, and demand representation in Congress. These ministers made promises which would now be con sidered very difficult to fulfill. They promised to open a brisk trade with the Delawares, and to furnish them with " an intelligent, candid agent, with an adequate salary ; one more influenced by the love of his country, and a con stant attention to the duties of his department by promo ting the common interest, than the sinister purposes of converting and bending all the duties of his office to his private emolument. " The agent was found and forwarded,
42 HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ?
but how long, through personal suffering, and vicarious sacrifice, he maintained his position, is unknown.
Now, what was the condition and strength of the Delawares, and what section of country did they occupy, when first known to the whites ? They roamed over New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. They had been con quered by the Iroquois and remained tributary to them. Their strength could not therefore have been above three or four thousand, and as their national organization had been sundered, the bonds which held them together had been weakened, and the work of disintegration, ever since active among them, was even then in progress. For sixty years before the arrival of Penn, the English. Dutch and Swedes had been trading with them, and undoubtedly wrought demoralization. The coming of the Friends pushed them back to the Susquehanna, and subsequently they retired beyond the Alleghanies to the head waters of the Ohio. They became the allies of the French, and took an active part in the long continued border warfare, which was terminated by the treaty of Paris in seventeen hundred and sixty-three. At this date Sir William Johnston re ports the number of their warriors at six hundred. They served the English in the Revolutionary war, and after its termination made peace with the United States and settled in Ohio. From thence they were removed to Missouri, thence to Kansas, thence to the Cherokee country, where they still remain. Those of them occupying the reserva tion in the Indian Territory number, at the present time, a little more than one thousand.
This people therefore seem, upon casual examination, to have experienced a loss of population in two and one- half centuries, of from fifty to seventy-five per cent ; but when we look carefully into their history we shall dis cover, that a large portion of the loss has either been absorbed by the white race, or has served to increase the
HAS OUR INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ? 43
strength of other Indian nations. In their movements to the west they travelled in straggling bands, and some of their population remained permanently behind. Penn? sylvania has a few representatives, known and denominated as Indians, and also a few inhabitants slightly tinged with the blood of the native. Many of the Delawares. through the labors of Moravian missionaries, became Christians, and separated themselves from their heathen brethren. Some of the latter joined the hostile Indians to the north and west, and others wandered to distant portions of the country. As early as seventeen hundred and ninety- three, a small band had passed beyond the Mississippi, and obtained permission of the Spanish Governor to occupy territory. Under the treaty of eighteen hundred and eigh teen, by which the Delawares agreed to enter Missouri, only a portion left the State of Ohio ; the remnant re mained until eighteen hundred and thirty. Under stipu lation of more recent treaties, the United States has offered them citizenship, and given them lands in severalty. These constant changes of place, joined to the influences which have been brought to bear upon this nation, have scattered it far and wide. Its people may be found on the Susque- hanna River, and in Central Texas. It is but a few years since the government endeavored to induce two or three hundred of them to sever their connection with the Southern Indians, and join their relations in Kansas. They may now be found with the Kiowas and Comanches, and can recite the traditions of their ancestors, who came from the shore of the great ocean of the East. The nation has nearly disappeared, but the descendants of its former representatives are numerous.
The Delawares have been selected to illustrate the sub ject under discussion, because they are commonly referred to as well nigh extinct, by those who endeavor to maintain the theory, that our former Indian population has been
44 HAS OUE INDIAN POPULATION" DECREASED ?
rapidly disappearing. We wish now to make a brief state ment in regard to other nations which are still compara tively numerous, in order to show that they have increased with as much rapidity as the smaller nations have declined. The Cherokees, for instance, number more than thirty thousand, and eighteen thousand of them are living upon their reservation in the Indian Territory. In eighteen hundred and twenty-seven, the statistics of the War De partment placed their numbers at thirteen thousand five hundred and sixty-seven. They have probably doubled their population within the past century. The Creeks, Choctaws and Chickasaws have also largely increased, but not in an equal ratio. The Ottawas and Chippewas number more than twenty thousand, while the Six Nations of New York seem to have neither increased nor diminished in population since first known. There are nearly seven thousand of them within the United States, and probably from three to five thousand within the Dominion of Canada, all living within the tribal relation. A few have withdrawn from their people, and are pursuing their interests in the paths of civilized life.
Should each particular Indian nation of the United States be traced in its movements, from the time it was first known to the Europeans to the present day ; should its decrease by sickness and famine be carefully weighed and estimated ; should its casualties in the conflicts with the white intruder be reasonably determined, and its natu ral increase properly considered, the investigation would lead to the conclusion, that loss in population in particular instances, is balanced by a corresponding gain among the more important Indian organizations.
As already stated, many of the feebler nations have declined, while the majority of those which were strong have received accessions and increased. The total of the present native population differs little numerically, from
HAS OUK INDIAN POPULATION DECREASED ? 45
that which existed when the whites began their first en croachments.
We have been forced to this belief by an examination of authorities, and a consideration of attendant circumstan ces. It may be carried to an erroneous extent, but if it is conceded that the Indians, instead of wasting away before a vigorous practical civilization, in some mysterious man ner, have only been affected by direct physical causes, which have not been sufficient to produce a remarkable diminution in numbers, our chief purpose in this chapter will be attained. We merely wished to point out the fact, which the events of the past conclusively establish, that the Indians are not likely to soon decay and disappear from our midst, but are destined to remain with us for many future generations. The existence of the former Eastern nations, in increased numbers, after their experience with the white man during two hundred and forty years, makes that fact too plain for contradiction.
How are the United States affected by this peculiar race ? Evidently, a long continued care and control, on the part of the general government, must be expected. What the nature and extent of the supervision should be, seems to be now as little understood as it was fifty years ago. The opinions of eminent men upon this subject vary wildly. The great Indian problem is not yet solved. Its difficulties are as puzzling as ever. Past experience fur nishes no definite rule to guide future conduct. It is therefore unsatisfactory, or new combinations of circum stances have arisen which require different action. We intend to glance at the past and shall attempt to discover some of its teachings. We shall endeavor to ascertain why former and existing methods have not produced desired results, and why the Indian cannot be speedily brought into .the path of civilization, and into the marvelous light of Christianity.
CHAPTER II.
COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY.
NATIONAL legislation reflects the condition and senti ments of a people. Laws prescribed by kingly decree, or enacted by popular assemblage, alike indicate the limit of intellectual and political advancement which a nation has reached. But it is when we study the foreign policy of a government that we ascertain with certainty the extent of its true development in morality and Christian civiliza tion ; for we find embraced therein its knowledge of na tural law, and can discover in many instances how far selfish interest is controlled by a sense of justice in the determination of positive human right.
The policy pursued by European governments towards the aborigines of the American continent, furnishes a very faithful representation of European opinion, concerning responsibilities under the law of nature, as applicable to national action. It shows how that law was understood. Its frequent modifications mark in a certain degree the rapid advancement of Europe, in a knowledge of the cor rect relation of prerogative and privilege, and an under standing of those absolute rights which belong to every individual of the human race of whatever name or tongue.
The Spaniards began their conquests and colonization in the new world at too early a period. Then the will of God directed the destruction of idolaters and barbarians, unless they submitted at once to Christian dictation. The teachings of Peter the Hermit and St. Bernard were not yet forgotten. The Vicegerent of Christ gave to Spain
COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY. 4?
and Portugal all the heathen for an inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for possessions. To them, the Indians were but property to be used and expended as public and private gain. The best educated opinion of the Christian world permitted the enslavement and wan ton destruction of the Indian race. The latter had no rights nor immunities which received recognition, and the ologians recommended slavery as necessary to conversion. The maxim of Las Casas that " God forbids us to do evil that good may come of it," was still a meaningless precept.
Neither were France and England one whit in advance. The commission from Henry the Seventh to the Cabots, by which they were authorized to seek out and occupy the countries of the heathen and infidels, is prepared in the spirit which moved the Spanish Knight, when he took for mal possession of the Pacific Coast and the islands therein, and all the lands embracing it, in the names of the Cas- tilian sovereigns " whose it was and should be, as long as the world endures, and until the final day of judgment of all mankind."
A single century wrought a great change. Absolute monarchy, built upon the power wrested from the feudal lords, had been compelled to limit its pretensions. Society had made intellectual progress, and was morally improved. As it expended its physical force in the cause of individual freedom, its mental powers were employed in an endeavor to determine the absolute and relative rights of man. The elements of society were analyzed, the duties arising from the condition of citizen discussed, and the ultimate sources of positive law beginning to be ascertained.
But not yet was individual liberty understood. The divine prerogative of kings was only giving way before the tyranny of majorities. Superstition and the spirit of intolerance were not yet overcome. Still an energetic pro gressive religion and a practical advancing intelligence,
48 COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY.
were earnestly at work, and even while the elder Winthrop declared that " Majistracy is certainly an appointment from God," Eoger Williams announced a new theory of govern ment. In things temporal, said Williams, the voice of the majority must rule, but in things spiritual, we are respon sible only to God. For the Indians, Williams claimed the same freedom of action that Europeans enjoyed. They were the original proprietors of the soil, and were at liberty to retain or dispose of their possessions, notwithstanding the meaning and intent of royal charters.
Williams, however, heralded a political doctrine which was not comprehended until a later generation, although society was fast becoming prepared for its partial reception. Yet at the commencement of successful colonization upon our Eastern coast, European sentiment had so far advanced as to recognize the aborigines as a portion of the human family, and as such, within the pale of that great law of nature which was then being discussed. Pretexts were found to excuse invasion, appropriation, and settlement of country. The Protestant based his conduct upon the natural right of the oppressed to seek a home where the worship of God could be enjoyed without persecution ; or in the demand of an overcrowded home population ; or in the expressed wish of extending the benefits of civilization. The Roman Catholic justified his encroachments by plead ing that he sought conversion of the heathen to the true religion. The English confessedly came to improve their worldly condition ; the French, for the eternal welfare of their newly found brethren. The action of the respective governments seemingly supported these pretensions, for while England made no effort to improve the native, Louis the Thirteenth directed by charter, that strong en deavors should be made for his conversion and civilization, and expended the royal revenue in that laudable work.
But although the enlightened opinion of that day main-
COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY. 49
tained that certain rights and privileges belonged to the Indian race, they were not considered to be of sufficient importance to receive recognition on the part of European governments, when determining the questions which arose in regard to the extent of their American possessions. As between those governments, conceded discovery, followed by occupation, gave indisputable title to country and ex clusive control of the Indian population which inhab ited it.
This principle was early established ; but when it was sought to be applied, the question of extent of country which priority of discovery and coast occupation carried with it, could not be pacifically determined, and gave rise to the wars which followed. France beyond the St. Law rence, Spain in the Floridas, and England between the mouth of the Kennebeck River and the thirty-third degree of latitude, were at liberty to act towards the Indian tribes and nations within those respective limits as pleased them.
The course pursued by France and Spain need not be referred to. It is only necessary to examine the action of Great Britain towards the Indians, and the conditions she imposed upon them ; for the policy which she and her colonies inaugurated and developed, was, in all its essential features, adopted by our own government.
The political status which she fixed remains unchanged to the present time. A recent Supreme Court decision, defining the estate of the Menomonees in the land which they occupy, would have been rendered by a court of the colonial days upon a like presentation of facts, because then, as one of the royal governors reported, " purchases from the Indian nations, as of their aboriginal right, have never been held to be a legal title in this province ; the maxim obtaining here as in England, that the King is the fountain of all real property, and that from this source all 3
50 COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY.
real titles are to be derived:" and Chief Justice Marshall said in one of his earlier decisions, that the United States gained title by conquest, and " conquest gives a title which the courts of the conqueror cannot deny, whatever the private and speculative opinions of individuals may be."
As this government adhered to the English common law, so did it perpetuate the English Indian policy, which it has extended by congressional act over all the territory since acquired, whether by conquest or by purchase. In fact, the Indian population was unconditionally transferred with the land which it occupied, except in a single in stance, and the exception may be found in the treaty of eighteen hundred and three under which Louisiana was obtained. Its sixth article stipulated, that the United States " should execute such treaties and articles as may have been agreed between Spain and the tribes and nations of Indians, until by mutual consent of the Indians and the United States, other suitable articles shall have been agreed upon."
