Front Cover
(This cover was produced by the Transcriber and is in the public domain.)

A CENTURY OF DISHONOR

A SKETCH

OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT'S DEALINGS

WITH SOME OF THE INDIAN TRIBES

By HELEN JACKSON (H. H.),

AUTHOR OF "RAMONA," "VERSES," "BITS OF TRAVEL,"

"BITS OF TRAVEL AT HOME," "BITS OF TALK ABOUT HOME MATTERS,"

"BITS OF TALK FOR YOUNG FOLKS," "NELLY'S SILVER MINE,"

H. H.'S CAT STORIES, ETC.

"Every human being born upon our continent, or who comes here

from any quarter of the world, whether savage or civilized, can go

to our courts for protection—except those who belong to the tribes

who once owned this country. The cannibal from the islands of the

Pacific, the worst criminals from Europe, Asia, or Africa, can appeal

to the law and courts for their rights of person and property—all,

save our native Indians, who, above all, should be protected from

wrong." Gov. Horatio Seymour

NEW EDITION, ENLARGED BY THE ADDITION OF THE REPORT OF

THE NEEDS OF THE MISSION INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA

BOSTON

ROBERTS BROTHERS

1889

Copyright, 1885,

By Roberts Brothers.

University Press:

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.

CONTENTS.

APPENDIX.

PREFACE.

I have been requested to write a preface to this sad story of "A Century of Dishonor." I cannot refuse the request of one whose woman's heart has pleaded so eloquently for the poor Red men. The materials for her book have been taken from official documents. The sad revelation of broken faith, of violated treaties, and of inhuman deeds of violence will bring a flush of shame to the cheeks of those who love their country. They will wonder how our rulers have dared to so trifle with justice, and provoke the anger of God. Many of the stories will be new to the reader. The Indian owns no telegraph, employs no press reporter, and his side of the story is unknown to the people.

Nations, like individuals, reap exactly what they sow; they who sow robbery reap robbery. The seed-sowing of iniquity replies in a harvest of blood. The American people have accepted as truth the teaching that the Indians were a degraded, brutal race of savages, whom it was the will of God should perish at the approach of civilization. If they do not say with our Puritan fathers that these are the Hittites who are to be driven out before the saints of the Lord, they do accept the teaching that manifest destiny will drive the Indians from the earth. The inexorable has no tears or pity at the cries of anguish of the doomed race. Ahab never speaks kindly of Naboth, whom he has robbed of his vineyard. It soothes conscience to cast mud on the character of the one whom we have wronged.

The people have laid the causes of Indian wars at the door of the Indian trader, the people on the border, the Indian agents, the army, and the Department of the Interior. None of these are responsible for the Indian wars, which have cost the United States five hundred millions of dollars and tens of thousands of valuable lives. In the olden time the Indian trader was the Indian's friend. The relation was one of mutual dependence. If the trader oppressed the Indian he was in danger of losing his debt; if the Indian refused to pay his debts, the trader must leave the country. The factors and agents of the old fur companies tell us that their goods were as safe in the unguarded trading-post as in the civilized village. The pioneer settlers have had too much at stake to excite an Indian massacre, which would overwhelm their loved ones in ruin. The army are not responsible for Indian wars; they are "men under authority," who go where they are sent. The men who represent the honor of the nation have a tradition that lying is a disgrace, and that theft forfeits character. General Crook expressed the feeling of the army when he replied to a friend who said, "It is hard to go on such a campaign." "Yes, it is hard; but, sir, the hardest thing is to go and fight those whom you know are in the right." The Indian Bureau is often unable to fulfil the treaties, because Congress has failed to make the appropriations. If its agents are not men of the highest character, it is largely due to the fact that we send a man to execute this difficult trust at a remote agency, and expect him to support himself and family on $1500 a year. The Indian Bureau represents a system which is a blunder and a crime.

The Indian is the only human being within our territory who has no individual right in the soil. He is not amenable to or protected by law. The executive, the legislative, and judicial departments of the Government recognize that he has a possessory right in the soil; but his title is merged in the tribe—the man has no standing before the law. A Chinese or a Hottentot would have, but the native American is left pitiably helpless. This system grew out of our relations at the first settlement of the country. The isolated settlements along the Atlantic coast could not ask the Indians, who outnumbered them ten to one, to accept the position of wards. No wise policy was adopted, with altered circumstances, to train the Indians for citizenship. Treaties were made of the same binding force of the constitution; but these treaties were unfilled. It may be doubted whether one single treaty has ever been fulfilled as it would have been if it had been made with a foreign power. The treaty has been made as between two independent sovereigns. Sometimes each party has been ignorant of the wishes of the other; for the heads of both parties to the treaty have been on the interpreter's shoulders, and he was the owned creature of corrupt men, who desired to use the Indians as a key to unlock the nation's treasury. Pledges, solemnly made, have been shamelessly violated. The Indian has had no redress but war. In these wars ten white men were killed to one Indian, and the Indians who were killed have cost the Government a hundred thousand dollars each. Then came a new treaty, more violated faith, another war, until we have not a hundred miles between the Atlantic and Pacific which has not been the scene of an Indian massacre.

All this while Canada has had no Indian wars. Our Government has expended for the Indians a hundred dollars to their one. They recognize, as we do, that the Indian has a possessory right to the soil. They purchase this right, as we do, by treaty; but their treaties are made with the Indian subjects of Her Majesty. They set apart a permanent reservation for them; they seldom remove Indians; they select agents of high character, who receive their appointments for life; they make fewer promises, but they fulfil them; they give the Indians Christian missions, which have the hearty support of Christian people, and all their efforts are toward self-help and civilization. An incident will illustrate the two systems. The officer of the United States Army who was sent to receive Alaska from the Russian Government stopped in British Columbia. Governor Douglas had heard that an Indian had been murdered by another Indian. He visited the Indian tribe; he explained to them that the murdered man was a subject of Her Majesty; he demanded the culprit. The murderer was surrendered, was tried, was found guilty, and was hanged. On reaching Alaska the officer happened to enter the Greek church, and saw on the altar a beautiful copy of the Gospels in a costly binding studded with jewels. He called upon the Greek bishop, and said, "Your Grace, I called to say you had better remove that copy of the Gospels from the church, for it may be stolen." The bishop replied, "Why should I remove it? It was the gift of the mother of the emperor, and has lain on the altar seventy years." The officer blushed, and said, "There is no law in the Indian country, and I was afraid it might be stolen." The bishop said, "The book is in God's house, and it is His book, and I shall not take it away." The book remained. The country became ours, and the next day the Gospel was stolen.

Our Indian wars are needless and wicked. The North American Indian is the noblest type of a heathen man on the earth. He recognizes a Great Spirit; he believes in immortality; he has a quick intellect; he is a clear thinker; he is brave and fearless, and, until betrayed, he is true to his plighted faith; he has a passionate love for his children, and counts it joy to die for his people. Our most terrible wars have been with the noblest types of the Indians, and with men who had been the white man's friend. Nicolet said the Sioux were the finest type of wild men he had ever seen. Old traders say that it used to be the boast of the Sioux that they had never taken the life of a white man. Lewis and Clarke, Governor Stevens, and Colonel Steptoe bore testimony to the devoted friendship of the Nez Percés for the white man. Colonel Boone, Colonel Bent, General Harney, and others speak in the highest praise of the Cheyennes. The Navahoes were a semi-civilized people.

Our best friends have suffered more deeply from our neglect and violated faith than our most bitter foes. Peaceable Indians often say, "You leave us to suffer; if we killed your people, then you would take care of us."

Our Indian wars have not come wholly from violated faith. In time of peace it has been our policy to establish "almshouses" to train and educate savage paupers. We have purchased paint, beads, scalping-knives, to deck warriors, and have fed them in idleness at the agency. Around this agency and along the border were gathered influences to degrade the savage, and sink him to a depth his fathers had never known. It has only needed a real or a fancied wrong to have this pauperized savagery break out in deeds of blood. Under President Grant a new departure was taken. The peace policy was little more than a name. No change was made in the Indian system; no rights of property were given; no laws were passed to protect the Indians. The President did take the nomination of Indian agents from politicians, who had made the office a reward for political service. He gave the nomination of Indian agents to the executive committees of the missionary societies of the different churches. Where these Christian bodies established schools and missions, and the Government cast its influence on the side of labor, it was a success. More has been done to civilize the Indians in the past twelve years than in any period of our history. The Indian Ring has fought the new policy at every step; and yet, notwithstanding our Indian wars, our violated treaties, and our wretched system, thousands of Indians, who were poor, degraded savages, are now living as Christian, civilized men. There was a time when it seemed impossible to secure the attention of the Government to any wrongs done to the Indians: it is not so to-day. The Government does listen to the friends of the Indians, and many of the grosser forms of robbery are stopped. No permanent reform can be secured until the heart of the people is touched. In 1862 I visited Washington, to lay before the Administration the causes which had desolated our fair State with the blood of those slain by Indian massacre. After pleading in vain, and finding no redress, Secretary Stanton said to a friend, "What does the Bishop want? If he came here to tell us that our Indian system is a sink of iniquity, tell him we all know it. Tell him the United States never cures a wrong until the people demand it; and when the hearts of the people are reached the Indian will be saved." In this book the reader will find the sad story of a century—no, not the whole story, but the fragmentary story of isolated tribes. The author will have her reward if it shall aid in securing justice to a noble and a wronged race. Even with the sad experiences of the past we have not learned justice. The Cherokees and other tribes received the Indian Territory as a compensation and atonement for one of the darkest crimes ever committed by a Christian nation. That territory was conveyed to them by legislation as strong as the wit of statesmen could devise. The fathers who conveyed this territory to the Cherokees are dead. Greedy eyes covet the land. The plans are laid to wrest it from its rightful owners. If this great iniquity is consummated, these Indians declare that all hope in our justice will die out of their hearts, and that they will defend their country with their lives.

The work of reform is a difficult one; it will cost us time, effort, and money; it will demand the best thoughts of the best men in the country. We shall have to regain the confidence of our Indian wards by honest dealing and the fulfilment of our promises. Now the name of a white man is to the Indians a synonyme for "liar." Red Cloud recently paid a visit to the Black Hills, and was hospitably entertained by his white friends. In bidding them good-bye he expressed the hope that, if they did not meet again on earth, they might meet beyond the grave "in a land where white men ceased to be liars."

Dark as the history is, there is a brighter side. No missions to the heathen have been more blessed than those among the Indians. Thousands, who were once wild, painted savages, finding their greatest joy in deeds of war, are now the disciples of the Prince of Peace. There are Indian churches with Indian congregations, in which Indian clergy are telling the story of God's love in Jesus Christ our Saviour. Where once was only heard the medicine-drum and the song of the scalp-dance, there is now the bell calling Christians to prayer, and songs of praise and words of prayer go up to heaven. The Christian home, though only a log-cabin, has taken the place of the wigwam; and the poor, degraded Indian woman has been changed to the Christian wife and mother. With justice, personal rights, and the protection of law, the Gospel will do for our Red brothers what it has done for other races—give to them homes, manhood and freedom.

H. B. Whipple, Bishop of Minnesota.

New York, November 11th, 1880.

INTRODUCTION.

The present number of Indians in the United States does not exceed three hundred thousand, but is possibly as large now as when the Europeans began the settlement of the North American continent. Different tribes then existing have dwindled, and some have become extinct; but there is reason to believe that the vast territory now occupied by the United States, if not then a howling wilderness, was largely an unpeopled solitude. The roaming wild men who met the new discoverers were, however, numerous enough to make the Indian problem at the outset a serious one, while neither its gravity nor its difficulty yet shows signs of diminution.

The difficulty is not because the Indians are wild and savage men, for such men have in the past history of the human race been subdued and civilized in unnumbered instances, while the changes which in our time have been wrought among the cannibals of the South Sea and the barbarians of South Africa, and among the wildest and most savage of the North American Indians themselves, show abundantly that the agencies of civilization, ready to our hand are neither wanting nor weak.

The great difficulty with the Indian problem is not with the Indian, but with the Government and people of the United States. Instead of a liberal and far-sighted policy looking to the education and civilization and possible citizenship of the Indian tribes, we have suffered these people to remain as savages, for whose future we have had no adequate care, and to the consideration of whose present state the Government has only been moved when pressed by some present danger. We have encroached upon their means of subsistence without furnishing them any proper return; we have shut them up on reservations often notoriously unfit for them, or, if fit, we have not hesitated to drive them off for our profit, without regard to theirs; we have treated them sometimes as foreign nations, with whom we have had treaties; sometimes as wards, who are entitled to no voice in the management of their affairs; and sometimes as subjects, from whom we have required obedience, but to whom we have recognized no obligations. That the Government of the United States, which has often plighted its faith to the Indian, and has broken it as often, and, while punishing him for his crimes, has given him no status in the courts except as a criminal, has been sadly derelict in its duty toward him, and has reaped the whirlwind only because it has sown the wind, is set forth in no exaggerated terms in the following pages, and ought to be acknowledged with shame by every American citizen.

It will be admitted now on every hand that the only solution of the Indian problem involves the entire change of these people from a savage to a civilized life. They are not likely to be exterminated. Unless we ourselves withdraw from all contact with them, and leave them to roam untrammeled over their wilds, or until the power of a Christian civilization shall make them consciously one with us, they will not cease to vex us.

