Part 3

We have thus far treated the policy of the government towards the dangerous tribes as one not requiring the use of the military arm in any emergency short of an actual outbreak. We have done so, first, that we might encounter the full effect of the objections to the plan of concession and conciliation; and, secondly, because we hold it true, that, when the alternative is between allowing a considerable degree of insolence and outrage to go unpunished, and entailing upon the Territories a general Indian war, duty and interest require the government to go to the last point of endurance and forbearance with the savages. But this alternative is not always presented: it is often practicable to repress and punish violence, without exposing the settlements to the horrors of massacre. Whenever this can be done, it is scarcely necessary to say it should be done, and done effectually. The feature of the present Indian policy of the government which allows this to be done without incurring general Indian war is known as the reservation system,--a system shrewdly devised to meet the known weaknesses of the Indian character. By it extensive tracts have been set apart for the warlike tribes, within which they may pursue all their customs and habits of life, and indulge themselves in savagery, being also subsisted thereon to the extent of their actual necessities, but outside of which bands or parties are liable to be struck by the military at any time, without warning, and without any implied hostility to those members of the tribe who remain on their reservation, and deport themselves according to the conditions of the compact. The brilliant campaign of Gen. Crook in Arizona during the past season has been prosecuted with the most scrupulous observance of the reservation system, as marked out by the government, and accepted by the Indians themselves. Such a use of the military arm constitutes no abandonment of the "peace policy," and involves no disparagement of it. Military operations thus conducted are not in the nature of war, but of discipline, and are so recognized by the tribes whose marauding bands and parties are scourged back to the reservations by the troops. The effect of all this is something more than negative. It does not merely serve to chastise offending individuals and parties without a breach of peace with the tribe; but it is made the means of impressing the less enterprising Indians with an increasing sense of the power of the government. It was not to be expected that the entire body of a warlike tribe would consent to be restrained in their Ishmaelitish proclivities without a struggle on the part of the more audacious to maintain their traditional freedom. The reservation system allows this issue to be fought out between our troops and the more daring of the savages, without involving in the contest tribes with which our army in its present numbers is wholly inadequate to cope.

Nor will the full effect of this consideration be appreciated if it be not borne in mind that the Indian is intensely susceptible to severe punishment. His own wars are so bloodless, his skirmishing tactics so cowardly and resultless, that the savage fighting of the whites, their eagerness for close quarters, and their deadly earnestness when engaged hand to hand, impress him with a strange terror. With him, as with all persons and peoples in whom the imagination is predominant, the effect of disaster is not measured by the actual loss and suffering entailed, but by the source, the shape, the suddenness, of it. Indeed, it is astonishing how completely the spirit of an Indian tribe may be broken by a catastrophe which does not necessarily impair its fighting power.

Nor even is it necessary that the Indian's sense of justice should be met by the chastisement received. Undiscriminating in his own revenge, he does not look for nicely measured retribution on the part of his enemy. Hence it is that certain of the so-called--and sometimes properly so called--massacres perpetrated by the army, or by frontier militia, have had very different results from what would have been predicted by persons familiar only with habits of thought and feeling among our own people.[D] Injustice and cruelty exasperate men of our race; but the Indian is never other than cruel and unjust under resentment. Let him feel that he has been injured by a white man, and he will tomahawk the first white man he meets, without a thought whether his victim be guilty or innocent. Let him suffer at the hand of a member of a neighboring tribe, and he will lie all day in wait for another member of that tribe with just as much anticipation of gratified hate as if he awaited the footsteps of the wrong-doer. Nay, let him have a feud with one of his own blood, and he will devote the speechless babes of his enemy to his infernal malice. Here, undoubtedly, we find the explanation of the fact that massacres, damnable in plot and circumstance, have struck such deadly and lasting terror into tribes of savages; while, occurring between nations of whites, they would have kindled the flames of war to inextinguishable fury.

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We have thus far treated the question, What shall be done with the Indian as an obstacle to the progress of railways and of settlements?--to the exclusion of the inquiry, What shall be done to promote his advancement in industry and the arts of life?--not merely because, for all those tribes and bands to which the first question applies (i. e. those which are potentially hostile, and towards which the government is, as we have attempted to show, bound in interest and humanity to exercise great forbearance till they shall cease to be formidable to the settlements and to the pioneers of settlement), that question is, in logical order, precedent to any discussion of methods to be taken to educate and civilize them; but also because it is in effect likewise precedent to any deliberate, comprehensive, and permanent adjustment of the difficulties experienced in treating the Indian tribes which are neither hostile in disposition nor formidable by reason of their situation or their numbers. So long as the attention of the executive department is occupied by efforts to preserve the peace; so long as Congress is asked yearly to appropriate three millions of dollars to feed and clothe insolent savages; so long as the public mind is exasperated by reports of Indian outrages occurring in any section of the country,--so long will it be vain to expect an adequate treatment of the question of Indian civilization.