It is true that in some of our treaties with foreign powers, the contracting parties stipulated to permit mu tual trade between their citizens and the Indian popula tion inhabiting the territorial borders, and that that popu lation might freely pass and repass the boundary-line with their peltries and ordinary goods without the payment of duty. It is true, that in our treaties of 1848 and 1853 with Mexico, we promised to protect the Mexican border from the incursions of the Indian tribes, and agreed not to place them in such parts of the new territory as would allow them to prey upon or remove into Mexico. Still, nothing can be found in any treaty, with the single excep tion above given, which binds this government to recog nize the Indians as political or organized communities, or which compels it to follow any particular course of treat ment, or administer on their behalf any prescribed code of
COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY. 51
laws. In our first treaty of peace with Great Britain, by which the latter yielded all claims to the country as far as the Mississippi River, not a single stipulation appears in regard to the aboriginal inhabitants, and when they were received they were considered to be in the same situation, as far as their legal status was concerned, as the nation by which they were surrendered, had placed them.
In order therefore to arrive at a correct knowledge of the Indian policy adopted and pursued by the general government, and to understand fully how that policy was developed, it is necessary to glance at the action of the colonies, and also at the action of the several states after the declaration of rights and during confederation. It will be perceived that it was the result of circumstances, and naturally grew out of the relation of the two races upon the coast.
In the beginning of the l?th century, the country claimed by Great Britain on the American continent, was considered crown land, and the natives inhabiting it were recognized as the lawful occupants of the soil, whose right of possession might be extinguished by purchase.
The charters under which settlements were first suc cessfully made, were construed as vesting in the grantees the estate which the crown possessed in the lands therein conveyed, and the exclusive right to secure by purchase the Indian rights of occupancy. They also impliedly transfer red to the grantees sole control of the native population dwelling within their respective grants, and allowed them to fix upon it by practice and law, such regulations as they deemed desirable — the parent government only demand ing that such action on the part of the colonies should be dictated by kindness and moderation. The colonies were weak and the native tribes surrounding them were, by comparison, numerically strong. In the intercourse which followed, the latter compelled the former to recognize their
52 COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY.
rude political organizations, and to make treaties of amity, and leagues offensive and defensive, with their chiefs and principal men, in accordance with native custom. Thus, these tribes were looked upon as quasi free and independ ent communities, with full control of their internal affairs. Because of their strength and repeatedly threatened con cert of action, it became of the first importance to the colonies, that friendly relations with them should be main tained ; and, as a measure of safety, the people allowed their general councils and assemblies to exercise supervis ion in matters in which they and the Indians were mutu ally concerned. Laws were enacted placing trade with the Indians under restrictions, and confining it to citizens re siding within the jurisdiction of the colonies which re spectively created those laws. Private parties could only make purchase of Indian lands under express statute, or by special executive permission, and treaties under which pos session of tracts of country were relinquished were often times made.
In all the colonies Indian intercourse laws were passed, which received amendment as abuses were perceived which required correction. In some, the system of confining trade to agents legally licensed was inaugurated, while in others, legitimate traffic was confined within certain limits.
As early as sixteen hundred and seventeen, Virginia had her intercourse law, which forbade any person to traffic privately with the Indians, or teach them the use of fire-arms, under pain of death. But this law was without its counterpart in the severity of the penalties which it im posed, and was made before Virginia had obtained her first legislative assembly. The following passed by the General Council of Martha's Vineyard in sixteen hundred and seventy-two, is more in consonance with the better popular sentiment of those early times, and shows what the evils were which required correction :
COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY. 53
" Ordered, that if any person shall be accused by any, either Indian or any other person whatsoever, to have sold or furnished any Indian with wine, liquor or strong drink, he shall purge himself by oath, or shall pay for such offense after the rate of five shillings per pint for every quantity so sold.
" Ordered, that no person whatsoever, not inhabiting within this jurisdiction, shall directly or indirectly, either by himself or any ore, trade with any Indian or Indians, within this jurisdiction, on penalty of paying forty pounds for twenty shillings trade."
""The Georgia Company published an intercourse law upon its first attempt at settlement, and allowed only those of its people to traffic with the Indians, who should law fully obtain license, and in most of the colonies, strong efforts were made to prevent private or indiscriminate trade between the white and the native population.
Generally the act of extinguishing the Indian land title was discharged by the highest colonial authority, and was commonly effected by purchase under treaty. Lord Baltimore, the Rhode Island immigrants, Penn and Ogle- thorpe purchased before settlement was undertaken, there by recognizing in their first transactions the native right of possession. As early as sixteen hundred and forty, the Plymouth Colony acquired a large tract of land from the surrounding tribes, and the treaty under which the acqui sition was made is in expression and character of senti ment remarkably like those which our own government has entered into within the memory of the present genera tion. Even then a reservation was set apart which should become the home of the grantees and should belong to them and their children forever.
In New York, the Dutch not only purchased but for cibly appropriated. To perfect their title to th£ Island of Manhattan, involved an expenditure of twenty-four
54 COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY.
dollars ; but this seems to be an exceptional case of lib erality on their part. The Western Indian Company maintained sole control of the province for a few years, and the business of that corporation was ostensibly con ducted to accumulate money, and not to confer benefits or extend civilization. Afterwards, when trade was thrown open to all the inhabitants, much trouble arose because, as expressed by one of the better citizens, of the familiarity practiced by the whites towards the natives, in order to induce traffic, and because of the unfair means used by private parties to obtain possession of Indian lands. In sixteen hundred and sixty-four, when Carteret conquered the provinces, and also concluded a treaty of peace with the Iroquois at Albany, Indian affairs were in a very loose and unsettled condition. The English Governor intro duced but few regulations, for in sixteen hundred and seventy every man within the province "who desired to trade for furs had liberty to do so," and liberty was also given to the planters to find out and buy lands of the Indians wherever it pleased them best, and purchases so made were subsequently confirmed by grant.
Here as in all of the royal provinces, measures for the pacification, and for the protection of the Indians from the frauds perpetrated by private individuals, were less strin gent than in the colonies. Revenue here became the great object of government, and that course of action was adopted which promised desirable and immediate results. Freedom in trade was finally abridged, and the trader obliged to pay a tariff which was regulated in accordance with the amount of his business. The Governor entered the list of competitors for Indian products, and offered " seven pounds of powder or as much lead as a man could carry, for a beaver." At the same time, the tribes main tained their independence, and the Indian right of pos session to the soil was mostly secured by treaty, and became
COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY. 55
unincumbered government land. The consideration given in the exchange was generally insignificant, and the re ported transactions lead one to infer, that the government matched its citizens in making sharp and profitable bar gains. In sixteen hundred and eighty- three, the Cayugas and Onondagas transferred to the Governor General of New York all their land lying on the Susquehanna River, and received therefor a piece of cloth, two blankets, two guns, three kettles, four coats, fifty pounds of lead, and twenty-five pounds of powder.
The laxity which characterized Indian affairs in New York may be attributed to several causes. It virtually became a royal province upon the termination of Dutch rule, and the new government was more desirous to draw therefrom a large revenue, than to promote the welfare of the inhabitants. The system which had sprung up under the Dutch, and which was the growth of forty years of intercourse, and calculated to produce the most satisfactory results when considered in a pecuniary point of view, was continued with but few modifications, and the Dutch who remained in the province after conquest, maintained former relations with those of the native race with whom they came in contact.
The Iroquois alone of all the neighboring Indian na tions, were sufficient in strength to cause serious apprehen sion in the event of hostilities, and they adhered to the Dutch, and subsequently to the English interest, and opposed French encroachments within their territory. Only two of the tribes, the Cayugas and Senecas, could, during the seventeenth century, be induced to assume the condition of neutrality in the continued contests of the whites ; but steadily remained the enemies of the French, although sometimes compelled to sue for peace.
About the middle of the eighteenth century, the French, despairing of success in the attempts to forcibly
56 COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY.
reduce the Six Nations to a situation of permanent sub mission, endeavored to divide them, and the Abbe Picquet was sent to accomplish the task. He succeeded in draw ing off some three or four hundred families, the heads of which took the oath of allegiance at Montreal ; but the majority of the Six Nations continued to be the friends of the English, until the termination of our Revolutionary War. These Indians therefore, who were at war with the French, and were the deadly foes of the Hurons and their Canadian allies, were not likely to break with the Dutch or English, to whom they looked for aid in case of north ern invasion. It was not as necessary then, that this province should so completely supervise, or carefully re strict trade and intercourse between its Indians and citi zens, as it was for Massachusetts, Connecticut, or Penn sylvania.
Yet even in New York our national Indian treatment is foreshadowed. The almost yearly grand councils at its capital, between the Governor and the distinguished Sachems, when the covenant chain was brightened and former promises renewed, was oftentimes attended by sale of territory, and by arrangements for continued trade. Then, the tribal organization was recognized, and the tribes were bound by the action of their chiefs. In the treaties of amity and alliance, the Governor promised to assist them against the French ; and in sixteen hundred and eighty-five, Louis the Fourteenth complained to the English King that the Governor of New York had offered troops to the Iroquois.
In fact the Six Nations possessed about the same attri butes of sovereignty which have until very recently been conceded to the separate Indian bands of our time. They were free to live in accordance with their custom and independently control themselves, and they were also at liberty to adopt such a policy towards all Europeans as
COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY. 57
best suited themselves, provided it did not prejudice the English claim. They had not to be sure as complete powers as were ascribed to the New England nations by the Governor-General of Canada, shortly after the pub lication of the treaty of Utrecht ; for then in response to remonstrances from the Colonies, he asserted that those nations were free and independent, and made war or peace at their pleasure. But they were considered to possess that freedom which released them from responsibility to the provincial law, unless bound by treaty stipulations, except that they could not dispose of the government's reversion ary interest in the land in which they had the right of permanent occupancy, and could not inflict injury upon the king's subjects. The individual members of those nations held the same anomalous legal status that the members of the Western tribes now hold. They were neither citizens, nor aliens ; neither subjects, nor rulers ; neither slaves, nor freemen.
The time extending from the first permanently es tablished settlement on our coast, to the declaration of independence on the part of the colonies in seventeen hundred and seventy-six, may for present purposes be divided into three periods. The first, commencing about sixteen hundred and seven, when the English planted Jamestown and the French Port Royal and Quebec, and ending in sixteen hundred and eighty-six when King James abrogated the New England charter, the second terminating with the treaty of Paris in seventeen hundred and sixty-three, and the third continuing through the thirteen subsequent years.
In the foregoing hasty review, sufficient reference has been made to the earliest colonial days to ascertain what political condition was first imposed upon the Indian race, and to show that it was the natural result of attendant circumstances. In attempting to discover whether this 3*
58 COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY.
peculiar legal status was general, we have casually referred to more recent action on the part of some of the colonies, and have instanced the conduct of Georgia, which was established after the New England charter was annulled.
But we wish now to briefly allude to the situation occupied by the Indian nations, and the important part which they took during the long struggle between the European powers for continental supremacy and American territory, which actively began in this country at the close of the seventeenth century, and only actually terminated on the cession to Great Britain of New France and the Floridas.
Soon after the accession of James the Second, it was determined to place New England under a single royal Governor, and Sir Edmund Andros became its " Captain General and Vice Admiral." In sixteen hundred and eighty-eight it was considered necessary to place New York and the Jerseys under the administration of Andros, in order to unite the colonies against France, which had made threatening demonstrations along the whole northern borders, and taken possession of Lake Champlain. Under this new arrangement the Indian nations maintained their distinctive organizations, with the same exclusive privilege of control, but they were brought in closer relations with Great Britain, whose king they commenced to consider their real protector and ally. The destruction of the new government and the imprisonment of Andros, was suc ceeded after a short interval, by royal Governors in the separate provinces, and the relations of the Indians to the home authority continued.
The Indian nations have now become most important communities, and their alliance is anxiously sought for by the representatives of the European powers. The French Governor, through the missionaries of the Church, is able to influence the greater portion of them ; and by skillful
COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY. 59
direction, is able, with the small Canadian population and with the slight aid furnished from Europe, to constantly threaten and harass the English colonies.