But how shall they become civilized? Civilization is in a most important sense a gift rather than an acquisition. Men do not gain it for themselves, except as stimulated thereto by some incitement from above themselves. The savage does not labor for the gratifications of civilized life, since he does not desire these. His labors and his desires are both dependent upon some spiritual gift, which, having kindled him, quickens his desires and calls forth his toil. Unless he has some help from without, some light and life from above to illumine and inspire him, the savage remains a savage, and without this all the blandishments of the civilization with which he might be brought into contact could no more win him into a better state than could all the light and warmth of the sun woo a desert into a fruitful field. When English missionaries went to the Indians in Canada, they took with them skilled laborers who should teach the Indians how to labor, and who, by providing them at first with comfortable houses, and clothing, and food, should awaken their desires and evoke their efforts to perpetuate and increase these comforts. But the Indian would not work, and preferred his wigwam, and skins, and raw flesh, and filth to the cleanliness and conveniences of a civilized home; and it was only as Christian influences taught him his inner need, and how this could be supplied, that he was led to wish and work for the improvement of his outer condition and habits of life. The same is true everywhere. Civilization does not reproduce itself. It must first be kindled, and can then only be kept alive by a power genuinely Christian.

But it is idle to attempt to carry Christian influences to any one unless we are Christian. The first step, therefore, toward the desired transformation of the Indian is a transformed treatment of him by ourselves. In sober earnest, our Government needs, first of all, to be Christian, and to treat the Indian question as Christian principles require. This means at the outset that we should be honest, and not talk about maintaining our rights until we are willing to fulfil our obligations. It means that we should be kind, and quite as eager to give the Indian what is ours as to get what is his. It means that we should be wise, and patient, and persevering, abandoning all makeshifts and temporary expedients, and setting it before us as our fixed aim to act toward him as a brother, until he shall act as a brother toward us. There is no use to attempt to teach Christian duty to him in words till he has first seen it exemplified in our own deeds.

The true Christian principle of self-forgetful honesty and kindness, clearly and continuously exhibited, is the first requisite of true statesmanship in the treatment of the Indian question. This would not require, however, the immediate entrance of the Indian upon all the privileges of citizenship and self-direction. Christianized though he might be, he would need for a longer or shorter time guardianship like a child. A wise care for his own interests could not be expected of him at the outset, and the Government should care for him with wise forethought. Obedience to the law should be required of him, and the protection of the law afforded him. The jurisdiction of the courts and the presence of the Government should be felt in the Indian Territory and upon every Indian reservation as powerfully as in the most enlightened portions of the land. The court should go as early as the school, if not before, and is itself an educational agency of incalculable importance.

When the Indian, through wise and Christian treatment, becomes invested with all the rights and duties of citizenship, his special tribal relations will become extinct. This will not be easily nor rapidly done; but all our policy should be shaped toward the gradual loosening of the tribal bond, and the gradual absorption of the Indian families among the masses of our people. This would involve the bringing to an end of the whole system of Indian reservations, and would forbid the continued isolation of the Indian Territory. It is not wise statesmanship to create impassable barriers between any parts of our country or any portions of our people.

Very difficult questions demanding very careful treatment arise in reference to just this point. Certain Indian tribes now own certain Indian reservations and the Indian Territory, and this right of property ought to be most sacredly guarded. But it does not, therefore, follow that these Indians, in their present state, ought to control the present use of this property. They may need a long training before they are wise enough to manage rightfully what is nevertheless rightfully their own. This training, to which their property might fairly contribute means, should assiduously be given in established schools with required attendance.

If the results thus indicated shall gradually come to pass, the property now owned by the tribes should be ultimately divided and held in severalty by the individual members of the tribes. Such a division should not be immediately made, and, when made, it should be with great care and faithfulness; but the Indian himself should, as soon as may be, feel both the incentives and the restraints which an individual ownership of property is fitted to excite, and the Government, which is his guardian, having educated him for this ownership, should endow him with it. But until the Indian becomes as able as is the average white man to manage his property for himself, the Government should manage it for him, no matter whether he be willing or unwilling to have this done.

A difficulty arises in the cases—of which there are many—where treaties have been made by the Government of the United States with different Indian tribes, wherein the two parties have agreed to certain definitely named stipulations. Such treaties have proceeded upon the false view—false in principle, and equally false in fact—that an Indian tribe, roaming in the wilderness and living by hunting and plunder, is a nation. In order to be a nation, there must be a people with a code of laws which they practise, and a government which they maintain. No vague sense of some unwritten law, to which human nature, in its lowest stages, doubtless feels some obligation, and no regulations instinctively adopted for common defence, which the rudest people herded together will always follow, are enough to constitute a nation. These Indian tribes are not a nation, and nothing either in their history or their condition could properly invest them with a treaty-making power.

And yet when exigencies have seemed to require, we have treated them as nations, and have pledged our own national faith in solemn covenant with them. It were the baldest truism to say that this faith and covenant should be fulfilled. Of course it should be fulfilled. It is to our own unspeakable disgrace that we have so often failed therein. But it becomes us wisely and honestly to inquire whether the spirit of these agreements might not be falsified by their letter, and whether, in order to give the Indian his real rights, it may not be necessary to set aside prerogatives to which he might technically and formally lay claim. If the Indian Territory and the Indian reservations have been given to certain tribes as their possession forever, the sacredness of this guarantee should not shut our eyes to the sacredness also of the real interests of the people in whose behalf the guarantee was given. We ought not to lose the substance in our efforts to retain the shadow; we ought not to insist upon the summum jus, when this would become the summa injuria.

Of course the utmost caution is needed in the application of such a principle. To admit that a treaty with the Indians may be set aside without the consent of the Indians themselves, is to open the door again to the same frauds and falsehoods which have so darkly branded a "Century of Dishonor." But our great trouble has been that we have sought to exact justice from the Indian while exhibiting no justice to him; and when we shall manifest that all our procedure toward him is in truth and uprightness, we need have no fear but that both his conscience and his judgment will in the end approve.

Julius H. Seelye.

Amherst College, December 10, 1880.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

All the quotations in this book, where the name of the authority is not cited, are from Official Reports of the War Department or the Department of the Interior.

The book gives, as its title indicates, only a sketch, and not a history.

To write in full the history of any one of these Indian communities, of its forced migrations, wars, and miseries, would fill a volume by itself.

The history of the missionary labors of the different churches among the Indians would make another volume. It is the one bright spot on the dark record.

All this I have been forced to leave untouched, in strict adherence to my object, which has been simply to show our causes for national shame in the matter of our treatment of the Indians. It is a shame which the American nation ought not to lie under, for the American people, as a people, are not at heart unjust.

If there be one thing which they believe in more than any other, and mean that every man on this continent shall have, it is "fair play." And as soon as they fairly understand how cruelly it has been denied to the Indian, they will rise up and demand it for him.

H. H.

A CENTURY OF DISHONOR.

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.

The question of the honorableness of the United States' dealings with the Indians turns largely on a much disputed and little understood point. What was the nature of the Indians' right to the country in which they were living when the continent of North America was discovered? Between the theory of some sentimentalists that the Indians were the real owners of the soil, and the theory of some politicians that they had no right of ownership whatever in it, there are innumerable grades and confusions of opinion. The only authority on the point must be the view and usage as accepted by the great discovering Powers at the time of discovery, and afterward in their disposition of the lands discovered.

Fortunately, an honest examination of these points leaves no doubt on the matter.

England, France, Spain, little Portugal—all quarrelling fiercely, and fighting with each other for the biggest share in the new continent—each claiming "sovereignty of the soil" by right of priority of discovery—all recognized the Indians' "right of occupancy" as a right; a right alienable in but two ways, either by purchase or by conquest.

All their discussions as to boundaries, from 1603 down to 1776, recognized this right and this principle. They reiterated, firstly, that discoverers had the right of sovereignty—a right in so far absolute that the discoverer was empowered by it not only to take possession of, but to grant, sell, and convey lands still occupied by Indians—and that for any nation to attempt to take possession of, grant, sell, or convey any such Indian-occupied lands while said lands were claimed by other nations under the right of discovery, was an infringement of rights, and just occasion of war; secondly, that all this granting, selling, conveying was to be understood to be "subject to the Indians' right of occupancy," which remained to be extinguished either through further purchase or through conquest by the grantee or purchaser.

Peters, in his preface to the seventh volume of the "United States Statutes at Large," says, "The history of America, from its discovery to the present day, proves the universal recognition of these principles."

Each discovering Power might regulate the relations between herself and the Indians; but as to the existence of the Indians' "right of occupancy," there was absolute unanimity among them. That there should have been unanimity regarding any one thing between them, is remarkable. It is impossible for us to realize what a sudden invitation to greed and discord lay in this fair, beautiful, unclaimed continent—eight millions of square miles of land—more than twice the size of all Europe itself. What a lure to-day would such another new continent prove! The fighting over it would be as fierce now as the fighting was then, and the "right of occupancy" of the natives would stand small chance of such unanimous recognition as the four Great Powers then justly gave it.

Of the fairness of holding that ultimate sovereignty belonged to the civilized discoverer, as against the savage barbarian, there is no manner nor ground of doubt. To question this is feeble sentimentalism. But to affirm and uphold this is not in any wise to overlook the lesser right which remained; as good, of its kind, and to its extent, as was the greater right to which, in the just nature of things, it was bound to give way.

It being clear, then, that the Indians' "right of occupancy" was a right recognized by all the great discovering Powers, acted upon by them in all their dispositions of lands here discovered, it remains next to inquire whether the United States Government, on taking its place among the nations, also recognized or accepted this Indian "right of occupancy" as an actual right. Upon this point, also, there is no doubt.

"By the treaty which concluded the War of our Revolution, Great Britain relinquished all claims not only to the government, but to the proprietary and territorial rights of the United States whose boundaries were fixed in the second Article. By this treaty the powers of the government and the right to soil which had previously been in Great Britain passed definitely to these States. We had before taken possession of them by declaring independence, but neither the declaration of independence nor the treaty confirming it could give us more than that which we before possessed, or to which Great Britain was before entitled. It has never been doubted that either the United States or the several States had a clear title to all the lands within the boundary-lines described in the treaty, subject only to the Indian right of occupancy, and that the exclusive right to extinguish that right was vested in that government which might constitutionally exercise it."[^[1]]

"Subject to the Indian right of occupancy." It is noticeable how perpetually this phrase reappears. In their desire to define, assert, and enforce the greater right, the "right of sovereignty," the makers, interpreters, and recorders of law did not realize, probably, how clearly and equally they were defining, asserting, and enforcing the lesser right, the "right of occupancy."

Probably they did not so much as dream that a time would come when even this lesser right—this least of all rights, it would seem, which could be claimed by, or conceded to, an aboriginal inhabitant of a country, however savage—would be practically denied to our Indians. But if they had foreseen such a time, they could hardly have left more explicit testimony to meet the exigency.

"The United States have unequivocally acceded to that great and broad rule by which its civilized inhabitants now hold this country. They hold and assert in themselves the title by which it was acquired. They maintain, as all others have maintained, that discovery gave an exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title of occupancy, either by purchase or conquest, and gave also a right to such a degree of sovereignty as the circumstances of the people would allow them to exercise.

"The power now possessed by the United States to grant lands resided, while we were colonies, in the Crown or its grantees. The validity of the titles given by either has never been questioned in our courts. It has been exercised uniformly over territories in possession of the Indians. The existence of this power must negative the existence of any right which may conflict with and control it. An absolute title to lands cannot exist at the same time in different persons or in different governments. An absolute must be an exclusive title, or at least a title which excludes all others not compatible with it. All our institutions recognize the absolute title of the Crown, subject only to the Indian right of occupancy, and recognize the absolute title of the Crown to extinguish the right. This is incompatible with an absolute and complete title in the Indians."[^[2]]

Certainly. But it is also "incompatible with an absolute and perfect title" in the white man! Here again, in their desire to define and enforce the greater right, by making it so clear that it included the lesser one, they equally define and enforce the lesser right as a thing to be included. The word "subject" is a strong participle when it is used legally. Provisions are made in wills, "subject to" a widow's right of dower, for instance, and the provisions cannot be carried out without the consent of the person to whom they are thus declared to be "subject." A title which is pronounced to be "subject to" anything or anybody cannot be said to be absolute till that subjection is removed.

There have been some definitions and limitations by high legal authority of the methods in which this Indian "right of occupancy" might be extinguished even by conquest.

"The title by conquest is acquired and maintained by force. The conqueror prescribes its limits. Humanity, however, acting on public opinion, has established as a general rule that the conquered shall not be wantonly oppressed, and that their condition shall remain as eligible as is compatible with the objects of the conquest. Usually they are incorporated with the victorious nation, and become subjects or citizens of the government with which they are connected. *** When this incorporation is practicable, humanity demands, and a wise policy requires, that the rights of the conquered to property should remain unimpaired; that the new subjects should be governed as equitably as the old. *** When the conquest is complete, and the conquered inhabitants can be blended with the conquerors, or safely governed as a distinct people, public opinion, which not even the conqueror can disregard, imposes these restraints upon him, and he cannot neglect them without injury to his fame, and hazard to his power."[^[3]]

In the sadly famous case of the removal of the Cherokee tribe from Georgia, it is recorded as the opinion of our Supreme Court that "the Indians are acknowledged to have an unquestionable, and heretofore unquestioned, right to the lands they occupy until that right shall be extinguished by a voluntary cession to the Government." *** "The Indian nations have always been considered as distinct independent political communities, retaining their original natural rights as the undisputed possessors of the soil, from time immemorial, with the single exception of that imposed by irresistible power, which excluded them from intercourse with any other European potentate than the first discoverer of the coast of the particular region claimed; and this was a restriction which those European potentates imposed on themselves as well as on the Indians. The very term 'nation,' so generally applied to them, means 'a people distinct from others.' The Constitution, by declaring treaties already made, as well as those to be made, to be the supreme law of the land, has adopted and sanctioned the previous treaties with the Indian nations, and consequently admits their rank among those powers who are capable of making treaties. The words 'treaty' and 'nation' are words of our own language, selected in our diplomatic and legislative proceedings by ourselves, having each a definite and well understood meaning. We have applied them to Indians as we have applied them to other nations of the earth. They are applied to all in the same sense."[^[4]]

In another decision of the Supreme Court we find still greater emphasis put upon the Indian right of occupancy, by stating it as a right, the observance of which was stipulated for in treaties between the United States and other nations.

"When the United States acquired and took possession of the Floridas, the treaties which had been made with the Indian tribes before the acquisition of the territory by Spain and Great Britain remained in force over all the ceded territory, as the law which regulated the relations with all the Indians who were parties to them, and were binding on the United States by the obligation they had assumed by the Louisiana treaty as a supreme law of the land.

"The treaties with Spain and England before the acquisition of Florida by the United States, which guaranteed to the Seminole Indians their lands, according to the right of property with which they possessed them, were adopted by the United States, who thus became the protectors of all the rights they (the Indians) had previously enjoyed, or could of right enjoy, under Great Britain or Spain, as individuals or nations, by any treaty to which the United States thus became parties in 1803. ***

"The Indian right to the lands as property was not merely of possession; that of alienation was concomitant; both were equally secured, protected, and guaranteed by Great Britain and Spain, subject only to ratification and confirmation by the license, charter, or deed from the government representing the king." ***

The laws made it necessary, when the Indians sold their lands, to have the deeds presented to the governor for confirmation. The sales by the Indians transferred the kind of right which they possessed; the ratification of the sale by the governor must be regarded as a relinquishment of the title of the Crown to the purchaser, and no instance is known of refusal of permission to sell, or of the rejection of an Indian sale.[^[5]]

"The colonial charters, a great portion of the individual grants by the proprietary and royal governments, and a still greater portion by the States of the Union after the Revolution, were made for lands within the Indian hunting-grounds. North Carolina and Virginia, to a great extent, paid their officers and soldiers of the Revolutionary War by such grants, and extinguished the arrears due the army by similar means. It was one of the great resources which sustained the war, not only by those States but by other States. The ultimate fee, encumbered with the right of occupancy, was in the Crown previous to the Revolution, and in the States afterward, and subject to grant. This right of occupancy was protected by the political power, and respected by the courts until extinguished." *** "So the Supreme Court and the State courts have uniformly held."[^[6]]

President Adams, in his Message of 1828, thus describes the policy of the United States toward the Indians at that time:

"At the establishment of the Federal Government the principle was adopted of considering them as foreign and independent powers, and also as proprietors of lands. As independent powers, we negotiated with them by treaties; as proprietors, we purchased of them all the land which we could prevail on them to sell; as brethren of the human race, rude and ignorant, we endeavored to bring them to the knowledge of religion and letters."

Kent says: "The European nations which, respectively, established colonies in America, assumed the ultimate dominion to be in themselves, and claimed the exclusive right to grant a title to the soil, subject only to the Indian right of occupancy. The natives were admitted to be the rightful occupants of the soil, with a legal as well as just claim to retain possession of it, and to use it according to their own discretion, though not to dispose of the soil at their own will, except to the government claiming the right of pre-emption." *** "The United States adopted the same principle; and their exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title by purchase or conquest, and to grant the soil and exercise such a degree of sovereignty as circumstances required, has never been judicially questioned."

Kent also says, after giving the Supreme Court decision in the case of Johnson vs. M'Intosh: "The same court has since been repeatedly called upon to discuss and decide great questions concerning Indian rights and title, and the subject has of late become exceedingly grave and momentous, affecting the faith and the character, if not the tranquillity and safety, of the Government of the United States."

In Gardner's "Institutes of International Law" the respective rights to land of the Indians and the whites are thus summed up: "In our Union the aborigines had only a possessory title, and in the original thirteen States each owned in fee, subject to the Indian right, all ungranted lands within their respective limits; and beyond the States the residue of the ungranted lands were vested in fee in the United States, subject to the Indian possessory right, to the extent of the national limits."

Dr. Walker, in his "American Law," makes a still briefer summary: "The American doctrine on the subject of Indian title is briefly this: The Indians have no fee in the lands they occupy. The fee is in the Government. They cannot, of course, aliene them either to nations or individuals, the exclusive right of pre-emption being in the Government. Yet they have a qualified right of occupancy which can only be extinguished by treaty, and upon fair compensation; until which they are entitled to be protected in their possession."

"Abbott's Digest," one of the very latest authorities, reiterates the same principle: "The right of occupancy has been recognized in countless ways, among others by many decisions of courts and opinions of attorney-generals."

It being thus established that the Indian's "right of occupancy" in his lands was a right recognized by all the Great Powers discovering this continent, and accepted by them as a right necessary to be extinguished either by purchase or conquest, and that the United States, as a nation, has also from the beginning recognized, accepted, and acted upon this theory, it is next in order to inquire whether the United States has dealt honorably or dishonorably by the Indians in this matter of their recognized "right of occupancy."

In regard to the actions of individuals there is rarely much room for discussion whether they be honorable or dishonorable, the standard of honor in men's conduct being, among the civilized, uniform, well understood, and undisputed. Stealing, for instance, is everywhere held to be dishonorable, as well as impolitic; lying, also, in all its forms; breaking of promises and betrayals of trust are scorned even among the most ignorant people. But when it comes to the discussion of the acts of nations, there seems to be less clearness of conception, less uniformity of standard of right and wrong, honor and dishonor. It is necessary, therefore, in charging a government or nation with dishonorable conduct, to show that its moral standard ought in nowise to differ from the moral standard of an individual; that what is cowardly, cruel, base in a man, is cowardly, cruel, base in a government or nation. To do this, it is only needful to look into the history of the accepted "Law of Nations," from the days of the Emperor Justinian until now.

The Roman jurisconsults employed as synonymous, says Wheaton, "the two expressions, 'jus gentium,' that law which is found among all the known nations of the earth, and 'jus naturale,' founded on the general nature of mankind; nevertheless, of these two forms of the same idea, the first ought to be considered as predominant, since it as well as the 'jus civile' was a positive law, the origin and development of which must be sought for in history."

Nations being simply, as Vattel defines them, "societies of men united together," it is plain that, if there be such a thing as the "law of nature," which men as individuals are bound to obey, that law is also obligatory on the "societies" made up of men thus "united."

Hobbes divides the law of nature into that of man and that of States, saying, "The maxims of each of these laws are precisely the same; but as States, once established, assume personal properties, that which is termed the natural law when we speak of the duties of individuals is called the law of nations when applied to whole nations or States." The Emperor Justinian said, "The law of nations is common to the whole human race."

Grotius draws the distinction between the law of nature and the law of nations thus: "When several persons at different times and in various places maintain the same thing as certain, such coincidence of sentiment must be attributed to some general cause. Now, in the questions before us, that cause must necessarily be one or the other of these two—either a just consequence drawn from natural principles, or a universal consent; the former discovers to us the law of nature, and the latter the law of nations."

Vattel defines the "necessary law of nations" to be the "application of the law of nature to nations." He says: "It is 'necessary,' because nations are absolutely bound to observe it. This law contains the precepts prescribed by the law of nature to States, on whom that law is not less obligatory than on individuals; since States are composed of men, their resolutions are taken by men, and the law of nations is binding on all men, under whatever relation they act. This is the law which Grotius, and those who follow him, call the Internal Law of Nations, on account of its being obligatory on nations in the point of conscience."

Vattel says again: "Nations being composed of men naturally free and independent, and who before the establishment of civil societies lived together in the state of nature, nations or sovereign States are to be considered as so many free persons living together in the state of nature."

And again: "Since men are naturally equal, and a perfect equality prevails in their right and obligations as equally proceeding from nature, nations composed of men, and considered as so many free persons living together in the state of nature, are naturally equal, and inherit from nature the same obligations and rights. Power or weakness does not in this respect produce any difference. A dwarf is as much a man as a giant; a small republic no less a sovereign State than the most powerful kingdom."

In these two last sentences is touched the key-note of the true law of nations, as well as of the true law for individuals—justice. There is among some of the later writers on jurisprudence a certain fashion of condescending speech in their quotations from Vattel. As years have gone on, and States have grown more powerful, and their relations more complicated by reason of selfishness and riches, less and less has been said about the law of nature as a component and unalterable part of the law of nations. Fine subtleties of definition, of limitation have been attempted. Hundreds of pages are full of apparently learned discriminations between the parts of that law which are based on the law of nature and the parts which are based on the consent and usage of nations. But the two cannot be separated. No amount of legality of phrase can do away with the inalienable truth underlying it. Wheaton and President Woolsey to-day say, in effect, the same thing which Grotius said in 1615, and Vattel in 1758.

Says Wheaton: "International law, as understood among civilized nations, may be defined as consisting of those rules of conduct which reason deduces as consonant to justice from the nature of the society existing among independent nations."

President Woolsey says: "International law, in a wide and abstract sense, would embrace those rules of intercourse between nations which are deduced from their rights and moral claims; or, in other words, it is the expression of the jural and moral relations of States to one another.

"If international law were not made up of rules for which reasons could be given satisfactory to man's intellectual and moral nature, if it were not built on principles of right, it would be even less of a science than is the code which governs the actions of polite society."

It is evident, therefore, that the one fundamental right, of which the "law of nations" is at once the expression and the guardian, is the right of every nation to just treatment from other nations, the right of even the smallest republic equally with "the most powerful kingdom." Just as the one fundamental right, of which civil law is the expression and guardian, is the right of each individual to just treatment from every other individual: a right indefeasible, inalienable, in nowise lessened by weakness or strengthened by power—as majestic in the person of "the dwarf" as in that of "the giant."

Of justice, Vattel says: "Justice is the basis of all society, the sure bond of all commerce. ***

"All nations are under a strict obligation to cultivate justice toward each other, to observe it scrupulously and carefully, to abstain from anything that may violate it. ***

"The right of refusing to submit to injustice, of resisting injustice by force if necessary, is part of the law of nature, and as such recognized by the law of nations.

"In vain would Nature give us a right to refuse submitting to injustice, in vain would she oblige others to be just in their dealings with us, if we could not lawfully make use of force when they refused to discharge this duty. The just would lie at the mercy of avarice and injustice, and all their rights would soon become useless. From the foregoing right arise, as two distinct branches, first, the right of a just defence, which belongs to every nation, or the right of making war against whoever attacks her and her rights; and this is the foundation of defensive war. Secondly, the right to obtain justice by force, if we cannot obtain it otherwise, or to pursue our right by force of arms. This is the foundation of offensive war."

Justice is pledged by men to each other by means of promises or contracts; what promises and contracts are between men, treaties are between nations.

President Woolsey says: "A contract is one of the highest acts of human free-will: it is the will binding itself in regard to the future, and surrendering its right to change a certain expressed intention, so that it becomes, morally and jurally, a wrong to act otherwise.

"National contracts are even more solemn and sacred than private ones, on account of the great interests involved; of the deliberateness with which the obligations are assumed; of the permanence and generality of the obligations, measured by the national life, and including thousands of particular cases; and of each nation's calling, under God, to be a teacher of right to all, within and without its borders."

Vattel says: "It is a settled point in natural law that he who has made a promise to any one has conferred upon him a real right to require the thing promised; and, consequently, that the breach of a perfect promise is a violation of another person's right, and as evidently an act of injustice as it would be to rob a man of his property. ***

"There would no longer be any security, no longer any commerce between mankind, if they did not think themselves obliged to keep faith with each other, and to perform their promises."

It is evident that the whole weight of the recognized and accepted law of nations is thrown on the side of justice between nation and nation, and is the recognized and accepted standard of the obligation involved in compacts between nation and nation.

We must look, then, among the accepted declarations of the law of nations for the just and incontrovertible measure of the shame of breaking national compacts, and of the wickedness of the nations that dare to do it.

We shall go back to the earliest days of the world, and find no dissent from, no qualification of the verdict of the infamy of such acts. Livy says of leagues: "Leagues are such agreements as are made by the command of the supreme power, and whereby the whole nation is made liable to the wrath of God if they infringe it."

Grotius opens his "Admonition," in conclusion of the third book of his famous "Rights of War and Peace," as follows: "'For it is by faith,' saith Cicero, 'that not commonwealths only, but that grand society of nations is maintained.' 'Take away this,' saith Aristotle, 'and all human commerce fails.' It is, therefore, an execrable thing to break faith on which so many lives depend. 'It is,' saith Seneca, 'the best ornament wherewith God hath beautified the rational soul; the strongest support of human society, which ought so much the more inviolably to be kept by sovereign princes by how much they may sin with greater license and impunity than other men. Wherefore take away faith, and men are more fierce and cruel than savage beasts, whose rage all men do horribly dread. Justice, indeed, in all other of her parts hath something that is obscure; but that whereunto we engage our faith is of itself clear and evident; yea, and to this very end do men pawn their faith, that in their negotiations one with another all doubts may be taken away, and every scruple removed. How much more, then, doth it concern kings to keep their faith inviolate, as well for conscience' sake as in regard to their honor and reputation, wherein consists the authority of a kingdom.'"