The Home Government, though anxious for supremacy in America, neglect in their negotiations of peace the in terests of their colonies. The splendid victories of Eugene and of Marlborough, which made glorious the reign of Queen Anne, and gave her ministers the opportunity of determining French control in Canada, brought no relief ; for nothing was demanded from France but Acadie, with its vague and undecided boundaries. The war continued with few interruptions until seventeen hundred and twenty- six, when the honest statesmanship of Sir Robert Walpole, and the pacific policy of Cardinal Fleury, brought quiet to France and England, and enabled her colonies to enjoy a season of repose.
During this war at the North, the Southern colonies also experienced trials ; but more successful in their nego tiations with the Indian population than their Northern brethren, were enabled to conquer a peace and drive off the power of Spain. But both France and England are vigorously pushing their interests in the New World. The latter extends her settlement inland, and in the South, she divides the royal province of Carolina, and undertakes the settlement of Georgia. The former, having transferred her Mobile colony to New Orleans in seventeen hundred and twenty-two, is engaged in perfecting her asserted right to the Mississippi valley, and in strengthening her Canadian frontier.
The English declaration of war against Spain, in seven teen hundred and thirty nine, again brought the North American representatives of the three great European na tions in deadly conflict. France in alliance with, and actively assisted by all of the Indians of Eastern Canada, determined to make the conquest of New England, and
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Spain, having secured the services of the Southern Indians, united them with her regular troops, and resolved to make good her Florida claim ; while Great Britain calculated, not only upon the conquest of Canada and Florida, but upon the expulsion of France from the entire Western con tinent.
Nothing was accomplished by the war, for the treaty of Aix la Chapelle placed the parties in regard to territory in their former condition, and still left boundaries unad justed. France had now extended her settlements up the Mississippi towards the great lakes, and she determined to unite them to her Canadian possession, and consequently to fix the Alleghany range of mountains as Great Britain's boundary, while the latter claimed indefinitely to the west. Canada and Louisiana became a single royal province under the name of New France, and its Governor exercised control from Cape Breton to the mouth of the Mississippi Eiver. He proposed to connect the settlements by a chain of forts, and to exclude the English trade from all that territory.
In seventeen hundred and fifty, the fort at Pittsburgh was established, and the English in that section of country were seized and removed therefrom.
The exorbitant demands of the French Governor were stoutly resisted, but the position of the Indians, and the negotiations favorable to France, into which they had entered, assured him that he could successfully execute his undertaking. New France, with a white population of fifty two thousand, was deemed sufficiently strong to re sist the available strength of the English Colonies, whose inhabitants numbered more than one million. The events of the few subsequent years proved the correctness of this assumption. The Indians along the entire frontier, from Quebec to Georgia, with the exception of the Six Nations of New York and the Cherokees, rendered willing aid to the
COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY. 61
French, and the Cherokees were finally prevailed upon to join the great alliance.
The middle colonies were unahle to act offensively, or indeed to defend their exposed settlements. The results of the great struggle might have been very different, had Great Britain failed to send troops to the assistance of her colonies, or had France been enabled to spare a like num ber to reinforce her Canadian army. But the latter had work for all her forces in Europe. England's prime min ister announced his war policy in the brief expression that " America must be conquered in Germany," and the signal victory at Rosbach presaged the success of the English colonies. Spain joined France too late in the war to en able her to retrieve disaster and soon the treaty of Paris was executed, by which Great Britain obtained undisputed possession of all that territory extending from the coast to the Mississippi River, and from the Gulf of Mexico to the extreme Northern limit of the continent.
In all of these contests the Indians were active partici pants. Their barbarous warfare against the defenceless, and the savage cruelties which they invariably practiced, embittered the animosities of opposing colonies and prov inces. For a century they held the balance of power, and interest dictated that all possible efforts should be made to secure their alliance and friendship. Both England and France were ready at any time to forgive past injuries and enter into league with any portion of them. Their de mands were granted if practicable, and their vanity was gratified in being ostensibly treated as free and independent nations, which gave and received at their option, and the actions of which were alone controlled by their national promises.
From the commencement of intercourse between the white and Indian races, to the termination of the French and English war, the Indians occupied, first the position
62 COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY.
of hostility to the European, and secondly, that of allies to one or the other of the contending European powers. In either position, they were able to obtain many conces sions, and generally to retain their freedom, customs and organizations. Their employment was fighting, as it will always be as long as they remain within uncivilized tribal relations, in which individual reputation or importance depends upon deeds of cruelty. They retarded immigra tion, impeded colonization, prolonged colonial contests, and apparently checked American growth and development. It is possible that they signally checked development ; yet it is difficult to make good such an assertion, when the results which their presence and actions produced are prop erly considered. Their threatening attitude frequently compelled the separate colonies to forget internal dissen sions and to unite for protection. It also at times caused partial confederations of colonies, in which a knowledge of the correct principles of representative government was acquired. In fine, it may be said that their conduct had a most beneficial effect upon their declared enemies, as it assisted to destroy discord among those of the same colony who were influenced by varying interests ; as it taught the people the necessity of maintaining a firm policy, arid of submitting themselves to a rigid code of laws ; as it forced rival colonies into league and friendship, producing an in termingling of communities and an interchange of ideas and sentiments ; as it gave rise to frequent assemblages of representatives of different provinces, in which affairs of general importance were discussed, and unity of action de termined upon ; as it was the cause of bringing into exist ence confederations of equal and distinct political bodies, in which our own system of government was devised and developed.
The New England confederation which was formed in sixteen hundred and forty-three and terminated only with
COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY. 63
the amendment of its charter, took into consideration all those matters which were of common concern, and left the internal affairs of each colony to the management of the colony itself.
It was, says Trumbull, " A union of great consequence. It made the colonies formidable to the Dutch and Indians, and respectable to their French neighbors. It was one of the principal means of the preservation of its colonies during the civil wars of England, the source of mutual defence in King Philip's war, of service in civilizing the Indians, and propagating the gospel among them."
But this union was not only of importance because of its material strength, and its power of defence.
Its general councils were schools for theoretical and practical political instruction. They ascertained and were able to define the relation and responsibility of the indi vidual to his colonial government, and the duties of the respective colonies under the compact. They enlarged the field of political science, and taught the people the elements of civil and constitutional liberty. The existence of such organizations, and the purposes of their formation, almost forces the conclusion that the Indians furnished most important, though unwilling aid, in American growth and development. Had they quietly yielded to the demands of the whites, or neglected to make forcible opposition, it is not unreasonable to suppose that some of the colonies would have been ruined by factious and parti san conduct ; that in some cases, neighboring colonies would have been arrayed against each other to determine questions of property and rule, and that all would have been less successful in maintaining social order, and have made less progress in determining the true principles of constitutional government.
It is interesting to note how these early existing and proposed confederations viewed the whole subject of In-
64 COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY.
dian affairs. "We find that the same general course of treatment was then pursued towards the Indians that our first Congress inaugurated, and that they occupied about the same political relations in respect to colonial authority, that they now do to the United States. In those early days the superior authority assumed control of all Indian affairs ; and if colonies united, that control passed to the confederated authority, and the opinion finally became well nigh universal, that those affairs should be placed un der the supervision and management of a representative body, composed of delegates from the several colonies.
At that assemblage of commissioners in New York in seventeen hundred and fifty-four, in which all the colonies north of Virginia were represented, it was decided to make petition for the passage of an act by Parliament, which would authorize the formation of a Grand Council, consisting of delegates from the several colonial legislatures to be presided over by a President General, who should re ceive appointment from the crown. Among the powers which it was thought proper that this council should ex ercise, was that of regulating Indian matters, and it was proposed "That the President General with the advice of the Grand Council, hold, or direct all Indian treaties in which the general interest of the colonies may be concerned, and make peace, or declare war with Indian nations. That they make such laws as they judge necessary for regulating all Indian trade. That they make all purchases from the Indians for the crown, of lands not now within the bounds of particular colonies, or that shall not be within their bounds when some of them are reduced to more convenient dimensions." That they make settlements on such pur chase by granting "land in the King's name."
In what does the control which the United States Government exercises over the Indian population differ from that which it was thought necessary that this pro-
COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY. 65
posed council should possess ? In nothing of importance, except that the former assumes to regulate the entire In dian population within its boundaries, even that portion living within the limits of organized states.
The short period of thirteen years, during which Great Britain had undisputed possession of the eastern half of this continent, needs but a passing glance. The tribes and nations roaming between the Alleghanies and the Missis sippi, and also those in Canada, entered into treaties of peace with her officers immediately upon the expulsion of the French. The King of England had, in sixteen hundred and seventy- three, issued a proclamation, forbidding Gov ernors in North America to grant lands westward of the sources of the rivers falling into the Atlantic, and the west ern plains and valleys had no white population, except the few French inhabitants who remained after the termina tion of the war. The colonial and proprietary govern ments, had given place to royal provinces, and the Crown took immediate control of its American possessions. The Indian department was organized, and the Indians placed under the supervision of superintendents. Sir William Johnston, superintendent and chief agent, received a sal ary of one thousand pounds, and was assisted by four dep uties, under whose directions smiths and armorers labored to instruct the Indians in the arts of civilized life, and to prepare them to follow peaceful pursuits. Great Britain expended twelve thousand dollars yearly in maintaining what was then termed the Indian Department.
Treaties were occasionally made by which the Indian title to land was extinguished. One of the most important of these was that which was concluded at Fort Stanwix, in seventeen hundred and sixty-eight, between Sir William Johnston, acting as commissioner for Great Britain, and the Five Nations, together with the Shawnees, Delawares, Mingoes of the Ohio, and other dependent tribes. By this
66 COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY.
treaty the territory south of the Ohio River, and that east ward of a line extending from Fort Pitt to the east branch of the Susquehannna River, thence north to Fort Stanwix, was conveyed to Great Britain in consideration of fifty-two thousand dollars, and a number of presents of trifling value.
The course which Great Britain at this time pursued, in recognizing tribal relations and national organizations ; in acquiring by treaty such land as increasing settlements demanded, and quietly removing the Indians to the west ward ; in adopting a system which brought the whole native population under its supervision, and in extending to it the means of instruction in order to induce individ ual and social improvement, is so like the course which this government first adopted as to make it apparent that our early Indian policy was borrowed, or that it was the continuation of the policy which had been developed under British rule.
Upon the commencement of hostilities between Great Britain and the provinces, the Indian nations again be came important communities, and were considered a de sired element of strength in the threatened contest. Their actions were carefully watched by both parties, and their alliance eagerly sought. Great Britain had the advantage in the negotiations which were attempted, because she, from the first, had determined to crush rebellion, and intended to employ every available means for that pur pose ; whereas the Americans, even after the initiative battle in New England, and after the appointment of Washington to the chief military command, had not given up all expectation of reconciliation with the Home Govern ment, and still pursued a vacillating course. Great Britain had already sent her commissioners to the Six Nations of New York, and to the Cherokees and Creeks, and Gov ernor Dunmore of Virginia had dispatched an agent to the tribes upon the Ohio.
COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY. 67
The Continental Congress, undecided as yet as to what treatment should be adopted towards the Indians, finally concluded to station agents among the different nations, in order to conciliate their friendship, and induce them to remain neutral. The action taken under this decision re sulted in entire failure. During the summer of seventeen hundred and seventy-five, the chiefs of the Six Nations met the British authorities at Montreal, and pledged their support. Subsequently, the Creeks and Cherokees joined the alliance, and the latter, in seventeen hundred and seventy-six, put forth their strongest efforts to destroy the border settlements of the Southern States. The Ohio tribes, though favorable to the British interest, were too much divided to accomplish or undertake any important operations.
Congress labored under another difficulty, which even the declared determination to conquer political freedom did not remove. Composed of delegates from governments absolutely independent of each other, and which were only temporarily united for successful resistance, it was confined to the consideration of measures deemed necessary for the common defence.
Indian affairs therefore could remain but a short time under its supervision, and no policy intended to be lasting could be inaugurated. Besides, the several States within their respective limits, claimed to have succeeded to the sovereignty which Great Britain formerly possessed, and the limits of that sovereignty had not been determined. It was enough to know, that, within their united boundaries all territory to the Mississippi was embraced, and that there fore, the entire Indian population was subject to State jurisdiction.