Vattel says: "Treaties are no better than empty words, if nations do not consider them as respectable engagements, as rules which are to be inviolably observed by sovereigns, and held sacred throughout the whole earth.

"The faith of treaties—that firm and sincere resolution, that invariable constancy in fulfilling our engagements, of which we make profession in a treaty—is therefore to be held sacred and inviolable between the nations of the earth, whose safety and repose it secures; and if mankind be not wilfully deficient in their duty to themselves, infamy must ever be the portion of him who violates his faith. ***

"He who violates his treaties, violates at the same time the law of nations, for he disregards the faith of treaties, that faith which the law of nations declares sacred; and, so far as dependent on him, he renders it vain and ineffectual. Doubly guilty, he does an injury to his ally, and he does an injury to all nations, and inflicts a wound on the great society of mankind. ***

"On the observance and execution of treaties," said a respectable sovereign, "depends all the security which princes and States have with respect to each other, and no dependence could henceforward be placed in future conventions if the existing ones were not to be observed."

It is sometimes said, by those seeking to defend, or at least palliate, the United States Government's repeated disregard of its treaties with the Indians, that no Congress can be held responsible for the acts of the Congress preceding it, or can bind the Congress following it; or, in other words, that each Congress may, if it chooses, undo all that has been done by previous Congresses. However true this may be of some legislative acts, it is clearly not true, according to the principles of international law, of treaties.

On this point Vattel says: "Since public treaties, even those of a personal nature, concluded by a king, or by another sovereign who is invested with sufficient power, are treaties of State, and obligatory on the whole nation, real treaties, which were intended to subsist independently of the person who has concluded them, are undoubtedly binding on his successors; and the obligation which such treaties impose on the State passes successively to all her rulers as soon as they assume the public authority. The case is the same with respect to the rights acquired by those treaties. They are acquired for the State, and successively pass to her conductors."

Von Martens says: "Treaties, properly so called, are either personal or real. They are personal when their continuation in force depends on the person of the sovereign or his family, with whom they have been contracted. They are real when their duration depends on the State, independently of the person who contracts. Consequently, all treaties between republics must be real. All treaties made for a time specified or forever are real. ***

"This division is of the greatest importance, because real treaties never cease to be obligatory, except in cases where all treaties become invalid. Every successor to the sovereignty, in virtue of whatever title he may succeed, is obliged to observe them without their being renewed at his accession."

Wheaton says: "They (treaties) continue to bind the State, whatever intervening changes may take place in its internal constitution or in the persons of its rulers. The State continues the same, notwithstanding such change, and consequently the treaty relating to national objects remains in force so long as the nation exists as an independent State."

There is no disagreement among authorities on this point. It is also said by some, seeking to defend or palliate the United States Government's continuous violations of its treaties with the Indians, that the practice of all nations has been and is to abrogate a treaty whenever it saw good reason for doing so. This is true; but the treaties have been done away with in one of two ways, either by a mutual and peaceful agreement to that effect between the parties who had made it—the treaty being considered in force until the consent of both parties to its abrogation had been given—or by a distinct avowal on the part of one nation of its intention no longer to abide by it, and to take, therefore, its chances of being made war upon in consequence. Neither of these courses has been pursued by the United States Government in its treaty-breaking with the Indians.

Vattel says, on the dissolution of treaties: "Treaties may be dissolved by mutual consent at the free-will of the contracting powers."

Grotius says: "If either party violate the League, the other party is freed; because each Article of the League hath the form and virtue of a condition."

Kent says: "The violation of any one article of a treaty is a violation of the whole treaty. ***

"It is a principle of universal jurisprudence that a compact cannot be rescinded by one party only, if the other party does not consent to rescind it, and does no act to destroy it. ***

"To recommence a war by breach of the articles of peace, is deemed much more odious than to provoke a war by some new demand or aggression; for the latter is simply injustice, but in the former case the party is guilty both of perfidy and injustice."

It is also said, with unanswerable irrelevancy, by some who seek to defend or palliate the United States Government's continuous violation of its treaties with the Indians, that it was, in the first place, absurd to make treaties with them at all, to consider them in any sense as treaty-making powers or nations. The logic of this assertion, made as a justification for the breaking of several hundred treaties, concluded at different times during the last hundred years, and broken as fast as concluded, seems almost equal to that of the celebrated defence in the case of the kettle, which was cracked when it was lent, whole when returned, and, in fact, was never borrowed at all. It would be a waste of words to reason with minds that can see in this position any shelter for the United States Government against the accusation of perfidy in its treaty relations with the Indians.

The statement is undoubtedly a true one, that the Indians, having been placed in the anomalous position as tribes, of "domestic dependent nations," and as individuals, in the still more anomalous position of adult "wards," have not legally possessed the treaty-making power. Our right to put them, or to consider them to be in those anomalous positions, might be successfully disputed; but they, helpless, having accepted such positions, did, no doubt, thereby lose their right to be treated with as nations. Nevertheless, that is neither here nor there now: as soon as our Government was established, it proceeded to treat with them as nations by name and designation, and with precisely the same forms and ratifications that it used in treating with other nations; and it continued to treat with them as nations by name and designation, and with continually increasing solemnity of asseveration of good intent and good faith, for nearly a century. The robbery, the cruelty which were done under the cloak of this hundred years of treaty-making and treaty-breaking, are greater than can be told. Neither mountains nor deserts stayed them; it took two seas to set their bounds.

In 1871, Congress, either ashamed of making treaties only to break them, or grudging the time, money, and paper it wasted, passed an act to the effect that no Indian tribe should hereafter be considered as a foreign nation with whom the United States might contract by treaty. There seems to have been at the time, in the minds of the men who passed this act, a certain shadowy sense of some obligation being involved in treaties; for they added to the act a proviso that it should not be construed as invalidating any treaties already made. But this sense of obligation must have been as short-lived as shadowy, and could have had no element of shame in it, since they forthwith proceeded, unabashed, to negotiate still more treaties with Indians, and break them; for instance, the so-called "Brunot Treaty" with the Ute Indians in Colorado, and one with the Crow Indians in Montana—both made in the summer of 1873. They were called at the time "conventions" or "agreements," and not "treaties;" but the difference is only in name.

They stated, in a succession of numbered articles, promises of payment of moneys, and surrenders and cessions of land, by both parties; were to be ratified by Congress before taking effect; and were understood by the Indians agreeing to them to be as binding as if they had been called treaties. The fact that no man's sense of justice openly revolted against such subterfuges, under the name of agreements, is only to be explained by the deterioration of the sense of honor in the nation. In the days of Grotius there were men who failed to see dishonor in a trick if profit came of it, and of such he wrote in words whose truth might sting to-day as, no doubt, it stung then:

"Whereas there are many that think it superfluous to require that justice from a free people or their governors which they exact daily from private men, the ground of this error is this: because these men respect nothing in the law but the profit that ariseth from it, which in private persons, being single and unable to defend themselves, is plain and evident; but for great cities, that seem to have within themselves all things necessary for their own well-being, it doth not so plainly appear that they have any need of that virtue called justice which respects strangers."

These extracts from unquestioned authorities on international law prove that we may hold nations to standards of justice and good faith as we hold men; that the standards are the same in each case; and that a nation that steals and lies and breaks promises, will no more be respected or unpunished than a man who steals and lies and breaks promises. It is possible to go still farther than this, and to show that a nation habitually guilty of such conduct might properly be dealt with therefore by other nations, by nations in no wise suffering on account of her bad faith, except as all nations suffer when the interests of human society are injured.

"The interest of human society," says Vattel, "would authorize all the other nations to form a confederacy, in order to humble and chastise the delinquent." *** When a nation "regards no right as sacred, the safety of the human race requires that she should be repressed. To form and support an unjust pretension is not only doing an injury to the party whose interests are affected by that pretension; but to despise justice in general is doing an injury to all nations."

The history of the United States Government's repeated violations of faith with the Indians thus convicts us, as a nation, not only of having outraged the principles of justice, which are the basis of international law; and of having laid ourselves open to the accusation of both cruelty and perfidy; but of having made ourselves liable to all punishments which follow upon such sins—to arbitrary punishment at the hands of any civilized nation who might see fit to call us to account, and to that more certain natural punishment which, sooner or later, as surely comes from evil-doing as harvests come from sown seed.

To prove all this it is only necessary to study the history of any one of the Indian tribes. I propose to give in the following chapters merely outline sketches of the history of a few of them, not entering more into details than is necessary to show the repeated broken faith of the United States Government toward them. A full history of the wrongs they have suffered at the hands of the authorities, military and civil, and also of the citizens of this country, it would take years to write and volumes to hold.

There is but one hope of righting this wrong. It lies in appeal to the heart and the conscience of the American people. What the people demand, Congress will do. It has been—to our shame be it spoken—at the demand of part of the people that all these wrongs have been committed, these treaties broken, these robberies done, by the Government.

So long as there remains on our frontier one square mile of land occupied by a weak and helpless owner, there will be a strong and unscrupulous frontiersman ready to seize it, and a weak and unscrupulous politician, who can be hired for a vote or for money, to back him.

The only thing that can stay this is a mighty outspoken sentiment and purpose of the great body of the people. Right sentiment and right purpose in a Senator here and there, and a Representative here and there, are little more than straws which make momentary eddies, but do not obstruct the tide. The precedents of a century's unhindered and profitable robbery have mounted up into a very Gibraltar of defence and shelter to those who care for nothing but safety and gain. That such precedents should be held, and openly avowed as standards, is only one more infamy added to the list. Were such logic employed in the case of an individual man, how quick would all men see its enormity. Suppose that a man had had the misfortune to be born into a family whose name had been blackened by generations of criminals; that his father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather before them had lived in prisons, and died on scaffolds, should that man say in his soul, "Go to! What is the use? I also will commit robbery and murder, and get the same gain by it which my family must have done?" Or shall he say in his soul, "God help me! I will do what may be within the power of one man, and the compass of one generation, to atone for the wickedness, and to make clean the name of my dishonored house!"

What an opportunity for the Congress of 1880 to cover itself with a lustre of glory, as the first to cut short our nation's record of cruelties and perjuries! the first to attempt to redeem the name of the United States from the stain of a century of dishonor!

CHAPTER II.
THE DELAWARES.

When Hendrik Hudson anchored his ship, the Half Moon, off New York Island in 1609, the Delawares stood in great numbers on the shore to receive him, exclaiming, in their innocence, "Behold! the gods have come to visit us!"

More than a hundred years later, the traditions of this event were still current in the tribe. The aged Moravian missionary, Heckewelder, writing in 1818, says:

"I at one time, in April, 1787, was astonished when I heard one of their orators, a great chief of the Delawares, Pachgants-chilias by name, go over this ground, recapitulating the most extraordinary events which had before happened, and concluding in these words: 'I admit that there are good white men, but they bear no proportion to the bad; the bad must be the strongest, for they rule. They do what they please. They enslave those who are not of their color, although created by the same Great Spirit who created them. They would make slaves of us if they could; but as they cannot do it, they kill us. There is no faith to be placed in their words. They are not like the Indians, who are only enemies while at war, and are friends in peace. They will say to an Indian, "My friend; my brother!" They will take him by the hand, and, at the same moment, destroy him. And so you' (he was addressing himself to the Christian Indians at Gnadenhütten, Pennsylvania) 'will also be treated by them before long. Remember that this day I have warned you to beware of such friends as these. I know the Long-knives. They are not to be trusted.'"

The original name of the Delawares was Lenni Lenape, or "original people." They were also called by the Western tribes Wapenachki, "people at the rising of the sun." When the name "Delawares" was given to them by the whites, they at first resented it; but being told that they, and also one of their rivers, were thus named after a great English brave—Lord De la Warre—they were much pleased, and willingly took the name. Their lands stretched from the Hudson River to the Potomac. They were a noble-spirited but gentle people; much under the control of the arrogant and all-powerful Iroquois, who had put upon them the degradation of being called "women," and being forced to make war or give up land at the pleasure of their masters.

During William Penn's humane administration of the affairs of Pennsylvania, the Delawares were his most devoted friends. They called him Mignon, or Elder Brother.

"From his first arrival in their country," says Heckewelder, "a friendship was formed between them, which was to last as long as the sun should shine, and the rivers flow with water. That friendship would undoubtedly have continued to the end of time, had their good brother always remained among them."

In the French and Indian war of 1755 many of them fought on the side of the French against the English; and in the beginning of our Revolutionary war the majority of them sided with the English against us.