Some of the States early proclaimed this asserted right to govern the Indian population both by legislative acts and by constitutions. They also claimed the fee of the
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lands which the Indians occupied. Virginia declared her title to such lands, and in seventeen hundred and seventy- nine denied the power of the native race to sell any portion of her territory. New York in its constitution of seven teen hundred and seventy-seven, " Ordained that no pur chase or contracts for the sale of land," within the limits of that State, to which Indians were parties, should be binding upon the Indians or deemed valid unless made by the consent of its Legislature. The Articles of Confedera tion signed in seventeen hundred and seventy-eight, recog nized this affirmed right of State government within con ceded State boundaries, and the ninth article of that in strument stipulated, that, " The United States in Con gress assembled, shall also have the sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the trade, and managing all affairs with the Indians not members of any of the States," pro vided that the legislative right of any of the States within its own limits, be not infringed or violated.
But territory of great extent was in dispute. Some of the original charters under which the States claimed, granted all country between certain parallels of latitude from ocean to ocean, or raguely defined the western limits of the grants. The same territory was, in some instances, supposed to be conveyed by different charters, and there fore conflicting State claims arose. Massachusetts, Con necticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia asserted title to lands west of the Alleghany range of mountains. New Hampshire, Ehode Island, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland had nothing upon which to base any such demand ; and the Pennsylvania grant made in sixteen hundred and eighty- one, did not extend beyond the eighty-first degree of longitude.
This question of disputed territory furnished the chief objection to the ratification of the Articles of Confedera-
COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY. 69
tion. New Jersey demanded that United States commis sioners should settle the western boundaries of the States, while Maryland declined to ratify the articles until the western lands were transferred to the general government.
Yet even while these conflicting claims remained unde cided, the United States assumed control of the Indian population beyond the settlements. Within a few months after the Articles of Confederation were agreed upon by Congress, a treaty was made with the Delaware nation by which all territorial rights granted it by former treaties were confirmed. The vexed question of boundaries was however approaching a satisfactory determination. New York, in seventeen hundred and eighty, instructed her congressional delegates to cede her claims to all lands west of such boundary as appeared to them proper, and in the following year Virginia relinquished her interest to the territory north and west of the Ohio. Connecticut and Massachusetts made cession of their western lands in seventeen hundred and eighty-four and five. In seventeen hundred and eighty-seven, seventeen hundred and eighty- nine, and eighteen hundred and two, South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia respectively yielded the land in dispute to which they had laid claim, and the General Government possessed entire unquestioned control of an extended public domain.
After the lands north of the Ohio had been relinquished by the States, Congress passed the Ordinance of seventeen hundred and eighty-seven, under the provisions of which the North-west Territorial Government was created, and which has been a guide in all legislation under which ter ritorial governments have since been established.
In this important ordinance the United States prom ised, that the utmost good faith should be observed towards the Indians, and that their lands and property should never be taken from them without their consent.
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The policy here announced apparently guided the action of Government in all its treaties which it made with Indian nations, before and after the ratification of the Articles of Confederation and subsequent to March, seventeen hundred and eighty-nine, when the constitution became operative.
Those first entered into, in which " Ministers Plenipo tentiary " acted in behalf of the United States, were made to establish peaceful relations between the contracting parties, to efface the memories of injuries inflicted upon each other while the Indians were in alliance with Great Britain, and to determine and declare territorial bounda ries. By the stipulations of those which followed, land was sold, or exchanged, and trade and intercourse were placed within certain regulations.
The Six Nations conveyed their entire interest in the lands situated west of the States of New York and Penn sylvania. The Delawares and confederated nations gave up their claims to all lands near the Pennsylvania line, and accepted instead a large tract within the present State of Ohio. The Cherokees agreed to abridge the limits of their country, maintain a perpetual peace, and live under United States protection. Nearly every important nation dwelling between the State borders and the Mississippi River were brought into negotiations with the General Government and placed under treaty covenants. Mutual aid and support were promised, extradition articles were agreed upon, and a commercial code established ; or to speak with more definiteness, the Indians, in consideration of peace with and the protection of the United States, and in consideration of the promise of the latter to maintain them in the quiet possession of certain tracts of country, and to restrain the whites from entering thereon, and in further consideration of a very small expenditure of money in their behalf, and the opening of trade with them under the management only of persons legally licensed, engaged
COLONIAL INDIAN POLICY. 71
to refrain from hostilities against the people of the United States, and to turn over to the General Government any of their members who should rob or murder any of its citizens.
Such was the tenor of most of the treaties made by the Confederation. It did not have negotiations with Indian nations residing within the conceded limits of a State, further than to establish friendly relations, and to extin guish the Indian title to land outside of acknowledged State boundaries, and to such small tracts within the same as were needed for general purposes. It recognized the Indian nations as distinct and independent political com munities, lawfully possessing the soil because of the right secured by immemorial occupancy, and placed only those restrictions upon them which irresistible necessity com pelled.
They could not convey the fee of the land, nor hold foreign intercourse. In all other respects, they were at liberty to conduct themselves as they pleased and could live under their own barbarous laws and be guided by their customs. Politically, they held the same relation to the Confederation which they at first held to the colonies, and subsequently to Great Britain. The policy which the first civilized governments adopted towards them remained in all essential features unchanged during a period of time embracing nearly two centuries. It was dictated by circumstances. A continuance of like circum stances prolonged and developed it, and made it the only feasible practical policy which could be followed. It was conciliatory, and at the same time economical, and was best calculated to check savage violence, and give at the least expense possession of the coveted hunting grounds.
While its main features remained unchanged, slight modifications were occasionally introduced for the purpose of removing causes of complaint — the principal of which were overreaching individual action on the part of the
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whites — and during the existence of the Confederation, in dividual intercourse between citizens and Indians were placed under most stringent legal restraint. The policy as thus developed, was in favor when our constitution was adopted, and received recognition in that instrument.
CHAPTER III.
INDIAN POLICY OF UNITED STATES GOVERN MENT.
THE Confederation had performed a great amount of labor in the settlement of State boundaries, in the extin guishment of Indian land title, and in the establishment of treaty relations with the Indian nations.
All State boundaries were satisfactorily adjusted, with the exceptions of North Carolina and Georgia. The In dian title to more than one hundred millions of acres had been purchased, opening for settlement one half as much country as is contained within the limits of the thirteen original States. A judicious policy for disposing of those lands, and establishing governments therein, had been de vised and put in operation, and population was moving rapidly to the westward, and appropriating the fertile soil along the Ohio River.
The Iroquois and Cherokees alone of the important In dian communities, remained within State jurisdiction, and the territory over which they exercised control had been determined and defined in treaties.
The constitution made all existing treaties binding upon the new Government, and declared them to be " the supreme law of the land." It also gave to Congress au thority to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes, and conferred upon the Executive and Senate the power to make and ratify Indian treaties. In fine, it con firmed and continued the relations which had existed be tween the treatv Indians and the' Government under the
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Confederation, and pointed out a course of action which might be followed in future negotiations.
It virtually took from State management the Indian population within State limits, for Congress and the treaty- making power could, by the exercise of the authority which the constitution conferred, entirely destroy State super vision.
State control over that population remained absolute, as long as there was no action on the part of the United States ; but, as soon as the latter prescribed commercial relations, all conflicting State laws became nugatory. "When the latter, and the tribal representatives of that population, entered into treaties, State jurisdiction was compelled to conform to the stipulations of those treaties.
The States owned, and never relinquished the ultimate fee in the soil which the Indians rightfully occupied ; but this only became an interest in possession after the Indians had willingly removed. This remote interest, depending upon a contingency which might require centuries for de termination, could not be destroyed by the General Gov ernment, although the latter was under no obligations to extinguish the right of occupancy, in opposition to the oc cupants' wish. In every other respect, the Indian popula tion and the soil upon which it dwelt, could at any time be placed under the control and disposition of the United States. Whatever agreements the United States and those Indian nations might enter into relative to laws for gov ernment, whether civil or criminal, regarding regulations for conducting trade, or in reference to abandonment or continued possession of territory, were obligatory upon State authority, " any thing in the constitution, or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."
Did the constitution confer upon the Executive and Senate, the power to make all negotiations with the Indian nations other than those which regulated trade or com-
INDIAN POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT. 75
merce ? The question has received much discussion, and has apparently been decided by recent opinion as expressed in legislation in the negative. Early opinion however was explicit upon this point. Congress, in seventeen hundred and ninety-three, declared that all purchases of land from Indians must be by treaty entered into pursuant to the constitution ; and a similar declaration is contained in our first Indian intercourse law passed nearly three years pre vious to that time.
For three-quarters of a century, the legislative branch of the Government evidently considered, that contracts with Indian nations could only be made through the formalities of treaties. The House of Kepresentatives has, to be sure, frequently asserted that the action of the President and Senate could not compel it to make appro priations in order to carry out Indian treaty provisions. In eighteen hundred and twenty-seven, representatives in Congress as strenuously declared, that the constitution vested in them a discretionary power in all matters of appro priation, as they did in eighteen hundred and sixty-six ; for then they claimed that they could negative a treaty by re fusing to grant the means to make it effective. They then also claimed the right to deliberate upon the legality of the treaty itself, and upon the wisdom or feasibility of its provisions, else they could not act understandingly in the performance of a constitutional duty. But this asserted right upon the part of the House of Representatives, ap plied not only to Indian treaties, but to all treaties of whatever nature, which Government might enter into. It was early proclaimed, and involved a question of preroga tive and privilege between the Senate and House, which still remains unsettled. It was earnestly discussed when the British treaty of seventeen hundred and ninety-four was under consideration. The President and Senate in sisted that the power to make treaties was an important
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act of sovereignty, which the constitution conferred upon the Executive, and when the President exercised that power, and executed a treaty, it became, upon ratification by the Senate, the supreme law of the land, and as such was paramount to the laws of the United States, and could not be set aside by legislation. It was also insisted, that the constitution made no distinction between treaties with foreign nations and with Indian tribes, and that all treaties should be made by the President and then submitted to the Senate for approval ; that when this rule was followed, and a treaty made and approved which involved the ex penditure of money, the necessary appropriation should at once be made, or the national faith would be violated. The House replied by resolution and declared, " that it is the constitutional right and duty of the House of Repre sentatives in all cases of treaty, to deliberate upon the ex pediency of carrying such treaty into effect, and to deter mine and act therein as in their judgment may be best for the public good."
The question again arose when the terms of the treaty of eighteen hundred and fourteen were under discussion, and as formerly, a compromise was effected, under which the required appropriation was made, but a settlement of the constitutional points involved could not be accom plished. The House maintained, that prior to the exe cution and ratification of a treaty which demanded an expenditure to carry it into effect, the Executive should obtain the sanction of Congress through an appropriation. This course was followed by President Monroe, and was generally approved and believed to be in strict conformity to the constitution. Had it been continued by succeeding Presidents, it is doubtful if the provisions contained in the Indian appropriation act of eighteen hundred and seventy- one, forbidding the recognition of Indian nations or tribes as independent powers, with whom the United States may
INDIAN POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT. 77
contract by treaty, would have received congressional sup port.
In all the early discussions upon the treaty-making power, the Indian communities were conceded to be as free and independent as the nations of Europe, in so far as the possession of treaty rights was concerned. Presi dent Adams, in his message of eighteen hundred and twenty eight, remarks, that " at the establishment of the Federal Government under the present constitution, the principle was adopted of considering them as foreign and independ ent powers, and also as proprietors of lands. As independ ent powers we negotiated witli them by treaties ; as pro prietors, we purchased of them all the land which we could prevail upon them to sell ; as brethren of the human race, rude and ignorant, we endeavored to bring them to the knowledge of religion and of letters."
The judicial branch of the Government sustained the yiew above expressed in regard to the independence of the native communities, and the celebrated case of Worcester against the State of Georgia, decided in eighteen hundred and thirty-two, was supposed to set the matter at rest. The Supreme Court held, that the constitution placed the Indian nations among those powers capable of making treaties, and of maintaining the relations of war and peace, and that therefore the President and Senate could, under the treaty-making power, enter into compacts with them as writh foreign nations.
But the provisions of the act of eighteen hundred and seventy-one, to which reference has been made, do not im ply that the President and Senate had not the constitu tional right to treat with the Indian nations. On the con trary, they concede that that right existed, and was legally exercised, by declaring : " That nothing herein contained shall be construed to invalidate, or impair the obligations of any treaty heretofore lawfully made and ratified, with
78 INDIAN POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT.
any such Indian nation or tribe." For the acknowledged existence of Indian treaties " lawfully made and ratified," certainly necessitated the recognition of a power having the legal capacity to make and ratify them ; and, as they had all been made and ratified by the Executive and Sen ate, those branches of the Government necessarily pos sessed the requisite authority to make and ratify them. If therefore Congress should admit, that the United States ever lawfully made and ratified Indian treaties, it must likewise admit that they became such through the exercise of the power which the constitution conferred upon the Executive and Senate, since that power could not be de rived from any other source.
Only two conclusions can be drawn from the provisions of this congressional act. Either that the condition and importance of the Indian nations have undergone such a change since the adoption of the constitution, that they have ceased in fact to retain sufficient of the attributes of sovereignty to be competent to enter into treaties, or that the constitution never recognized them as nations, capable of contracting with the United States by treaty.
Any other inference would make it appear that Con gress had attempted by legislation to take away from the executive branch of the Government the power which the constitution has conferred upon it.
Of the two stated conclusions possible to be reached, the first would seem to be the correct one ; because of the virtual admission in the act that treaties with the Indians had been lawfully made and confirmed ; and the provis ions which have been quoted would therefore naturally imply that Indian tribes with which the United States have heretofore entered into treaties, and which have been considered independent communities, have at last become so insignificant or so dependent, that they are no longer qualified to maintain national relations, nor to act other-
INDIAN POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT. 79
wise than as the United States may choose to direct ; and therefore they shall not hereafter be acknowledged as independent communities, but the departments of the Government shall henceforth recognize their actual condi tion, and be guided accordingly in all future transactions in which they shall be parties. If it is an absolute fact that the Indian tribes within our territories have lost the essential elements of independence, if they have surren dered or bartered away the right of self-government, if they have become disintegrated or widely separated, they are in no sense national organizations, and have not any longer the power to bind themselves by treaty, nor to impose treaty obligations upon the United States.
If such fact does exist, it would appear that Congress has the constitutional right to discover it, and to declare that certain constitutional provisions are no longer opera tive, because of the changed situation of affairs. It would appear that such a declaration on the part of Congress would be as fully within the sphere of its duty as the with holding of an appropriation to satisfy an annuity demand which an Indian treaty declared perpetual, for the reason that the Indian organization had become extinct. In the latter case Congress merely refuses to carry out the stipu lations of a lawfully executed treaty, or we might say, to be governed by the supreme law of the land, because of the fact, that one of the parties to the contract is no longer in being. In the other case it declines to recognize the native communities within United States territory as nations, with whom treaties can be made, although the constitution declared them to be such, because they have actually lost the ability to contract by treaty. Unless Congress can thus determine facts, and authoritatively decide whether or not they continue to be of such a na ture, as to still make operative or applicable the law as expressed in the constitution, the provision of the act of
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eighteen hundred and seventy-one, forbidding further treaties with Indian tribes, is without force or effect, and the President may negotiate with the Indians by treaty, until deprived of the power to do so by a constitutional amendment.
Whether the tribal organizations have undergone such radical change since the formation of the present Govern ment that they no longer retain the national characteristics which they possessed when the constitution was framed and adopted, and whether they have lost all power to make and execute national decisions, can only be ascertained by a comparison of their past and present relations to the United States, a consideration of the causes which have produced modified conditions, and a review of Government action. That action has been so extended, that it is only possible to give it a hasty glance ; but, an attempt will be made to sufficiently exhibit it through a discussion of its more prominent features, to convey a definite idea of its nature, and the method of its application.
Enough has been said for the present, of the powers conferred upon the different branches of the Government by the constitution. It is important to examine the policy inaugurated during the first administration, and afterwards it will be necessary to trace the modifications made in suc ceeding years. It will be seen, that the essential elements of that policy still remain in force, and only such changes have been introduced as varying circumstances seemed to demand.
The declared objects which the Government desired to accomplish, have always been the same, viz : to remove the native population from the land required for occupancy by the whites, to restrain in the most economical manner its onslaughts upon border settlements, and finally to prepare it for citizenship. The first object has uniformly been attained by purchase under contract or treaty ; the second has been sought through various expedients, generally and
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when possible of a peaceful character, but all attended with considerable expenditure ; and the last by the introduction of civilized example. These three objects have been steadily kept in view, and any policy which did not ostensi bly assist in the accomplishment of all, could not have re ceived popular support. For one class of citizens demanded of it, practical beneficial results to government, financiallv considered. Another class, impressed with the sacred ness of the so-called right of the Indians to territory, and with a duty to make earnest endeavors to fix upon them the cus toms of civilized and Christian life, demanded of it liberal and benevolent achievements ; while a third class, looking to the future, demanded individual and social improvement. It is plain, therefore, that any policy which assisted in the accomplishment of all these avowed objects, would be gen erally sustained, and it is not to be wondered at that the friends of every administration, proclaimed that its action toward the native population was both economical and hu mane, and was at the same time rapidly promoting civili zation.
At different periods, however, public attention has been partially diverted from one or the other of these desired results, and the great proportion of the labor expended has been given to that which appeared to be of the greatest temporary importance.
If land was required, endeavors were made to induce the Indians to relinquish it. The commissioners who negotiated on the part of the United States must, under the appearance of fair dealing, keep in mind the pecuniary consideration, and effect the purchase upon the most moderate terms possible. If Indian outbreaks were threatened, attempts were put forth to remove apparent causes of disturbance, and to restore friendly feeling. This might be brought about by placing restraints upon whites, and restrictions upon trade, or by the expenditure
A*
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of money for the benefit of the Indians, and giving to them some of the needs of civilized domestic life.
All of these experiments were tested. Did the position of Indian nations, in respect to neighboring civil govern ments, make the future incorporation of the native element with the great body of our population seem necessary, more earnest efforts were proposed in the interest of edu cation and Christianity. Still attempts to produce any of these results might aid in securing the others. The sale of land removed the Indians further from the white popu lation and furnished them with means to improve their social condition. The establishment of trade relations, or the bestowal of implements of husbandry, might induce them to abandon the chase, make them more willing to abridge the limits of their territory, and advance them in the path of civilization. Should educational privileges be extended, they might be prevailed upon to embrace the opportunity of fitting themselves for citizenship, would cease to intimidate by hostile attitude the border settle ments, and would dispose of all the land which they did not actually require for cultivation. Every administration then, might with some show of reason, defend the wisdom of its action, whether engaged in the purchase of land and Indian removal to the westward, or in the expenditure of revenue for the benefit of Indians, in order to secure tranquillity upon the border, and to bring about their mental and moral elevation. In any event, contemporary opinion could not decide justly upon its merits, except in so far as immediate practical benefits were obtained. The effect of civilizing influences would not be at once discovered.
A faint sunlight might soon give place to the old shadow of darkness. The good seed cast upon such a waste of waters, might lose its power to germinate before it found congenial soil.
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Soon after the formation of the new Government, Con gress took into consideration the condition of the native population. Early in August, seventeen hundred and eighty-nine, an act was passed, requiring the Secretary of War to perform and execute such duties as should be "en trusted to him by the President, agreeably to the consti tution," relative to Indian affairs. Upon the twentieth of the same month, an appropriation of twenty thousand dollars was voted, to defray the expenses of negotiating and treating with the Indian tribes ; and an intimation of the opinion of Congress, as to the power of the President in the execution of those duties, may be gathered from the provision which fixed the compensation of the com missioners whom he should appoint to make the negotia tions.
At this time most of the Indians north-west of the Ohio had violated the treaties which they had made with the Confederacy. The Delawares and Pottawatomies, the Ottawa, Chippewa and Sac nations, had, upon the previous January, agreed to live in peace with the United States, and had, in consideration of goods promised them to the value of six thousand dollars, granted all lands outside of defined boundaries. The contract had never been observed by them, and they continued in hostile attitude. The Southern Indians, with the exception of the Chickasaws, showed an unfriendly disposition. The Government found it necessary to send military expeditions to the North, and to make preparations for the chastisement of the Indians South. On the northern frontier, war continued until sev enteen hundred and ninety-four ; and at the South, a vacillating course of action was pursued, and treaties estab lishing "perpetual peace," were quickly followed by war like demonstrations. At length the British treaty of sev enteen hundred and ninety-four, and that made with Spain in the following year, deprived the Indian nations of foreign
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aid and counsel, and they soon gave up the conflict, and placed themselves under United States protection.
During these five years of confusion and excitement, it was not possible to apply a definite Indian policy. Presi dent Washington recommended the enactment of laws to govern the alienation of land by Indians, to provide for their punishment when violating treaties, to remove from their midst evil disposed white people, and to justify the appointment of agents to dwell among them. He advo cated throughout the war conciliatory action, " a system, corresponding with the mild principles of religion and phi lanthropy towards an unenlightened race of men, whose happiness materially depends upon the conduct of the United States."
When the contest had nearly terminated, he informed Congress of the course he intended to adopt. He said in his message of November, seventeen hundred and ninety- four, " The intelligence from our army under the com mand of General Wayne, is a happy presage to our mili tary operations against the hostile Indians north of the Ohio. * * * And yet, even at this late hour, when our power to punish them cannot be questioned, we shall not be unwilling to cement a lasting peace, upon terms of can dor, equity and good neighborhood. Towards none of the Indian tribes have overtures of friendship been spared."
Congress endeavored to propitiate the Indian nations by salutary and liberal legislation. Little public effort had hitherto been made to improve their condition. Now it was proposed to protect them from the impositions prac ticed by white individuals, and to introduce among them the habits of civilized society. The Goyernment proffered them its protection, and promised non-interference on the part of its citizens. The law of seventeen hundred and ninety prevented the white population from obtaining possession of the lands of Indians, and forbade any trade
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with them/ except under license obtained through the public departments.
The law of seventeen hundred and ninety-three re-en acted similar provisions, and prescribed more severe pen alties in case of disobedience. It also forbade white inhab itants to settle on Indian land under penalty of fine and imprisonment, and made crimes committed against Indians by whites, punishable in like manner as those committed against citizens. It also provided, " That, in order to promote civilization among the friendly Indian tribes, and to secure the continuance of their friendship, it shall and may be lawful for the President to cause them to be fur nished with useful domestic animals and implements of husbandry, and also to furnish them with goods and money in such proportions as he shall judge proper, and appoint such persons from time to time as temporary agents to re side among the Indians, as he shall think proper," but expenditures for such purposes shall not exceed twenty thousand dollars per annum.
By legislation, and through the treaty-making power, Government also established control over the New York Indians and over the Cherokee and Creek nations. All other Indians, living within State boundaries, remained subject to State authority. This control however was but partial. Government directed the disposition of land, reg ulated trade and intercourse, and appointed its agents to supervise Indian affairs. It gave to its courts and those of the States concurrent criminal jurisdiction in cases where United States statutory offences were committed against Indians in their country, and within State limits. It ad mitted the exclusive jurisdiction of the State courts to try crimes committed by whites against whites upon Indian reservations, and even decided that the power had never been conferred upon its own courts, to punish Indians for offences committed against whites, when perpetrated with-
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in a State, and outside of a reservation. The Government also re-enacted the ordinance of seventeen hundred and eighty-seven, and provided for the appointment, by the President, of the officers of the North-west Territory : North Carolina ceded the Western lands which it had claimed, and the above mentioned ordinance was extended over all the territory south of the Ohio. This territory composed a single district, and the powers and duties of governor were united with those of superintendent of In dian aifairs. Soon after, Kentucky was formed within the jurisdiction of the commonwealth of Virginia, and ad mitted as a State.