Most of the memorable Indian massacres which happened during this period were the result of either French or English influence. Neither nation was high-minded enough to scorn availing herself of savage allies to do bloody work which she would not have dared to risk national reputation by doing herself. This fact is too much overlooked in the habitual estimates of the barbarous ferocity of the Indian character as shown by those early massacres.[^[7]]

The United States' first treaty with the Delawares was made in 1778, at Fort Pitt. The parties to it were said to be "the United States and the Delaware Nation." It stipulates that there shall be peace, and that the troops of the United States may pass "through the country of the Delaware Nation," upon paying the full value of any supplies they may use. It further says that, "Whereas the enemies of the United States have endeavored by every artifice to possess the Indians with an opinion that it is our design to extirpate them, and take possession of their country; to obviate such false suggestions, the United States guarantee to said nation of Delawares, and their heirs, all their territorial rights in the fullest and most ample manner as bounded by former treaties."

The treaty also provides that, "should it for the future be found conducive for the mutual interest of both parties to invite any other tribes who have been friends to the interests of the United States to join the present confederation and form a State, whereof the Delaware Nation shall be the head," it shall be done; and the Delawares shall be entitled to send a representative to Congress.[^[8]]

The Delawares agreed to send all the warriors they could spare to fight for us, and that there should be peace and perpetual friendship.

At this time the rest of the Ohio tribes, most of the New York tribes, and a large part of the Delawares were in arms on the British side. When the war of the Revolution was concluded, they were all forced to make peace as best they could with us; and in our first treaty we provided for the reinstating in the Delaware Nation of the chiefs and headmen who had made that old alliance with us; they having lost caste in their tribe for having fought on our side.

"It is agreed," says the final Article of the treaty, "that the Delaware chiefs, Kelelamand, or Lieut.-colonel Henry, Henque Pushees, or the Big Cat, and Wicocalind, or Captain White Eyes, who took up the hatchet for the United States, and their families, shall be received into the Delaware Nation in the same situation and rank as before the war, and enjoy their due portions of the lands given to the Wyandotte and Delaware nations in this treaty, as fully as if they had not taken part with America, or as any other person or persons in the said nations."

This Captain White Eyes had adhered to our cause in spite of great opposition from the hostile part of the tribe. At one time he was threatened with a violent death if he should dare to say one word for the American cause; but by spirited harangues he succeeded in keeping the enthusiasm of his own party centred around himself, and finally carrying them over to the side of the United States. Some of his speeches are on record, and are worthy to be remembered:

"If you will go out in this war," he said to them at one time, when the band were inclined to join the British, "you shall not go without me. I have taken peace measures, it is true, with the view of saving my tribe from destruction; but if you think me in the wrong, if you give more credit to runaway vagabonds than to your own friends—to a man, to a warrior, to a Delaware—if you insist on fighting the Americans—go! and I will go with you. And I will not go like the bear-hunter, who sets his dogs on the animal to be beaten about with his paws, while he keeps himself at a safe distance. No; I will lead you on; I will place myself in the front; I will fall with the first of you! You can do as you choose; but as for me, I will not survive my nation. I will not live to bewail the miserable destruction of a brave people, who deserved, as you do, a better fate."

Were there many speeches made by commanders to their troops in those revolutionary days with which these words do not compare favorably?

This treaty, by which our faithful ally, Wicocalind, was reinstated in his tribal rank, was made at Fort M'Intosh in 1785. The Wyandottes, Chippewas, and Ottawas, as well as the Delawares, joined in it. They acknowledged themselves and all their tribes to be "under the protection of the United States, and of no other sovereign whatsoever." The United States Government reserved "the post of Detroit" and an outlying district around it; also, the post at Michilimackinac, with a surrounding district of twelve miles square, and some other reserves for trading-posts.

The Indians' lands were comprised within lines partly indicated by the Cuyahoga, Big Miami, and Ohio rivers and their branches; it fronted on Lake Erie; and if "any citizen of the United States," or "any other person not an Indian," attempted "to settle on any of the lands allotted to the Delaware and Wyandotte nations in this treaty"—the fifth Article of the treaty said—"the Indians may punish him as they please."

Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, all are largely made up of the lands which were by this first treaty given to the Indians.

Five years later, by another treaty at Fort Harmar, the provisions of this treaty were reiterated, the boundaries somewhat changed and more accurately defined. The privilege of hunting on all the lands reserved to the United States was promised to the Indians "without hinderance or molestation, so long as they behaved themselves peaceably;" and "that nothing may interrupt the peace and harmony now established between the United States and the aforesaid nations," it was promised in one of the articles that white men committing offences or murders on Indians should be punished in the same way as Indians committing such offences.

The year before this treaty Congress had resolved that "the sum of $20,000, in addition to the $14,000 already appropriated, be appropriated for defraying the expenses of the treaties which have been ordered, or which may be ordered to be held, in the present year, with the several Indian tribes in the Northern Department; and for extinguishing the Indian claims, the whole of the said $20,000, together with $6,000 of the said $14,000, to be applied solely to the purpose of extinguishing Indian claims to the lands they have already ceded to the United States by obtaining regular conveyances for the same, and for extending a purchase beyond the limits hitherto fixed by treaty."

Here is one of the earliest records of the principle and method on which the United States Government first began its dealings with Indians. "Regular conveyances," "extinguishing claims" by "extending purchase." These are all the strictest of legal terms, and admit of no double interpretations.

The Indians had been much dissatisfied ever since the first treaties were made. They claimed that they had been made by a few only, representing a part of the tribe; and, in 1786, they had held a great council on the banks of the Detroit River, and sent a message to Congress, of which the following extracts will show the spirit.

They said: "It is now more than three years since peace was made between the King of Great Britain and you; but we, the Indians, were disappointed, finding ourselves not included in that peace according to our expectations, for we thought that its conclusion would have promoted a friendship between the United States and the Indians, and that we might enjoy that happiness that formerly subsisted between us and our Elder Brethren. We have received two very agreeable messages from the Thirteen United States. We also received a message from the king, whose war we were engaged in, desiring us to remain quiet, which we accordingly complied with. During this time of tranquillity we were deliberating the best method we could to form a lasting reconciliation with the Thirteen United States. *** We are still of the same opinion as to the means which may tend to reconcile us to each other; and we are sorry to find, although we had the best thoughts in our minds during the before-mentioned period, mischief has nevertheless happened between you and us. We are still anxious of putting our plan of accommodation into execution, and we shall briefly inform you of the means that seem most probable to us of effecting a firm and lasting peace and reconciliation, the first step toward which should, in our opinion, be that all treaties carried on with the United States on our parts should be with the general will of the whole confederacy, and carried on in the most open manner, without any restraint on either side; and especially as landed matters are often the subject of our councils with you—a matter of the greatest importance and of general concern to us—in this case we hold it indisputably necessary that any cession of our lands should be made in the most public manner, and by the united voice of the confederacy, holding all partial treaties as void and of no effect. *** We say, let us meet half-way, and let us pursue such steps as become upright and honest men. We beg that you will prevent your surveyors and other people from coming upon our side of the Ohio River."

These are touching words, when we remember that only the year before the United States had expressly told these Indians that if any white citizens attempted to settle on their lands they might "punish them as they pleased."

"We have told you before we wished to pursue just steps, and we are determined they shall appear just and reasonable in the eyes of the world. This is the determination of all the chiefs of our confederacy now assembled here, notwithstanding the accidents that have happened in our villages, even when in council, where several innocent chiefs were killed when absolutely engaged in promoting a peace with you, the Thirteen United States."

The next year the President instructed the governor of the territory northwest of the Ohio to "examine carefully into the real temper of the Indian tribes" in his department, and says: "The treaties which have been made may be examined, but must not be departed from, unless a change of boundary beneficial to the United States can be obtained." He says also: "You will not neglect any opportunity that may offer of extinguishing the Indian rights to the westward, as far as the Mississippi."

Beyond that river even the wildest dream of greed did not at that time look.

The President adds, moreover: "You may stipulate that any white persons going over the said boundaries without a license from the proper officers of the United States may be treated in such manner as the Indians may see fit."

I have not yet seen, in any accounts of the Indian hostilities on the North-western frontier during this period, any reference to those repeated permissions given by the United States to the Indians, to defend their lands as they saw fit. Probably the greater number of the pioneer settlers were as ignorant of these provisions in Indian treaties as are the greater number of American citizens to-day, who are honestly unaware—and being unaware, are therefore incredulous—that the Indians had either provocation or right to kill intruders on their lands.

At this time separate treaties were made with the Six Nations, and the governor says that these treaties were made separately because of the jealousy and hostility existing between them and the Delawares, Wyandottes, etc., which he is "not willing to lessen," because it weakens their power. "Indeed," he frankly adds, "it would not be very difficult, if circumstances required it, to set them at deadly variance."

Thus early in our history was the ingenious plan evolved of first maddening the Indians into war, and then falling upon them with exterminating punishment. The gentleman who has left on the official records of his country his claim to the first suggestion and recommendation of this method is "Arthur St. Clair, governor of the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio River, and commissioner plenipotentiary of the United States of America for removing all causes of controversy, regulating trade, and settling boundaries with the Indian nations in the Northern Department."

Under all these conditions, it is not a matter of wonder that the frontier was a scene of perpetual devastation and bloodshed; and that, year by year, there grew stronger in the minds of the whites a terror and hatred of Indians; and in the minds of the Indians a stronger and stronger distrust and hatred of the whites.

The Delawares were, through the earlier part of these troubled times, friendly. In 1791 we find the Secretary of War recommending the commissioners sent to treat with the hostile Miamis and Wabash Indians to stop by the way with the friendly Delawares, and take some of their leading chiefs with them as allies. He says, "these tribes are our friends," and, as far as is known, "the treaties have been well observed by them."

But in 1792 we find them mentioned among the hostile tribes to whom was sent a message from the United States Government, containing the following extraordinary paragraphs:

"Brethren: The President of the United States entertains the opinion that the war which exists is an error and mistake on your parts. That you believe the United States want to deprive you of your lands, and drive you out of the country. Be assured that this is not so; on the contrary, that we should be greatly gratified with the opportunity of imparting to you all the blessings of civilized life; of teaching you to cultivate the earth, and raise corn; to raise oxen, sheep, and other domestic animals; to build comfortable houses; and to educate your children so as ever to dwell upon the land.

"Consult, therefore, upon the great object of peace; call in your parties, and enjoin a cessation of all further depredations; and as many of the principal chiefs as shall choose repair to Philadelphia, the seat of the Great Government, and there make a peace founded on the principles of justice and humanity. Remember that no additional lands will be required of you, or any other tribe, to those that have been ceded by former treaties."

It was in this same year, also, that General Putnam said to them, in a speech at Post Vincennes: "The United States don't mean to wrong you out of your lands. They don't want to take away your lands by force. They want to do you justice." And the venerable missionary, Heckewelder, who had journeyed all the way from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to try to help bring about peace, said to them, "The great chief who has spoken to you is a good man. He loves you, and will always speak the truth to you. I wish you to listen to his words, and do as he desires you."

In 1793 a great council was held, to which came the chiefs and headmen of the Delawares, and of twelve other tribes, to meet commissioners of the United States, for one last effort to settle the vexed boundary question. The records of this council are profoundly touching. The Indians reiterated over and over the provisions of the old treaties which had established the Ohio River as one of their boundaries. Their words were not the words of ignorant barbarians, clumsily and doggedly holding to a point; they were the words of clear-headed, statesman-like rulers, insisting on the rights of their nations. As the days went on, and it became more and more clear that the United States commissioners would not agree to the establishment of the boundary for which the Indians contended, the speeches of the chiefs grow sadder and sadder. Finally, in desperation, as a last hope, they propose to the commissioners that all the money which the United States offers to pay to them for their lands shall be given to the white settlers to induce them to move away. They say:

"Money to us is of no value, and to most of us unknown; and as no consideration whatever can induce us to sell the lands on which we get sustenance for our women and children, we hope we may be allowed to point out a mode by which your settlers may be easily removed, and peace thereby obtained.

"We know that these settlers are poor, or they would never have ventured to live in a country which has been in continual trouble ever since they crossed the Ohio. Divide, therefore, this large sum of money which you have offered us among these people; give to each, also, a proportion of what you say you would give to us annually, over and above this very large sum of money, and we are persuaded they would most readily accept of it in lieu of the lands you sold them. If you add, also, the great sums you must expend in raising and paying armies with a view to force us to yield you our country, you will certainly have more than sufficient for the purpose of repaying these settlers for all their labor and their improvements.

"You have talked to us about concessions. It appears strange that you should expect any from us, who have only been defending our just rights against your invasions. We want peace. Restore to us our country, and we shall be enemies no longer.

"*** We desire you to consider, brothers, that our only demand is the peaceable possession of a small part of our once great country. Look back and review the lands from whence we have been driven to this spot. We can retreat no farther, because the country behind hardly affords food for its present inhabitants, and we have therefore resolved to leave our bones in this small space to which we are now confined."

The commissioners replied that to make the Ohio River the boundary was now impossible; that they sincerely regretted that peace could not be made; but, "knowing the upright and liberal views of the United States," they trust that "impartial judges will not attribute the continuance of the war to them."

Notice was sent to the governor that the Indians "refused to make peace;" and General Anthony Wayne, a few weeks later, wrote to the Secretary of War, "The safety of the Western frontiers, the reputation of the legion, the dignity and interest of the nation—all forbid a retrograde manœuvre, or giving up one inch of ground we now possess, till the enemy are compelled to sue for peace."

The history of the campaigns that followed is to be found in many volumes treating of the pioneer life of Ohio and other North-western States. One letter of General Wayne's to the Secretary of War, in August, 1794, contains a paragraph which is interesting, as showing the habits and method of life of the people whom we at this time, by force of arms, drove out from their homes—homes which we had only a few years before solemnly guaranteed to them, even giving them permission to punish any white intruders there as they saw fit. By a feint of approaching Grand Glaize through the Miami villages, General Wayne surprised the settlement, and the Indians, being warned by a deserter, had barely time to flee for their lives. What General Wayne had intended to do may be inferred from this sentence in his letter: "I have good grounds to conclude that the defection of this villain prevented the enemy from receiving a fatal blow at this place when least expected."

However, he consoles himself by the fact that he has "gained possession of the grand emporium of the hostile Indians of the West without loss of blood. The very extensive and highly cultivated fields and gardens show the work of many hands. The margins of those beautiful rivers—the Miamis, of the Lake, and Au Glaize—appear like one continued village for a number of miles, both above and below this place; nor have I ever before beheld such immense fields of corn in any part of America, from Canada to Florida."

All these villages were burnt, and all these cornfields destroyed; the Indians were followed up and defeated in a sharp fight. The British agents did their best to keep them hostile, and no inconsiderable aid was furnished to them from Canada. But after a winter of suffering and hunger, and great vacillations of purpose, they finally decided to yield to the inevitable, and in the summer of 1795 they are to be found once more assembled in council, for the purpose of making a treaty; once more to be told by the representatives of the United States Government that "the heart of General Washington, the Great Chief of America, wishes for nothing so much as peace and brotherly love;" that "such is the justice and liberality of the United States," that they will now a third time pay for lands; and that they are "acting the part of a tender father to them and their children in thus providing for them not only at present, but forever."

Eleven hundred and thirty Indians (eleven tribes, besides the Delawares, being represented) were parties to this treaty. By this treaty nearly two-thirds of the present State of Ohio were ceded to the United States; and, in consideration of these "cessions and relinquishments, and to manifest the liberality of the United States as the great means of rendering this peace strong and perpetual," the United States relinquished all claims "to all other Indian lands northward of the River Ohio, eastward of the Mississippi, and westward and southward of the Great Lakes and the waters uniting them, according to the boundary line agreed upon by the United States and the King of Great Britain, in the treaty of peace made between them in the year 1783," with the exception of four tracts of land. But it was stated to the Indians that these reservations were not made "to annoy or impose the smallest degree of restraint on them in the quiet enjoyment and full possession of their lands," but simply to "connect the settlements of the people of the United States," and "to prove convenient and advantageous to the different tribes of Indians residing and hunting in their vicinity."

The fifth Article of the treaty is: "To prevent any misunderstanding about the Indian lands now relinquished by the United States, it is explicitly declared that the meaning of that relinquishment is this: that the Indian tribes who have a right to those lands are quietly to enjoy them—hunting, planting, and dwelling thereon so long as they please without any molestation from the United States; but when those tribes, or any of them, shall be disposed to sell their lands, or any part of them, they are to be sold only to the United States; and until such sale the United States will protect all the said Indian tribes in the quiet enjoyment of their lands against all citizens of the United States, and against all other white persons who intrude on the same."

The sixth Article reiterates the old pledge, proved by the last three years to be so worthless—that, "If any citizen of the United States, or any other white person or persons, shall presume to settle upon the lands now relinquished by the United States, such citizen or other person shall be out of the protection of the United States; and the Indian tribe on whose land the settlement may be made may drive off the settler, or punish him in such manner as they shall think fit."

The seventh Article gives the Indians the liberty "to hunt within the territory and lands which they have now ceded to the United States, without hinderance or molestation, so long as they demean themselves peaceably."

The United States agreed to pay to the Indians twenty thousand dollars' worth of goods at once; and "henceforward, every year, forever, useful goods to the value of nine thousand five hundred dollars." Peace was declared to be "established" and "perpetual."

General Wayne told the Indians that they might believe him, for he had never, "in a public capacity, told a lie;" and one of the Indians said, with much more dignity, "The Great Spirit above hears us, and I trust we shall not endeavor to deceive each other."

In 1813, by a treaty at Vincennes, the bounds of the reservation of the Post of St. Vincennes were defined, and the Indians, "as a mark of their regard and attachment to the United States, relinquished to the United States the great salt spring on the Saline Creek."

In less than a year we made still another treaty with them for the extinguishment of their title to a tract of land between the Ohio and the Wabash rivers (which they sold to us for a ten years' annuity of three hundred dollars, which was to be "exclusively appropriated to ameliorating their condition and promoting their civilization"); and in one year more still another treaty, in which a still further cession of land was made for a permanent annuity of one thousand dollars.

In August of this year General Harrison writes to the Secretary of War that there are great dissensions between the Delawares and Miamis in regard to some of the ceded lands, the Miamis claiming that they had never consented to give them up. General Harrison observes the most exact neutrality in this matter, but says, "A knowledge of the value of land is fast gaining ground among the Indians," and negotiations are becoming in consequence much more difficult. In the course of this controversy, "one of the chiefs has said that he knew a great part of the land was worth six dollars an acre."

It is only ten years since one of the chiefs of these same tribes had said, "Money is to us of no value." However, they must be yet very far from having reached any true estimate of real values, as General Harrison adds: "From the best calculation I have been able to make, the tract now ceded contains at least two millions of acres, and embraces some of the finest lands in the Western country."

Cheap at one thousand dollars a year!—even with the negro man thrown in, which General Harrison tells the Secretary he has ordered Captain Wells to purchase, and present to the chief, The Turtle, and to draw on the United States Treasury for the amount paid for him.

Four years later (1809) General Harrison is instructed by the President "to take advantage of the most favorable moment for extinguishing the Indian title to the lands lying east of the Wabash, and adjoining south;" and the title was extinguished by the treaty of Fort Wayne—a little more money paid, and a great deal of land given up.

In 1814 we made a treaty, simply of peace and friendship, with the Delawares and several other tribes: they agreeing to fight faithfully on our side against the English, and we agreeing to "confirm and establish all the boundaries" as they had existed before the war.

In 1817 it was deemed advisable to make an effort to "extinguish the Indian title to all the lands claimed by them within the limits of the State of Ohio". Two commissioners were appointed, with great discretionary powers; and a treaty was concluded early in the autumn, by which there was ceded to the United States nearly all the land to which the Indians had claim in Ohio, a part of Indiana, and a part of Michigan. This treaty was said by the Secretary of War to be "the most important of any hitherto made with the Indians." "The extent of the cession far exceeded" his most sanguine expectations, and he had the honesty to admit that "there can be no real or well-founded objection to the amount of the compensation given for it, except that it is not an adequate one."

The commissioners who negotiated the treaty were apprehensive that they would be accused of having made too liberal terms with the Indians, and in their report to the department they enumerate apologetically the reasons which made it impossible for them to get the land cheaper. Mr. Cass says of the terms: "Under any circumstances, they will fall infinitely short of the pecuniary and political value of the country obtained."

The Indians, parties to this treaty, surrendered by it almost the last of their hunting-grounds, and would soon be driven to depending wholly upon the cultivation of the soil.

In 1818 the Delawares again ceded land to the United States—ceded all to which they laid claim in the State of Indiana—and the United States promised to provide for them "a country to reside in on the west side of the Mississippi," and "to guarantee to them the peaceable possession" of the same. They were to have four thousand dollars a year in addition to all the sums promised by previous treaties, and they were to be allowed to remain three years longer by sufferance in their present homes. The Government also agreed to pay them for their improvements on their lands, to give them a hundred and twenty horses, and a "sufficient number of pirogues to aid in transporting them to the west side of the Mississippi;" also provisions for the journey.

In 1829 a supplementary Article was added to this treaty. The United States Government began to show traces of compunction and pity. The Article says, "Whereas the Delaware Nation are now willing to remove," it is agreed upon that the country in the fork of the Kansas and Missouri rivers, selected for their home, "shall be conveyed and forever secured by the United States to the said Delaware Nation, as their permanent residence; and the United States hereby pledges the faith of the Government to guarantee to the said Delaware Nation, forever, the quiet and peaceable and undisturbed enjoyment of the same against the claims and assaults of all and every other people whatever."

An additional permanent annuity of one thousand dollars is promised; forty horses, "and the use of six wagons and ox-teams to assist in removing heavy articles," provisions for the journey, and one year's subsistence after they reach their new home; also the erection of a grist and saw mill within two years.

In 1833 the Secretary of War congratulated the country on the fact that "the country north of the Ohio, east of the Mississippi, including the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and the Territory of Michigan as far as the Fox and Wisconsin rivers," has been practically "cleared of the embarrassments of Indian relations," as there are not more than five thousand Indians, all told, left in this whole region.

The Commissioner of Indian Affairs in the same year says that it is "grateful to notice" how much the Indians' condition is "ameliorated under the policy of removal." He says that they, "protected by the strong arm of the Government, and dwelling on lands distinctly and permanently established as their own, enjoying a delightful climate and a fertile soil, turn their attention to the cultivation of the earth, and abandon the chase for the surer supply of domestic animals."

This commissioner apparently does not remember, perhaps never read, the records of the great fields of corn which the Delawares had on the Miami River in 1795, and how they returned twice that summer and replanted them, after General Wayne had cut down and burnt the young crops. They had "turned their attention to the cultivation of the soil" forty years ago, and that was what came of it. We shall see how much better worth while it may be for them to plant corn in their new "permanent home," than it was in their last one.

The printed records of Indian Affairs for the first forty years of this century are meagre and unsatisfactory. Had the practice prevailed then, as at the present time, of printing full annual reports for the different tribes, it would be possible to know much which is now forever locked up in the traditions and the memories of the Indians themselves. For ten years after the making of this last quoted treaty, there is little official mention of the Delawares by name, beyond the mention in the fiscal reports of the sums paid to them as annuities and for education. In 1833 the commissioner says, "The agent for the Delawares and Shawnees states that he was shown cloth that was spun and wove, and shirts and other clothing made by the Indian girls."

In 1838 the Delawares are reported as cultivating one thousand five hundred acres of land in grain and vegetables, and raising a great many hogs, cattle, and horses. "They are a brave, enterprising people," and "at peace with all neighboring Indians."

Parties of them frequently make excursions into the Rocky Mountains after beaver, and return with a rich reward, sometimes as much as one thousand dollars to an individual; but their money is soon spent, chiefly for ardent spirits. The agent says: "The only hinderance now in the way of the Delawares, Shawnees, and Kickapoos is ardent spirits. *** These whiskey traffickers, who seem void of all conscience, rob and murder many of these Indians; I say rob—they will get them drunk, and then take their horses, guns, or blankets off their backs, regardless of how quick they may freeze to death; I say they murder—if not directly, indirectly, they furnish the weapon—they make them drunk, and, when drunk, they kill their fellow-beings. Some freeze to death when drunk; several drunken Indians have been drowned in the Missouri River this season, aiming to cross when drunk."

In 1844 the chiefs of the Delawares met together, and prepared a remarkable document, which was forwarded to the Secretary of War. In this paper they requested that all the school funds to which they were entitled by treaty provisions might be paid to the Indian Manual Labor School near the Fort Leavenworth Agency; might be pledged to that school for ten years to come, and that they might therefor be guaranteed the education and subsistence of Delaware children, not exceeding fifty at any one time. It came out, in course of this negotiation, that two thousand dollars were due them on arrearages of their school fund.

The Secretary acceded to this request, but imposed five conditions upon it, of which the fourth seems worth chronicling, as an indication of the helplessness of the Delawares in the matter of the disposition of their own money: "The interest to be paid annually when it may suit the Treasury; and this ratification to be subject to withdrawal, and the agreement itself to rescission, and to be annulled at the pleasure of the Department."

In 1845 the Delawares "raise a sufficiency to subsist on. The women do a large portion of the work on the farms. In many families, however, the women do not work on the farm. They raise corn, pumpkins, beans, pease, cabbages, potatoes, and many kinds of garden vegetables. Some few raise wheat and oats. They have lately had built, out of their own means, a good saw and grist mill, with two run of stones, one for corn and the other for wheat. There is a constant stream, called the Stranger, in their country that affords excellent water privileges. On this stream their mills are built."

At this time they are waiting with much anxiety to see if their "Great Father" will punish the Sioux, who have at two different times attacked them, and murdered in all some thirty men. "They say they do not wish to offend and disobey their Great Father, and before they attempt to revenge themselves they will wait and see if their Great Father will compel the Sioux to make reparation."

In 1848 "almost every family is well supplied with farming-stock; and they have raised abundance of corn, some wheat, potatoes, oats, and garden vegetables; have made butter and cheese; and raised fruit, etc., etc. They dwell in good log-cabins, and some have extremely neat houses, well furnished. They have their outhouses, stables, well-fenced lots, and some have good barns." There are seventy scholars in one school alone that are taught by the Friends; and the teacher reports: "It is truly astonishing to see the rapidity with which they acquire knowledge. The boys work on the farm part of the time, and soon learn how to do what they are set at. The girls spend a part of their time in doing housework, sewing, etc. Many of them do the sewing of their own, and some of the clothes of the other children."

In 1853 the Delawares are recorded as being "among the most remarkable of our colonized tribes. By their intrepidity and varied enterprise they are distinguished in a high degree. Besides being industrious farmers and herdsmen, they hunt and trade all over the interior of the continent, carrying their traffic beyond the Great Salt Lake, and exposing themselves to a thousand perils."