At the conclusion of the war, the Indians were in des titute circumstances, especially those on the Northern frontier. Government commenced a vigorous peace policy, and adopted such measures as seemed best calculated to obtain and make lasting their friendship, and at the same time render them more dependent. Congress appropriated fifty thousand dollars for the purchase of goods, and passed an act for the purpose of carrying on with them a just and liberal trade." Treaties were entered into, by which the United States covenanted to maintain them in the peaceable possession and quiet enjoyment of their territory, and promised permanent annuities. To enable and induce them to adopt civilized customs, and establish fixed abodes, they were furnished with agricultural implements, also with instructors to teach the habits practiced in civilized communities. Some of the nations were even more abun dantly supplied. They received the necessary machinery to prepare material for the construction of comfortable dwellings, and to make ready for household use the grain which might reward their labors in cultivating the soil. Educational and religious experiments were also under taken. Government aid was granted to assist in erecting school houses, and church edifices, and the missionaries,
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maintained by different Christian denominations, were en couraged in the performance of the good work in which they had engaged.
But the guardianship so carefully entered upon, was calculated to retard the progress of civilization, although it might secure temporary peace. The attempted exclusion of the white population from the Indian country, by the passage of the stringent intercourse act of seventeen hun dred and ninety-six, deprived the Indians of the example of law-abiding citizens, and left to them as types of white morality and intelligence, those representatives of debased humanity whom the most severe legal measures yet devised have not prevented from affiliating with the native race. By the provisions of that act the boundary line of the In dian country was to be determined, and no white individ ual could cross the same and enter that country without a license or passport ; and should any one enter for the purpose of trade, or even of hunting, he rendered himself liable to fine and imprisonment.
This law expired by limitation in March, seventeen hundred and ninety-nine, but it was then reenacted and made to apply to any variation of boundary which might in future be declared. It is hardly possible that those by whom it was framed, supposed that it could be rigidly enforced ; but they rather intended that it should furnish the requisite authority for the removal of troublesome and evil-intentioned persons, and supply the Indians with the power to rid themselves of those who might give them annoyance. It had the effect, however, to shut out from Indian intercourse that class of individuals who obey simple prohibitions because of conscientious regard for law, and scarcely restrained that other class who are alone deterred from the commission of crime by the fear of in curring penalties.
The " Trading House Act" which was passed in seven-
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teen hundred and ninety- six also opposed the social im provement of the Indian, and exercised a demoralizing tendency upon the officers of the Government. It empow ered the President " to establish trading houses at such posts and places on the Western and Southern frontier, or in the Indian country, as he should judge most convenient for the purpose of carrying on a liberal trade with the several Indian nations within the United States." He was required to license all traders and to prescribe rules and regulations to govern their action. The latter should trade for furs and skins only, and solely on public account. They were forbidden to receive any emoluments or gain from trade, but should be compensated for services by fixed salaries.
The friends of this act, however, did not advocate it in the interest of civilization.
They wished to accomplish two objects : one of which was the securing of the friendship of the Indians by sup plying their wants, and the other the supplanting of the British traders in their influence over the Indians. It was said that France, Britain, and Spain had wisely adopted such a policy ; that the United States had hitherto pur sued war at an enormous expense, and that it was time to try commerce ; that the Indians had sufficient sense not to abandon allies who furnished them with necessary goods.
The Indians had, in fact, more sense than they received credit for. They could understand the meaning of the constant encroachments made in the progress of settle ment. They saw clearly that their lands were gradually passing from their possession, and that unless white ad vances could be checked, they would be obliged to retire in order to obtain subsistence, or else submit to the dicta tion of their rivals. That fear influenced their actions more than the desire for commerce, and rendered them
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always willing to assist any foreign force engaged in hos tilities against this immediate disturber of their peace and apprehended cause of future grievances.
The act appropriated one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, as the capital stock to be used in the trade, and eight thousand dollars as the yearly compensation of the factors and clerks who should be appointed to conduct the business ; but as all barter was strictly confined to the purchase of skins and furs, no Indians could participate in the benefits of the traffic, unless they had those articles for sale. It therefore encouraged a continuance and a more zealous following of their natural pursuits, and had in no respect the slightest tendency to wean them from their nomadic habits.
The act was limited to a single year, but it was revived in eighteen hundred and two. and substantially continued by periodical legislation for twenty years. It furnishes an illustration of the difficulty of destroying any Government system of action, which may possibly bring remote benefi cial results, in the creation and duration of which a class of individuals are pecuniarily interested, and of the utter impossibility of confining it within originally intended bounds, while practiced. The law as revived in eighteen hundred and three contained no new provisions ; but in eighteen hundred and five, an additional one hundred thousand dollars was appropriated, for the purpose of establishing new trading houses. In the following year, the appointment of a Superintendent of Indian trade was authorized, who should be charged with the duty of pur chasing all goods, sending the same to posts, and receiving and disposing of, at public auction, the furs obtained therefor. The capital stock was increased to two hundred and sixty thousand dollars, and ten thousand dollars was fixed as the united salaries of factors and clerks.
In eighteen hundred and nine, the capital stock was
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made three hundred thousand dollars ; and in eighteen hundred and eleven, the superintendent was directed to purchase and ship to the proper destination, all annuity goods purchased under treaties. Thus was the system con tinued by legislation until eighteen hundred and twenty- two, when the President was required to cause the houses to be closed, the accounts to be settled, and the proceeds remaining to be used in arranging treaties with, and paying annuities to Indians. It was continued and extended, although it utterly failed to accomplish the objects ex pected of it, and resulted in a loss to Government from the time it was first organized — the average yearly loss being about three per cent of the money invested, if the salaries paid to officers is taken into computation. The conduct of the Indians, during the disturbances of eighteen hun dred and twelve and thirteen, conclusively demonstrated the fact, that foreign governments had not lost their influ ence over them, and the experiment also proved that the United States cannot compete with private parties in In dian trade enterprises. And yet, notwithstanding the evidences of failure were so clearly apparent that resulting future good could not be reasonably anticipated, the sys tem had become so firmly established, and was so persis tently defended and supported by its friends, that it required the most determined efforts to effect its de struction.
The active peace policy inaugurated by Government, after the forced submission by the Indian nations during the latter part of the century, seemingly promised satis factory results.
President Jefferson, in his first message, informed Con gress, that their condition was improving ; that they had begun to see the necessity of assistance ; that they had not only ceased to decrease, but were actually increasing in numbers. In subsequent messages they were represented
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as living peaceably, and engaging quite extensively in agri culture, and as disposing of portions of their lands to obtain means to make further advancement. Endowed, he says, with the faculties and rights of men, and occupying a country which left them no desire but to be undisturbed, the stream of population has overwhelmed them, and now, " reduced within limits too narrow for the hunter's state, humanity enjoins us to teach them agriculture, and the domestic arts, and to encourage them to that industry, which alone can enable them to maintain their place in existence. * * We have therefore furnished them lib erally with the implements of husbandry and household use. We placed among them instructors in the arts of first necessity. They are covered with the aegis of the law against aggressors from among ourselves ;" and were it not, he intimates, for the evil counsel and example of crafty in dividuals who had gone among them, their improvement would be decided and lasting.
It is well to note in this connection, that those tribes or nations which were evidently making progress, occupied, or had occupied for a long time, the border of civilization. The southern Indians, says Jefferson, are much more ad vanced than those north ; and Calhoun, as late as eighteen hundred and twenty, reported as follows : " While many of the Indian tribes have acquired only the vices with which a savage people usually become tainted by their intercourse with those who are civilized, others appear to be making gradual advances in industry and civilization. Among the latter description may be placed the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and perhaps the Creeks ; most of the remnants of the Six Nations in New York, the Wyandottes, Senecas and Shawnees at Upper Sandusky."
The Cherokees stand first, and have two flourishing schools. It is pertinent here to note the fact that progress was really confined to those Indian nations more immedi-
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ately in contact with the whites ; because about the date when Mr. Jefferson gave utterance to the remarks which have been quoted, a new feature of the Indian policy ap peared, destined to become in later years, the one most important and prominent. It was the plan at this time suggested and afterwards adopted, of removing the eastern Indian population beyond the Mississippi River, where it might be as far away as possible from interference on the part of citizens or white individuals, and where it would cease to give annoyance to the white communities, which were rapidly increasing in the West. Mr. Jefferson enter tained the supposition, that such a plan successfully carried out, would result in benefit to both races. The acquisition of the Louisiana territory presented the opportunity of putting it in operation.
Little however at this time was attempted, for popular opinion was not prepared to favor so radical an experiment. It had not fully endorsed the proposition of the first Secre tary of War, General Knox, who advocated the gradual removal of the Indians to the West, and the purchase of such portions of their territory as advancing white popula tion should demand. To extinguish the Indian title to a vast amount of territory before it was actually required for settlement, and to remove its occupants by Government aid involved too great an expenditure, was of doubtful expedi ency and was possibly inflicting a wrong upon the native race. No active measures were therefore engaged in, further than attempts to induce emigration by advice and slight pecuniary considerations ; and the war of eighteen hundred and twelve, which destroyed to a great extent the friendly relations between the Indians and the United States, rendered the operation of any definite policy impos sible. But after the settlement of the difficulties incident to the war, the question of removal again came up for con sideration.
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Its friends now advocated the colonization of all the eastern Indians within two large reservations, or declared territories — one of which should be created west of the Mississippi, and the other near the northern frontier. The plan had many favorable recommendations, whether examined in a utilitarian point of view, or benevolently considered. The Indians retarded the expansion of popu lation, and the development of large tracts of country. Their presence within State limits caused conflicts between State and United States authorities, and gave rise to ques tions of jurisdiction, which were beginning to assume a serious aspect. Their scattered condition made it well nigh impossible to establish over them sufficient control to prevent serious outbreak, and the inhabitants upon the border were without the security which they had a right to demand. The philanthropist might add, that the In dians could not be improved as long as they remained in the neighborhood of the whites ; for as situated, they were brought in contact with the lower classes of society, and were influenced to imitate vices, rather than to be guided by examples of virtue. They should therefore be placed in localities beyond the reach of crafty and mischief-mak ing individuals, where they could be more efficiently pro tected by the strong arm of the law, and where they might be under the direction of faithful and competent instruct ors, who could induce them to assume other habits, and bring them gradually to a knowledge of the customs of civilized life.
The opponents of the plan stoutly contested these argu ments, and were apparently able to produce as convincing proofs in support of their own theories. Much of the rea soning was based upon doubtful and imaginary premises, because of different opinions entertained respecting the nature and capacity of the native race. It was denied that the condition of the Indians would be improved by thrust-
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ing them further back into the wilderness, where they would again take up former practices, and unlearn all that had been taught them. It was claimed that the territory which they had already relinquished furnished ample room for any increase of population which could be reasonably anticipated during a series of years, and they should be allowed to remain stationary, where they could be better encouraged to make permanent improvements, and thereby acquire local attachments, and the usages suited to a new mode of living. The objection that it was hazardous to create an Indian territory, and build up a separate sove reignty within the United States limits, was met by the as sertion, that the Indians would become civilized before there could be any danger of conflict. The objection that the execution of the plan would be attended with too great an expense, was answered by the statement, that removal must at some time take place, and that the longer it was postponed, the greater would be the cost attending it. " It cannot be doubted," said Calhoun, " that much of the difficulty of acquiring additional cessions from the Chero- kees, and other southern tribes, results from their growing civilization and knowledge." A wise economy therefore, directed that the removal be made as quickly as possible.
The measure was strongly favored by Mr. Monroe, and he began to act upon it soon after he had assumed the duties of the presidential office. In July, eighteen hun dred and seventeen, a portion of the Cherokee nation agreed to accept land in Arkansas. During the following vear the Delawares ceded to the United States their pos session in Indiana, and the Government agreed to provide for them a country west of the Mississippi, to pay them the value of the improvements which they had made, also a perpetual annuity, and to furnish them with provisions and the necessary assistance for their journey. Shortly thereafter, President Monroe urged his views upon Con-
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gress. He said in a special message relating to the Georgia affairs : <; My impression is equally strong that it would promote essentially the security and happiness of the tribes within our limits, if they could be prevailed on to retire west and north of our States and territories, on lands to be procured for them by the United States. Surrounded as they are, and pressed as they will be on every side by the white population, it will be difficult, if not impossible for them, with their kind of government, to sustain order, etc." He then remarks that the United States could adopt a general system for their improvement in their new homes, in which the whole country would take an interest. Again, in his message of eighteen hundred and twenty-five, he says in speaking of the Indians : " Experience has demon strated, that in their present state it is impossible to in corporate them in such masses in any form whatever into our system. It has also demonstrated with equal cer tainty, that without a timely anticipation of and provis ion against, the danger to which they are exposed under causes which it would be difficult, if not impossible, to control, their degradation and extermination will be in evitable."
The work of removal was now energetically pursued, and was made the more important on account of the posi tion taken by the State of Georgia. Her western territory had been relinquished on condition that the United States would extinguish the Indian title to the lands within her agreed boundaries, and she demanded performance of the condition. The Cherokees within that State had, under treaty authority, formed a government of their own, and denied that State jurisdiction extended over them. The case was considered by Congress, and although the weight of opinion upheld the Cherokees in their asserted right of self-government, and also conceded their right to remain within the State until they might be willing to depart
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therefrom, the best remedy out of the difficulty was thought to consist in the withdrawal of the cause of dis content. A home in the West, " which should never in all future time be embarrassed by having extended around it the lines, or placed over it the jurisdiction of a territory or State," was promised them in the treaty of eighteen hundred and twenty-eight.
The whole subject of Indian removal was debated at length in Congress. In the meantime, the administration zealously labored to execute treaties, by which the Indians should consent to emigrate. President Adams remarked, that the United States had endeavored to advance them and when attempts had been partially rewarded, they were found to exist " as independent communities in our midst." He recommended therefore, that they be sent West. President Jackson advised, that Congress set apart an ample district west of the Mississippi, and without the limits of any State or territory, to be guaranteed to the Indian tribes as long as they shall occupy it ; each tribe having the management of its own portion of the district, and being "subject to no other control from the United States, than such as may be necessary to preserve peace on the frontier, and between the several tribes. There the benevolent may teach, and an interesting commonwealth may be raised up, destined to perpetuate the race, and attest the humanity and justice of this Government."
Congress passed an act authorizing the President to cause the necessary territory lying west of the Mississippi Kiver, and not included within any State or territorial government, to be divided into a suitable number of dis tricts, and to exchange land with those Indians with whom the United States had treaty relations. The President was also authorized to guarantee title, and to promise the Indians aid to remove to, and protection in, their new residence.
INDIAN POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT. 9?
Assurances that the tribes who agreed to the exchange should be undisturbed in the control of their own affairs, were omitted in the act, but were fully set forth in treaties, which generally contained the stipulations, that they might enjoy their own form of government, and make their own laws — subject however, to the regulations of Congress in the matter of intercourse — and that their lands should never be included in any State or territory of the Union.
The plan of removal had now received governmental sanction. The views of several administrations respecting its importance, the zeal with which it was prosecuted, and the benefits expected to result therefrom, can be briefly presented by the introduction of a few extracts from presidential messages and official reports. The annual message for eighteen hundred and thirty informs Congress that the speedy removal of the Indians to the West is im portant to the General Government, the State governments, and to the Indians themselves. It will prevent danger of collision between general and state governments, will free the Indians from the power of the States, and enable them to pursue happiness in their own way. It will retard decay among them, and they may possibly become inter esting and civilized communities. Treaties had been made with the Choctawsand Chickasaws, "probably the last that will ever be made with them" which are "characterized by great liberality on the part of Government."
The annual message for the succeeding year contains the following : "It is confidently believed that persever ance for a few years in the present policy of the Govern ment, will extinguish the Indian title to all lands lying within the States, and remove beyond their limits every Indian who is not willing to submit to their laws."
In the message of eighteen hundred and thirty-two, the following is found : "I am happy to inform you that the wise and humane policy, of transferring from the eastern to 5
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the western side of the Mississippi, the remnants of our aboriginal tribes, with their own consent and upon just terms, has been steadily pursued and is approaching I trust its consummation."
The message of eighteen hundred and thirty-three an nounces the fact, that if the several treaties entered into for the relinquishment of territory and migration of the Indians are ratified, provision will have been made for the removal of almost all the tribes, remaining east of the Mis sissippi. The Indians. " have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement, which are essential to any favorable change in their condi tion." If the fate of disappearing before a superior civili zation is to be averted, it must be brought about by re moval. Those who have emigrated are reported to be doing well.
The message of eighteen hundred and thirty-four states : " No important change has during the season taken place in the condition of the Indians. Arrangements are in progress for the removal of the Creeks and Semi- noles. The Cherokees east of the Mississippi have not yet determined to remove. The experience of every year adds to the conviction, that emigration and that alone can pre serve from destruction the remnants of the tribes yet liv ing among us." In his-report of eighteen hundred and thirty-three, the Secretary of War commends the policy of Government in removing the Indians to the West, where they might physically and morally improve, and alludes to the advancement which those who have emigrated were making. They were rapidly improving, were " erecting dwellings, and laying the foundation of a social system, which it is to be hoped will afford them security and pros perity." He says, that the whole country north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, as far as the Fox and Wis consin Rivers, has been cleared of the embarrassments of
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Indian relations ; for the Indians have either migrated or have stipulated to do so within short periods. They will be comfortable in their new homes, " unless indeed the aid and efforts of the Government are rendered useless by their habitual indolence and improvidence." The Cherokees, occupying portions of land in Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, and Tennessee, numbering about eleven thousand, are the only Indians south of the Ohio and east of the Mis sissippi, with whom an arrangement has not been made, either for emigration or for a change of political relations. President Van Buren, in his message of eighteen hundred and thirty-eight, said that the measures lately pursued " have rendered the speedy and successful result of the long established policy of the Government upon the subject of Indian affairs, entirely certain. The occasion is therefore deemed a proper one, to place this policy in such a point of view as will exonerate the Government of the United States from the undeserved reproach which has been cast upon it through several successive administrations. That a mixed occupancy of the same territory by the white and red man is incompatible with the safety and happiness of either, is a proposition in respect to which there has long ceased to be sufficient room for a difference of opinion. * * * The remedial policy, the principles of which were settled more than thirty years ago under the administra tion of Mr. Jefferson, consists in an extinction, for a fair consideration, of the title to all lands still occupied by the Indians within the States and territories of the United States, their removal to a country west of the Mississippi, much more extensive and better adapted to their condition than that on which they then resided ; the guarantee to them by the United States of their exclusive possession of that country forever, exempt from all intrusions by white men, with ample provisions for their security against exter nal violence, and internal dissensions, and the extension to
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them of suitable facilities for their advancement in civiliza tion. This has not been the policy of particular adminis trations only, but of each in succession since the first attempt to carry it out under that of Mr. Monroe." The manner of its execution has given rise to conflicts of opinion ; " but in respect to the wisdom and necessity of the policy itself, there has not, from the beginning, existed a doubt in the mind of any calm, judicious, disinterested friend of the Indian race, accustomed to reflection and enlightened by experience." Mr. Van Buren then indulges in prophetic fancies, and romantically exclaims : " and if in future time a powerful, civilized and happy nation of Indians shall be found to exist within this Northern continent, it will be owing to the consummation of that policy which has been so unjustly assailed." He then speaks of the Cherokees lately removed, to whom Government granted in fee thirteen millions of acres, in exchange for nine millions, and stipu lated to pay a large sum of money, " thereby putting it in their power to become one of the most wealthy and inde pendent communities of the same extent in the world." He further remarks that " the case of the Seminoles con stitutes the only exception to the successful efforts of the Government to remove the Indians to the homes assigned them west of the Mississippi."
Mr. Tyler, in his message of eighteen hundred and forty- two, thus speaks of improvement among the Indians : "With several of the tribes, great progress in civilizing them has already been made. The schoolmaster and the missionary are found side by side, and the remnant of what were once numerous and powerful nations may yet be pre served as the builders up of a new name for themselves and their posterity." And again, in eighteen hundred and forty-four, he says : " The Executive has abated no effort in carrying into effect the well established policy of the Government, which contemplates a removal of all the tribes
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residing within the limits of the several States, beyond those limits, and it is now enabled to congratulate the country at the prospect of an early consummation of this object. * * * We may fondly hope that the remains of the formidable tribes which were once masters of this country will, in their transition from a savage state to a condition of refinement and cultivation, add another bright trophy to adorn the labors of a well directed philanthropy."
Mr. Polk maintained and pursued the same Indian policy, and in eighteen hundred and forty-seven, Secre tary Marcy reported as follows : "Our relations with the tribes is yearly extending, and in many respects assuming a more interesting character. The wise policy of separat ing the Indians residing in States and organized territories, from contiguity to, and intermingling with, the white popu lation, and of settling them in a quiet home, removed as far as practicable from the reach of influences so perni cious to their well being, has been steadily pursued, a'.id generally with favorable results."
From the first report of our first Secretary of the Inte rior, made in eighteen hundred and forty-nine, we are led to believe, that the wisdom of the policy had not been over estimated, and that it was about to yield the abundant harvest of good which had been so confidently promised. He says : " Most of the tribes located permanently on our western border, and particularly the more southern, con tinue steadily to advance in civilization, and in all the ele ments of substantial prosperity. The establishment of manual labor schools in charge of missionary societies of various religious denominations, is working a great moral and social revolution among several of the tribes, and if the department had the means of extending the benefits of these institutions to those now destitute, it would no doubt be productive of like happy results."
But a decided change in the tone of state papers and
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official reports is about to take place. It is suddenly per ceived that the Government, if it has not committed a pal pable error, has at least failed to accomplish the objects desired. Much of the labor and expense attending the execution of the sweeping plan of removal, and subsequent education of the native population, have been barren of beneficial results. Says the Secretary of the Interior in his report of eighteen hundred and fifty three : " It is folly to attempt to conceal the fact, that under the present system, the Indians have not for many years past advanced in morality, integrity, or intelligence. * * * Much of the philanthropy and charity manifested for them, has been wrongfully directed."
The Commissioner of Indian Affairs, who had that year returned from a visit to the Indian territory, reported that what had been said about the advancement of the Indians was in a great measure false. They had houses, but they did not live like white people. They refused to work, and showed a decided inclination to consume all the ardent spirits they could by any possibility obtain. Later, and in eighteen hundred and fifty- five, the Secretary of the Interior thus addressed President Pierce upon the subject of the removal of the Indians, and the guarantees which the Government had given them : " The country was congratulated by one of your predecessors, upon the re- moral to their new homes, and the dawning to them of a new and happy era was publicly proclaimed. But this guarantee has not been fulfilled, and that propitious time has not yet arrived. A quarter of a century has not elapsed before the same state of things, so much deplored, is found to exist, and the evil that was intended to be reme died appears in a far more appalling form. The strong arm of the Government is constantly invoked to stay its progress, and the guarantee is continually held up to us for faithful performance. Our only reply to all the ap-
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peals made, is, that " the force of circumstances has ren dered it impracticable."
From such and many similar expressed opinions of that period, it is safe to conclude, that the policy which suc cessive administrations had acted upon, had not been ad vantageous to the Indian, or had not at least, advanced him in the moral or social scale, — whatever may have been the substantial benefits which it secured to the General Government. It would appear in fact, that the Indian had retrograded since the completion of his westward pilgrimage. The Secretary of the Interior, in eighteen hundred and fifty-one, spoke in commendatory terms of the New York Indians, who upon the petition of the citi zens of that State had been permitted to remain in their eastern home. They were then making gradual advances in agriculture and civil pursuits, and although they had been constantly subjected to all the destructive influences of contiguous white neighborhood, were living under their own government, and bid fair to surpass their formerly more favored southern brethren in acquiring the habits necessary in a progressive social development. They were undoubtedly in much better circumstances than they would have been, had they removed to the Indian territory as they stipulated to do in the treaty of eighteen hundred and thirty-eight, and received the one million acres of land, together with the pecuniary consideration, which had been promised them. Their condition at the present time is probably more advanced than it would have been had they migrated and recommenced the labor of improve ment. The progress which they have made during the last half century, exposes the fallacy of the doctrine, that Indians cannot exist in the presence of, and in contact with, a superior cultivated race, and also shows that they are no more subject to decay, or disorganization, when thus situated, than when dwelling apart by themselves.
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It also shows, when compared with the progress of the southern nations since their settlement in the Indian country, that the red man is more rapidly improved when in constant communication with the whites, than when debarred from intercourse with them — even if supplied liberally with instructors from whom he can derive a knowledge of the habits and practices of a people occupy ing a higher plane of existence.