Their agent gives, in his report for this year, a graphic account of an incident such as has only too often occurred on our frontier. "A small party of Delawares, consisting of a man, his squaw, and a lad about eighteen years of age, recently returning from the mountains, with the avails and profits of a successful hunt and traffic, after they had commenced their journey homeward the second day the man sickened and died. Before he died he directed his squaw and the young man to hasten home with their horses and mules—thirteen in number—their money (four hundred and forty-five dollars), besides many other articles of value. After a few days' travel, near some of the forts on the Arkansas, they were overtaken by four white men, deserters from the United States Army—three on foot, and one riding a mule. The squaw and young man loaned each of the men on foot a horse or mule to ride, and furnished them with provisions. They all travelled on friendly together for some six or seven days, till they arrived at Cottonwood Creek, thirty-five or forty miles west of Council Grove. One evening, while resting, the young man was killed by these men; and the squaw was also supposed by these wretches to be dead, having had her throat cut badly and her head fractured. The two were then dragged off in the grass, supposed to be dead. The men gathered the mules, horses, money, guns, blankets—all that they supposed of value—and made for Jackson County, Missouri, where they disposed of the stock as best they could, and three of them took steamer for St. Louis. The squaw, on the day after, resuscitated; and soon discovering that her companion had been killed, and everything they possessed had disappeared, she, in her feeble and dangerous condition, took the road to Council Grove. The fifth day, she says, she was overtaken by a Kaw Indian, and brought into Council Grove, where the traders had every attention paid her, and sent a runner to the Delaware traders and myself, and we soon succeeded in capturing one of the men in Liberty, Clay County, Missouri, where he confessed the whole tragedy—the murder, robbing, etc. The three others had left for St. Louis. A telegraphic despatch to St. Louis, however, had the desired effect, and the three men were taken and brought back to Liberty, where, on trial before two justices of the peace, they were committed for trial in the District Court of the United States for the State of Missouri. As feeble as the squaw was, I was under the necessity of having her taken to Liberty as a witness. She readily recognized and pointed out in a large crowd of persons three of the prisoners. I have caused four of the recovered mules and horses to be turned over to the unfortunate squaw. I expect to recover two or three more; the balance, I am of opinion, will never be obtained."

In the report of the Indian Commissioner for this year there is also a paragraph which should not be omitted from this sketch: "The present seems to be an appropriate occasion for calling the attention of Congress to certain treaty stipulations with various Indian tribes which the Government, for a number of years, has failed to execute. In consideration of the cession of their lands to the United States"—by some nine tribes of the Mississippi and Missouri regions, among whom were the Delawares—"it was stipulated on the part of the Government that certain sums should be paid to said tribes, amounting in the aggregate to $2,396,600, and that the same should be invested in safe and profitable stocks, yielding an interest of not less than five per cent. per annum.

"Owing, however, to the embarrassed condition of the Treasury, it was deemed advisable by Congress, in lieu of making the investments, to appropriate from year to year a sum equal to the annual interest at five per cent. on the several amounts required to be invested. On this amount the Government has already paid from its treasury $1,742,240—a sum which is now equal to two-thirds of the principal, and will in a few years be equal to the whole, if the practice of appropriating the interest be continued. As there is no limitation to the period of these payments, such a policy indefinitely continued would prove a most costly one to the Government. At the end of every twenty years it will have paid from the public treasury by way of interest the full amount of the stipulated investments. *** The public finances are in a prosperous condition. Instead of fiscal embarrassment, there is now a redundancy of money, and one of the vexed questions of the day is, What shall be done with the surplus in the Treasury? Considering the premises, it seems to be quite clear that so much thereof as may be necessary for the purpose should be promptly applied to the fulfilment of our treaty obligations."

In 1854 the influx of white settlers into Kansas was so great, it became evident that the Indian reservations there could not be kept intact; and the Delawares made a large cession of their lands back to the United States, to be restored to the public domain. For this they were to receive ten thousand dollars. The sixth Article of this treaty provided for the giving of annuities to their chiefs. "The Delawares feel now, as heretofore, grateful to their old chiefs for their long and faithful services. In former treaties, when their means were scanty, they provided by small life annuities for the wants of the chiefs, some of whom are now receiving them. These chiefs are poor, and the Delawares believe it their duty to keep them from want in their old age." The sum of ten thousand dollars, therefore, was to be paid to their five chiefs—two hundred and fifty dollars a year each.

Article second provided that the President should cause the land now reserved for their permanent home to be surveyed at any time when they desired it, in the same manner as the ceded country was being surveyed for the white settlers.

In the following year their agent writes thus of the results which have followed the opening of this large tract to white settlers: "The Indians have experienced enough to shake their confidence in the laws which govern the white race. The irruptions of intruders on their trust lands, their bloody dissensions among themselves, outbreaks of party, etc., must necessarily, to these unsophisticated people, have presented our system of government in an unfavorable light.

"Numerous wrongs have been perpetrated on many parts of the reserve; the white men have wasted their most valuable timber with an unsparing hand; the trust lands have been greatly injured in consequence of the settlements made thereon. The Indians have complained, but to no purpose. I have found it useless to threaten legal proceedings. *** The Government is bound in good faith to protect this people. *** The agricultural portion of this tribe have done well this season; abundant crops of corn promise them a supply of food for the ensuing year."

The simple-minded trustingness of these people is astonishing. Even now they assent to an Article in this treaty which says that, as the means arising from the sale of all this land they had given up would be more than they could use, the remainder should be "from time to time invested by the President of the United States in safe and profitable stocks; the principal to remain unimpaired, and the interest to be applied annually for the civilization, education, and religious culture of the Delaware people, and such other objects of a beneficial character as in his judgment are proper and necessary." Another Article stipulates that, if any of the Delawares are worthless or idle, the President can withhold their share of the moneys.

Article fifteenth says, gravely, "The primary object of this instrument being to advance the interests and welfare of the Delaware people, it is agreed that, if it prove insufficient to effect these ends from causes which cannot now be foreseen, Congress may hereafter make such farther provision, by law not inconsistent herewith, as experience may prove to be necessary to promote the interests, peace, and happiness of the Delaware people."

In 1860 the United States made its next treaty with the Delawares, in which they consented to give the Leavenworth, Pawnee, and Western Railroad Company right of way and certain lands in their reserve. In 1861 another treaty, in which, as the railway company had not paid, and was not able to pay, the $286,742 which it had promised to pay the Delawares, the President authorized the Commissioners of Indian Affairs to take the bonds of said railroad for that amount, and a mortgage on one hundred thousand acres of the land which the Indians had sold to the railway company.

There was another very curious bit of legislation in regard to the Delawares this year, viz., an Act of Congress authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to enter on his books $423,990.26 to the credit of the Delawares; being the amount of bonds which the United States had invested for the Delawares in State bonds of Missouri, Tennessee, and North Carolina, and which had been stolen while in the custody of Jacob Thompson, late Secretary of the Interior, in whose department they had been deposited for safe-keeping. (At the same time there were stolen $66,735 belonging to the Iowas, and $169,686.75 belonging to the confederated bands of Kaskaskias, Peorias, Piankeshaws, and Keas.)

In this year the Commissioner of Indian Affairs visited the Delawares, and reported them well advanced in civilization, in possession of comfortable dwellings and farms, with personal property averaging one thousand dollars to an individual. Many of them were traders, and travelled even to the boundaries of California.

In 1862 two regiments of Delawares and Osages enlisted as soldiers in an expedition to the Indian Territory, under Colonel Weer, who says of them: "The Indian soldiers have far exceeded the most sanguine expectations. They bore the brunt of the fighting done by the expedition, and, had they been properly sustained, would have effectually ended the sway of the rebels in the Indian Territory."

There was during this year a terrible condition of affairs in Kansas and the Indian Territory. The Indians were largely on the side of the rebels; yet, as the Indian Commissioner said in his report for this year—a paragraph which is certainly a species of Irish bull—"While the rebelling of a large portion of most of the tribes abrogates treaty obligations, and places them at our mercy, the very important fact should not be forgotten that the Government first wholly failed to keep its treaty stipulations with them in protecting them." "By withdrawing all the troops from the forts in the Indian Territory," it left them "at the mercy of the rebels." That is, we first broke the treaty; and then their subsequent failure to observe it "placed them at our mercy!"

"It is," he says, "a well-known fact that in many instances self-preservation compelled them to make the best terms they could with the rebels; and that this is the case has been proved by a large number of them joining our army as soon as a sufficient force had penetrated their country to make it safe for them to do so."

The Delawares enlisted, in 1862, one hundred and seventy men in the Union army, and this out of a population of only two hundred males between the ages of eighteen and forty-five. There was probably no instance in the whole country of such a ratio of volunteers as this. They were reported as being in the army "tractable, sober, watchful, and obedient to the commands of their superiors." They officered their own companies, and the use of spirituous liquors was strictly prohibited among them—a fact the more remarkable, as drunkenness was one of their chief vices at home.

Already, however, the "interests" of the white settlers in Kansas were beginning to be clearly in opposition to the interests of the Indians. "Circumscribed as they are, and closely surrounded by white settlements, I can see nothing in the future for them but destruction," says the commissioner. "I think it is for the interest of the Indians that they be removed to some other locality as soon as possible."

"Several of them have from fifty to one hundred acres of land in cultivation, with comfortable dwellings, barns, and out-houses. *** All the families are domiciled in houses. *** Their crops of corn will yield largely. Nearly every family will have a sufficiency for their own consumption, and many of the larger farmers a surplus. *** There are but few Delaware children of the age of twelve or fourteen that cannot read."

Here is a community of a thousand people, larger than many of the farming villages in New England, for instance, "the average of personal property amounting to one thousand dollars;" all living in their own houses, cultivating from fifty to one hundred acres of land, nearly all the children in schools, and yet it is for their "interest to be moved!" The last sentence of the following paragraph tells the story:

"When peace is restored to our country, a removal of all the Indians in Kansas will certainly be advantageous to them as well as to the State."

In 1863 their agent writes: "Since the question of the removal of the Indians from Kansas has been agitated, improvements have been much retarded among the Delawares and other Indians in Kansas.

"I think they are sufficiently prepared to make new treaties with the Government, *** having in view settlement in the Southern country of those who elect to emigrate, compensation for the homes they relinquish, and a permission to remain in their present homes for all who are opposed to leaving Kansas."

At this time, "one-half the adult population are in the volunteer service of the United States. They make the best of soldiers, and are highly valued by their officers. *** No State in the Union has furnished so many men for our armies, from the same ratio of population, as has the Delaware tribe. *** The tribe has 3900 acres of land under cultivation, in corn, wheat, oats, and potatoes." (And yet one-half the adult men are away!)

In this year the Delawares, being "sufficiently prepared" to make new treaties looking to their removal out of the way of the white settlers in Kansas, petitioned the United States Government to permit them to take eight hundred dollars of their annuity funds to pay the expense of sending a delegation of their chiefs to the Rocky Mountains, to see if they could find there a country which would answer for their new home. The commissioner advises that they should not be allowed to go there, but to the Indian Territory, of which he says, "The geographical situation is such that its occupation by lawless whites can be more easily prevented than any other portion of the country." "By common consent, this appears to be recognized as the Indian country, and I have strong hopes that it will eventually prove for them a prosperous and happy home."

In 1864 their agent writes that the greater part of the personal property owned by the Delawares is in stock, "which is constantly being preyed upon by the whites, until it has become so reduced that it is difficult to obtain a good animal in the nation." He says he is unable, for the want of proper information, to determine what amount they had at the beginning of the year, but believes, from observation, "that it has undergone a depletion to the extent of twenty thousand dollars in the past year."

What a picture of a distressed community! The men away at war, old men, women, and children working the farms, and twenty thousand dollars of stock stolen from them in one year!

In 1865 a large proportion of those who had enlisted in the United States Army were mustered out, and returned home. The agent says: "It affords me great pleasure to chronicle the continued loyalty of this tribe during the past four years; and, as events tend westward, they evince every disposition to aid the Government by contributing their knowledge of the country to the officers of the army, and rendering such services thereto as they are qualified to perform."

They "have distinguished themselves in many instances in the conflicts on the borders;" nevertheless, in this same year, these discharged soldiers were prohibited by the Government from carrying revolvers. When the commissioner instructed the agent to disarm them, the agent very properly replied, stating the difficulties in the case: "Firstly, what disposition is to be made of weapons taken forcibly from these Indians? Secondly, many of these Indians are intelligent, only using weapons when any well-disposed white person would have done so; and if one class is disarmed, all must be;" on which the commissioner so modified his order as to say that "peaceably disposed Indians" might keep the usual weapons used by them in hunting; but whenever they visited agencies or towns they must deliver up all weapons to the agent, who would receipt for them, and return them "at proper times." This order is to be enforced, if possible, by an "appeal to their better judgment."

There are no records of the practical working of this order. Very possibly it fell at once, by its own weight, into the already large category of dead-letter laws in regard to Indians. It is impossible to imagine an Indian who had served four years as an officer in the army (for the Delawares officered their own companies) submitting to be disarmed by an agent on any day when he might need to go to Atchison on business. Probably even that "appeal to his better judgment" which the commissioner recommends, would only draw from him a very forcible statement to the effect that any man who went about in Kansas at that time unarmed was a fool.