Expediency may have dictated the removal of the more populous Indian nations to a country beyond State limits, in order to check conflicts of State and Federal authorities. It may have warranted such removal on the ground, that the powerful, independent, and irresponsible communities endangered the scattered white inhabitants, retarded the growth of newly-planted settlements, prevented the culti vation of large tracts of productive land, and finally ar rested general development. But the less important tribes, and especially the insignificant bands with which the Government treated, should have remained in the east, in the possession of convenient and much abridged re servations, where circumstances would have induced them to copy, by degrees, the customs of those by whom they were surrounded.
The plan of removal was too thoroughly executed. As viewed in the light which the experience of years has thrown upon it, it did not benefit the Indian, and only brought relief to the country by the temporary elimination of a troublesome element in society. As far as it brought relief, it might be rationally defended ; but when the necessity of removal did not actually exist, in order that disturbing causes might be displaced, it cannot be sup ported. Government committed an error, in forcing into the wilderness those straggling bands which had already become partially civilized. The money expended in fitting them out with guns, blankets, kettles and tobacco, for
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their journey, and in furnishing them with a year's pro visions, could have been better employed in administering to their wants in their former habitations.
De Tocqneville'a remarks upon the uncharitableness of the country, called forth by witnessing the poverty and wretched appearance of Indians who were awaiting trans portation across the Mississippi, and the criticisms of American citizens who opposed the administration, con tained much deserved censure, and now appear more significant than the declarations of Presidents Van Buren and Tyler, who so confidently proclaimed the wisdom and liberality of their action.
More particular attention will be given to the effect of the policv, when hereafter its cost and the measure of advancement attained by those who have been longest under its influences are considered. It has not within the last quarter of a century been pursued to any great extent. An occasional removal to the Indian territory has been accomplished, but the scattered tribes have for the most part been allowed to remain upon portions of their own lands, having relinquished, under treaty, possession of such portions as Government could persuade them to dispose of when it wished to concentrate them, so that they could be more readily supplied, or to open up tracts of country for settlement, or to disencumber routes of travel. Still, the idea of gathering the native population within two or three large territorial reservations, to be devoted exclusively to its use and occupation where it could not be contaminated by contact with overreaching and de moralized whites, and where it could be easily controlled and possibly taught the essential requirements of a higher and better life, has never been abandoned.
The tribes which inhabited the country adjacent to the present Indian territory have been placed within its boun daries, and inducements have been held out to those more
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remote to remove within the same, but they have generally proved unavailing. The Commissioners appointed under the act of eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, to meet and negotiate with certain hostile tribes, were empowered to select a district or districts, which should become and remain the permanent home of those Indians who should consent to live therein. The Commissioners advocated the establishment of an additional Indian territory, situa ted above the Nebraska line, and recommended that nearly all the northern tribes roaming east of the Rocky Moun tains be there concentrated, while those at the south be gathered within the territory already existing. The plan was adopted and the new reservation declared ; but owing to the bitter hereditary feuds actively maintained by mem bers of the different tribes, or an inclination on their part to continue nomadic habits, the undertaking met with little success. Now the Indian Bureau is again attempting to draw the northern bands to the old Indian territory — especially those which have made progress in civilization.
We will glance, for a moment, at the general Indian legislation of the country, during the period which has thus been hastily traversed, to ascertain more fully the methods adopted by the Government, to restrain the native population, and by what especial branches of the executive authority, control has been exercised.
From the organization of the Government until eigh teen hundred and forty-nine, when the Interior Depart ment was created, the management of Indian affairs de volved upon the Secretary of War. For many years the expenditures, except when active hostilities existed, were light. But few agents were appointed, but few expensive treaties were made, and but little money was disbursed for the general welfare and improvement of the native race. As communication with the interior was opened, and population spread itself over the western territory, our
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Indian relations were correspondingly extended and the duties of control necessarily increased. In eighteen hun dred and eleven, the Superintendent of Indian Trade, ap pointed under the trading-house acts, was directed to at tend to the distribution of annuities ; but when that office was abolished in eighteen hundred and twenty-two, the direct supervision of all Indian matters again fell upon the War Department, and so continued until eighteen hundred and thirty-two, when the Indian Bureau was created, a Commissioner of Indian Affairs appointed, and a separate office established at an annual cost of ten thousand dollars.
This Commissioner, though placed under the authority of the Secretary of War, and subject to such regulations as the President might prescribe, had " the direction and management of all Indian affairs, and of all matters arising out of Indian relations." and passed upon all accounts connected therewith, which were by him referred to the proper accounting officers of the treasury.
The act transferring the Bureau to the Home Depart ment, authorized the Secretary of the Interior to exercise all the supervisory and appellate powers formerly exercised by the Secretary of War, in relation to all the acts of the Commissioner.
The War Department had executed the labor of Indian removal, had established relations with nearly all the tribes roaming over the United States territory, and had devel oped a system of conducting business, as similar in form as that which characterized army transactions, as legislation and circumstances permitted. Army officers and Indian agents had been answerable to the same authority. Their spheres of duty were distinct, but they were often called upon to act in unison, when Indians became refractory, or threatened to break out into rebellion. As they derived their separate powers from the same source, and as those powers were well defined, there was little probability that
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conflicts would arise, when united action became necessary. Responsibility to the same head, also created a common interest, and the different branches not only became mu tually reliant, but were sharp observers of each other's de relictions of duty. They occupied the same field and were in constant communication. The agent was present to discharge Government obligations, the soldier to restrain and to inflict punishment when merited. The War De partment held within its own grasp these distinct forces, and applied them to suit the variable conditions of different tribes.
The Interior Department assumed the management of Indian affairs, without the power to coerce disobedient bands, and expected to accomplish its work through per suasion. In fact an argument in favor of the transfer of the Bureau, was, that too much force had hitherto been used, and too little attention paid to milder methods ; and for that reason Indian advancement had been unsatisfac tory. Said Commissioner Brown : " Among the more im portant duties of this office, are those which relate to the civilization of our Indian tribes," and the Secretary of the Interior, in eighteen hundred and fifty-one, said that civili zation " must be commenced by substituting kindness for coercion, by feeding and clothing, rather than by warring upon and driving them from their territory." It is possi ble that the Interior Department did not intend to man age rebellious tribes. The first Secretary refused to accept the Florida Indians until they had been properly punished, and manifested a willingness to be improved. In the possi ble event that any of the tribes could not be controlled through kindness, it was easy to turn them over to the army for chastisement.
Another consequence of the transfer was the creation of apparently separate interests, on the part of the officers of the two departments. Each class felt independent of
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the other. The feeling of mutual reliance was destroyed, and there sprung up in its stead a spirit, if not of jealousy, at least of distrust, lest either party might make unwar ranted assumptions, or declarations of authority. The checks formerly existing upon illegal or fraudulent trans actions, by reason of the watchfulness which a conscious common responsibility produced, were removed, and the scattered agents, if not strongly armed with intelligence and integrity, became the willing or unwilling prey of tricky contractors and designing knaves.
The Interior Department has retained the management of Indian affairs to the present time. Since eighteen hun dred and forty-nine, the labor and responsibility incident thereto have greatly increased. Remote tribes have been brought within treaty relations, and have been placed under special guardianship. The provisions of the trade and intercourse laws have been extended, by legislation, over the Indian nations transferred to us by Mexico, and indeed over all of those within United States jurisdiction who occupy the Pacific slope, including the inhabitants of the territory of Alaska.
This management has, from year to year, become more independent and exclusive. Congress, in eighteen hundred and fifty-one, strangely abridged the constitutional right of the President to select commissioners or ministers for the purpose of framing Indian treaties. It enacted, that all such negotiations should be conducted by the officers and agents of the Indian Department, who should not re ceive any additional compensation for the extra services. The President was still allowed, and even compelled, to designate the party by whom a treaty should be negotiated, but was confined in his selection to the particular class of persons amenable to the authority of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
Congress might as lawfully have stripped the Executive
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of all discretion in appointment, as to have thus fettered its action. It can as well take away as limit a power con ferred by the constitution. The Interior Department could as well have objected to this act upon legal grounds, as to that of eighteen hundred and seventy- three, which deprived the Indians of formerly recognized treaty privi leges. It did not, however, but quietly submitted to the new provisions. The law placed the entire native popula tion more completely under its control, and its agents could frame and negotiate treaties according to its dicta tion. It not only did this, but it also augmented the re sponsibility of the Indian Department in the expenditure of money, since that department created the treaty obliga tions under which a considerable portion of the money was disbursed.
The system of management does not materially differ from that which was adopted when the Government was inaugurated. Agents to exercise general supervision, in structors in husbandry, and the mechanical arts, dwell with the various tribes. Mental and spiritual improve ment is sought through the labors of secular and clerical teachers. The practice of feeding those Indians unable to subsist themselves, has frequently been resorted to for the last fifty years. The " Peace Policy " of the late adminis tration differs from past Indian policies, chiefly because it furnishes a greater amount of subsistence, and attempts more thorough instruction.
The general Indian legislation of the country is mostly embodied in the Indian Trade and Intercourse laws, and the yearly appropriation acts. The particular relations which different tribes hold to the government have almost universally been brought about through treaties. There are a few instances in which the status of certain tribes has been modified, and even radically changed by special laws, unconnected or unsupported by treaty agreements.
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As for instance the act of eighteen hundred and sixty- three, which cancelled all United States obligations in favor of specified bands of the Sioux nation, and declared their rights in lands forfeited. But special acts affecting such relations, unless passed to make operative treaty con ditions, have been of such rare occurrence, that the above statement might be made without qualification.
In a preceding portion of this chapter, the idea is advanced that the Indian nations have lost all the national characteristics which they possessed at the time when the constitution was framed and adopted. No effort has been made to support the theory announced by a recent chair man of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, that it was "a solecism from the very start," to recognize that they held any of the elements of sovereignty ; but their former ability to contract by treaty has been admitted. If they have lost that power, they have either been de prived of it or they have surrendered it. If it has been taken from them without their assent, it has been effected through the medium of general legislation, since special acts referring to particular tribes have, as a rule, been passed to carry out the provisions of treaties, by which those tribes surrendered or forfeited their national attri butes.
But the majority of the Indian nations consented by treaty, even before the intercourse laws were extended over them, to live under such regulations as the United States might deem necessary for their welfare, and nearly all of them have since willingly acquiesced in the regulations under which they have been placed. Like the Navajos, and neighboring nations, they have acknowledged in coun cil that they are under the protection and jurisdiction of the United States, and that all laws in force for regulating trade, and preserving peace with the Indian tribes are binding upon them. Therefore but few of the native
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national organizations, embracing but a very limited pro portion of the native population, have been unwillingly deprived of any of the attributes of sovereignty.
The great majority of those organizations have yielded them up, and have solemnly and irrevocably consummated the act of surrender. At least they have accepted for the most part those modifications of former political condition which have been effected by the provisions of the trade and intercourse laws.
Congress however derived its power to enact those laws from the constitutional provision which permits it " To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes." It has fre quently availed itself of the power thus conferred, and if we allow the decisions of the courts to govern our conclu sions, we must admit that its action in this respect has been lawfully exercised. In " the United States vs. Rogers ;" Chief Justice Taney held, that the United States could extend its criminal jurisdiction over all persons, whether whites or Indians, who resided within its territorial limits, and without the limits of organized States. Certainly if such a power was carried to its utmost legitimate extent, not one of the native tribes would retain a single national qualification.
From the organization of the present Government to the beginning of the century, five trade and intercourse acts were passed, nearly all limited in duration to a short period of time. They were evidently intended to secure the good will of the tribes, while they increased their de pendence. They aimed to protect the Indians from the frauds of private and irresponsible parties, to elevate their condition by imparting instruction, to cut them off from communication with citizens of foreign powers, and to allow of no business transaction on their part, with people other than of their own race, except they were conducted
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under the supervision of regularly appointed Government officials. These acts authorized the appointment of agents, forbade the carrying on of trade outside of State limits, by any person except a trader legally licensed ; declared in valid all sales of land by Indians, unless executed "at some public treaty, held under the authority of the United States ;" defined the boundaries of the Indian country, prohibited whites from settling therein, and proclaimed public routes of travel within it ; made the penalties for crimes committed against Indians, within their territory, the same as if committed against citizens ; allowed State courts to arrest and punish Indians, if detected in the commission of depredations at any place over