In 1866 the Indian Commissioner reports that "the State of Kansas is fast being filled by an energetic population who appreciate good land; and as the Indian reservations were selected as being the best in the State, but one result can be expected to follow.

"Most of the Indians are anxious to move to the Indian country south of Kansas, where white settlers cannot interfere with them.

"Intermingled as the Kansas reservations are with the public lands, and surrounded in most cases by white settlers who too often act on the principle that an Indian has no rights that a white man is bound to respect, they are injured and annoyed in many ways. Their stock are stolen, their fences broken down, their timber destroyed, their young men plied with whiskey, their women debauched; so that, while the uncivilized are kept in a worse than savage state, having the crimes of civilization forced upon them, those farther advanced, and disposed to honest industry, are discouraged beyond endurance."

In spite of all this the Delawares raised, in 1866, 72,000 bushels of grain, 13,000 bushels of potatoes, and owned 5000 head of cattle.

In July of this year a treaty was made with them, providing for the removal to the Indian Territory of all who should not decide to become citizens of Kansas, and the sale of their lands. The superintendent of the Fort Leavenworth Agency writes at this time: "The running of the Union Pacific Railroad through the Delawares' diminished reserve has been a source of grievous annoyance and damage to the Delawares, as has also an organization styled the Delaware Lumber Company. Out of these two companies grew much complaint and investigation, resulting in the appointment of a special agent to sell to the railroad the timber required for the construction of the road, and no more. The Delaware Lumber Company being thus restricted" (i.e., being prevented from helping themselves to the Indians' timber), immediately "gave up their business, and stopped their mills," but not before they had damaged the Indians' property to the amount of twenty-eight thousand dollars.

Twenty thousand dollars' worth of stock and twenty-eight thousand dollars' worth of timber having been stolen in two years from this little village of farmers, no wonder they are "sufficiently prepared to move." Other causes have conspired also to render them in haste to be gone. The perpetual expectation of being obliged to remove had unsettled the whole community, and made them indifferent to effort and improvement. The return of their young men from the war had also had a demoralizing effect. Drunken frays were not uncommon, in which deadly weapons were used, spite of the Department's regulations for disarming all Indians.

In July of this year the Delaware chiefs, distressed by this state of affairs, drew up for their nation a code of laws which compare favorably with the laws of so-called civilized States.[^[9]]

In 1867 the Delawares are said to be "very impatient to be gone from their reserve, in order to build houses this autumn for winter use, and to be fencing fields for the ensuing year at their new reserve." The annuities due them in April of this year have not been paid till autumn, and this has delayed their movements. Many of the young men are still away, acting as scouts and guides in the army. In the course of this year and the next the whole tribe moved by detachments to their new home. "Those who removed during the winter went to work in a laudable manner, and made their improvements—many building comfortable houses and raising respectable crops" the first season. They are said to be now in a fair way to be better off than ever before. They have "given up their tribal organization and become Cherokee citizens. They report that they are well pleased with their new homes; and, being separated from the many temptations by which they were surrounded in their old reservation, are learning to appreciate the many benefits to be derived from leading a temperate, industrious, and consequently a prosperous and happy life."

In 1869 it is said that, "as soon as the final arrangement relative to their funds is perfected, they will lose their nationality and become identified with the Cherokees."

In 1870 we find nearly all the Delawares in Indian Territory; but it seems that, owing to a carelessly surveyed boundary, some three hundred of them had settled down on lands which were outside the Cherokee Reservation, and had been assigned by the Government to the Osages. This unfortunate three hundred, therefore, are removed again; this time to the lands of the Peorias, where they ask permission to establish themselves. But in the mean time, as they had made previous arrangements with the Cherokees, and all their funds had been transferred to the Cherokee Nation, it is thought to be "very unfortunate that they should be thus obliged to seek a new home;" and it is said to be "quite desirable that the parties in interest should reconcile their unsettled affairs to mutual advantage."

We are too much inclined to read these records carelessly, without trying to picture to ourselves the condition of affairs which they represent. It has come to be such an accepted thing in the history and fate of the Indian that he is to be always pushed on, always in advance of what is called the march of civilization, that to the average mind statements of these repeated removals come with no startling force, and suggest no vivid picture of details, only a sort of reassertion of an abstract general principle. But pausing to consider for a moment what such statements actually mean and involve; imagining such processes applied to some particular town or village that we happen to be intimately acquainted with, we can soon come to a new realization of the full bearing and import of them; such uprooting, such perplexity, such loss, such confusion and uncertainty, inflicted once on any community of white people anywhere in our land, would be considered quite enough to destroy its energies and blight its prospects for years. It may very well be questioned whether any of our small communities would have recovered from such successive shocks, changes, and forced migrations, as soon and as well as have many of these Indian tribes. It is very certain that they would not have submitted to them as patiently.

After this we find in the Official Reports no distinctive mention of the Delawares by name, except of a few who had been for some time living in the Indian Territory, and were not included in the treaty provisions at the time of the removal from Kansas. This little handful—eighty-one in number—is all that now remain to bear the name of that strong and friendly people to whom, a little more than one hundred years ago, we promised that they should be our brothers forever, and be entitled to a representation in our Congress.

This band of Delawares is associated with six other dwindled remnants of tribes—the Caddoes, Ionies, Wichitas, Towaconies, Wacoes, Keechies, and Comanches—on the Wichita Agency, in Indian Territory.

They are all reported as being "peaceable, well disposed," and "actively engaged in agricultural pursuits."

Of the Delawares it is said, in 1878, that they were not able to cultivate so much land as they had intended to during that year, "on account of loss of stock by horse-thieves."

Even here, it seems, in that "Indian country south of Kansas, where" (as they were told) "white settlers could not interfere with them," enemies lie in wait for them, as of old, to rob and destroy; even here the Government is, as before, unable to protect them; and in all probability, the tragedies of 1866 and 1867 will before long be re-enacted with still sadder results.

CHAPTER III.
THE CHEYENNES.

Our first treaty with the Cheyennes was made in 1825, at the mouth of the Teton River. It was merely a treaty of amity and friendship, and acknowledgment on the part of the Cheyennes of the "supremacy" of the United States. Two years before this, President Monroe reported the "Chayenes" to be "a tribe of three thousand two hundred and fifty souls, dwelling and hunting on a river of the same name, a western tributary of the Missouri, a little above the Great Bend." Ten years later, Catlin, the famous painter of Indians, met a "Shienne" chief and squaw among the Sioux, and painted their portraits. He says, "The Shiennes are a small tribe of about three thousand in number, living neighbors to the Sioux on the west of them, between the Black Hills and the Rocky Mountains. There is no finer race of men than these in North America, and none superior in stature, except the Osages: scarcely a man in the tribe full grown who is less than six feet in height." They are "the richest in horses of any tribe on the continent; living where the greatest herds of wild horses are grazing on the prairies, which they catch in great numbers, and sell to the Sioux, Mandans, and other tribes, as well as to the fur-traders.

"These people are the most desperate set of warriors and horsemen, having carried on almost unceasing wars with the Pawnees and Blackfeet. The chief was clothed in a handsome dress of deer-skins, very neatly garnished with broad bands of porcupine-quill work down the sleeves of his shirt and leggings. The woman was comely, and beautifully dressed. Her dress of the mountain-sheepskin tastefully ornamented with quills and beads, and her hair plaited in large braids that hung down on her breast."

In 1837 the agent for the "Sioux, Cheyennes, and Poncas" reports that "all these Indians live exclusively by the chase;" and that seems to be the sum and substance of his information about them. He adds, also, that these remote wandering tribes have a great fear of the border tribes, and wish to avoid them. In 1838 the Cheyennes are reported as carrying on trade at a post on the Arkansas River near the Santa Fe road, but still depending on the chase.

In 1842 they are spoken of as a "wandering tribe on the Platte;" and in the same year, Mr. D. D. Mitchell, Supt. of Indian Affairs, with his head-quarters at St. Louis, writes: "Generations will pass away before this territory" [the territory in which the wild tribes of the Upper Mississippi were then wandering] "becomes much more circumscribed; for if we draw a line running north and south, so as to cross the Missouri about the mouth of the Vermilion River, we shall designate the limits beyond which civilized men are never likely to settle. At this point the Creator seems to have said to the tides of emigration that are annually rolling toward the West, 'Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.' At all events, if they go beyond this, they will never stop on the east side of the Rocky Mountains. The utter destitution of timber, the sterility of sandy soil, together with the coldness and dryness of the climate, furnish obstacles which not even Yankee enterprise is likely to overcome. A beneficent Creator seems to have intended this dreary region as an asylum for the Indians, when the force of circumstances shall have driven them from the last acre of the fertile soil which they once possessed. Here no inducements are offered to the ever-restless Saxon breed to erect their huts. *** The time may arrive when the whole of the Western Indians will be forced to seek a resting-place in this Great American Desert; and this, in all probability, will form a new era in the history of this singular and ill-fated race. They will remain a wandering, half civilized, though happy people. 'Their flocks and herds will cover a thousand hills,' and will furnish beef and mutton for a portion of the dense population of whites that will swarm in the more fertile sections of the great valley of the Mississippi."

This line, recommended by Mr. Mitchell, runs just east of Dakota, through the extreme eastern portion of Nebraska, a little to the east of the middle of Kansas, through the middle of Indian Territory and Texas, to the Gulf of Mexico. Montana, Idaho, Colorado, and New Mexico, all lie west of it.

The records of the War Department for 1846 contain an interesting account of a visit made to all the wild tribes of the Upper Missouri Agency—the Yankton Sioux, the Arrikarees, Mandans, Assinaboines, Arapahoes, Cheyennes, and others. In reply to the agent's remonstrances with one of the Sioux chiefs in regard to their perpetual warring with each other, the chief "was very laconic and decided, remarking 'that if their great-grandfather desired them to cease to war with their enemies, why did he not send each of them a petticoat, and make squaws of them at once?'" This same chief refused to allow the boys of his tribe to go to the Choctaw schools, saying, "They would return, as the few did who went to St. Louis, drunkards, or die on the way."

The Cheyennes and other Indians living on the Platte complained bitterly of the passage of the emigrants through their country. They said they ought to be compensated for the right of way, and that the emigrants should be restricted by law and the presence of a military force from burning the grass, and from unnecessary destruction of game. They were systematically plundered and demoralized by traders. Whiskey was to be had without difficulty; sugar and coffee were sold at one dollar a pound; ten-cent calico at one dollar a yard; corn at seventy-five cents a gallon, and higher.

In 1847 a law was passed by Congress forbidding the introduction of whiskey into the Indian country, and even the partial enforcement of this law had a most happy effect. Foremost among those to acknowledge the benefits of it were the traders themselves, who said that the Indians' demand for substantial articles of trade was augmented two hundred per cent.: "They enjoy much better health, look much better, and are better people. *** You now rarely ever hear of a murder committed, whereas when whiskey was plenty in that country murder was a daily occurrence." These Indians themselves were said to be "opposed to the introduction of ardent spirits into their country; *** but, like almost all other Indians, will use it if you give it to them, and when under its influence are dangerous and troublesome." There were at this time nearly forty-six thousand of these Upper Missouri Indians. Five bands of them—"the Sioux, Cheyennes, Gros Ventres, Mandans, and Poncas"—were "excellent Indians, devotedly attached to the white man," living "in peace and friendship with our Government," and "entitled to the special favor and good opinion of the Department for their uniform good conduct and pacific relations."

In 1848 it was estimated from the returns made by traders that the trade of this agency amounted to $400,000. Among the items were 25,000 buffalo tongues. In consequence of this prosperity on the part of the Indians, there was a partial cessation of hostilities on the whites; but it was still a perilous journey to cross the plains, and in 1849 the necessity for making some sort of treaty stipulations with all these wild tribes begins to be forced emphatically upon the attention of the United States Government. A safe highway across the continent must be opened. It is a noticeable thing, however, that, even as late as this in the history of our diplomatic relations with the Indian, his right to a certain control as well as occupancy of the soil was instinctively recognized. The Secretary of the Interior, in his report for 1849, says: "The wild tribes of Indians who have their hunting-grounds in the great prairie through which our emigrants to California pass, have, during the year, been more than usually pacific. They have suffered our people to pass through their country with little interruption, though they travelled in great numbers, and consumed on their route much grass and game. For these the Indians expect compensation, and their claim is just."

The Secretary, therefore, concurs in the recommendation of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs that treaties be negotiated with these tribes, stipulating for the right of way through their country, and the use of grass and game, paying them therefor small annuities in useful articles of merchandise, and agricultural implements, and instruction. "The right of way"—"through their country." A great deal is conceded, covered, and conveyed by such phrases as these. If they mean anything, they mean all that the Indians ever claimed.

The Indians were supposed to be influenced to this peaceableness and good-will more by a hope of rewards and gifts than by a wholesome fear of the power of the Government; and it was proposed to take a delegation of chiefs to Washington, "in order that they may acquire some knowledge of our greatness and strength, which will make a salutary impression on them, and through them on their brethren," and "will tend to influence them to continue peaceful relations."

It begins to dawn upon the Government's perception that peace is cheaper as well as kinder than war. "We never can whip them into friendship," says one of the superintendents of the Upper Missouri Agency. A treaty "can do no harm, and the expense would be less than that of a six months' war. *** Justice as well as policy requires that we should make some remuneration for the damages these Indians sustain in consequence of the destruction of their game, timber, etc., by the whites passing through their country."