It must not be understood that nothing is being done for the industrial and moral instruction of the peaceful and more advanced tribes[E] pending the reduction of their turbulent brethren to terms; but the efforts, and expenditures of the present time fall far short of the completeness and consistency necessary to constitute a system. Much that is doing is in compliance with treaty stipulations, and hence is well done, whether it have any practical result or not. Much, again, of what is doing, although so inadequate to the necessities of the situation as to yield no positive results, is preventing waste by keeping up established services and agencies, and, in a measure, preserving the character and habits of the Indians from further deterioration. Much, still, is in the way of experiment, from which may be derived many valuable principles and suggestions for the treatment of the Indian question on the larger scale which will be necessary in the future. Much, however, it must be confessed, is done out of an uneasy desire to do something for this unfortunate people, or in generous response to appeals from persons in official or private station who have chanced to become particularly interested in the welfare of individual tribes and bands, and thereafter fail not (small blame to them) to beset Congress and the departments for special consideration and provision for their _proteges_. It can scarcely need to be remarked, that these are not the ways to constitute a system.

It is a question not a little perplexing, What shall be done with the Indian when he shall be thrown helpless on our government and people? What _has_ been done with tribes and bands which have reached this condition has been, as we have said, of every description; and the results have been not less various. We have had guardianship of the strictest sort. We have tried industrial experiments on more than one plan, and have attempted the thorough industrial education of Indian communities as a security for their social advancement. We have, on other occasions, let the Indian severely alone just so soon as it was ascertained that his power for harm had ceased, and have left him to find his place in the social and industrial scale; to become fisherman, lumberman, herdsman, menial, beggar, or thief, according to aptitude or accident, or the wants of the community at large. True it is that the modes adopted, in fact, in dealing with particular tribes, have generally been due to chance or to the caprices of administration; true, also, that the experiments which have been made do not reflect much credit on the sagacity of the superior race to which have been intrusted the destinies of the red man: but there has been a vast amount of good-nature and benevolent intention exhibited; the experiments have been in many directions, and have covered a large field; and while the results, in the manifest want of adaptation of means to ends, and of operations to material, cannot be deemed wholly conclusive of the philosophy of the situation, yet very much can be learned from them that bears upon the questions of the present day. As has been stated, the issues of the experiments tried have been of every kind. To assertions that the Indian cannot be civilized, can be opposed instances of Indian communities which have attained a very considerable degree of advancement in all the arts of life. To the more cautious assertion, that, while the tribes which subsist chiefly on a vegetable diet are susceptible of being tamed and improved, the meat-eating Indians, the buffalo and antelope hunters, are hopelessly intractable and savage, can be opposed instances of such tribes which, in an astonishingly short time, have been influenced to abandon the chase, to undertake agricultural pursuits, to labor with zeal and patience, to wear white man's clothes, send their children to school, attend church on Sunday, and choose their officers by ballot. To the assertion that the Indian, however seemingly reclaimed, and for a time regenerated, still retains his savage propensities and animal appetites, and will sooner or later relapse into barbarism, can be opposed instances of slow and steady growth in self-respect and self-control, extending over two generations, without an indication of the tendencies alleged. To assertions that the Indian cannot resist either physical or moral corruption by contact with the whites, that he inevitably becomes subject to the baser elements of civilized communities, that every form of infectious or contagious disease becomes doubly fatal to him, and that he learns all the vices but none of the virtues of society, can be opposed instances of tribes which have freely mingled with the whites without debasement, and have acquired the arts of civilized life with no undue proportion of its evils. To the assertion that the Indian must gradually decline in numbers and decay in strength, his life fading out before the intenser life which he encounters, can be offered instances of the steady increase in population of no small number of tribes and bands in immediate contact with settlements, and subject to the full force of white influence.

And yet it is undeniably true that many of the experiments have failed in a greater or less degree; that in some cases the Indians most neglected have done better for themselves than those who have received the care and bounty of the government; that many tribes and bands which had apparently emerged from their barbarous condition have miserably fallen back into sloth and vicious habits; that the meat-eaters, who constitute the bulk of the tribes with which the latest advances of our settlements and railways have brought us in contact, are exceptionally wild and fierce; that the experiment of Indian civilization has far more chances of success when it is tried under conditions that allow of freedom from excitement, and thorough seclusion from foreign influences; and, finally, that Indian blood, thus far in the history of the country, has tended decidedly towards extinction.

The Board of Indian Commissioners, in their Report for 1872, make the statement that "nearly five-sixths of all the Indians of the United States and Territories are now either civilized or partially civilized." (Report, p. 3.) The Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in his report of the same date, places the number of reclaimed savages somewhat lower, dividing the three hundred thousand Indians within the limits of the United States as follows: civilized, ninety-seven thousand; semi-civilized, one hundred and twenty-five thousand; wholly barbarous, seventy-eight thousand. He is, however, careful to explain that the division is made "according to a standard taken with reasonable reference to what might fairly be expected of a race with such antecedents and traditions." Perhaps, on a strict construction of the word "semi-civilized," the Indian Office might assent to take off twenty or thirty thousand from the number stated.

We all know what a savage Indian is. What is a civilized Indian?--what a semi-civilized Indian? To what degree of industry, frugality, and sobriety can the Indian be brought? How well does he repay efforts and expenditures for his enlightenment and his advancement in the arts of life? How far does he hold his own when once fairly started on his course by the bounty of the government or by philanthropic enterprise, instructed and equipped, with no obstacles in his way, and with no interruptions from without? What, in short, may we reasonably expect from this people? What have they done for themselves? or what has been done with them in the past? It is doubtful whether zeal or ignorance is more responsible for the confusion which exists in the public mind in respect to this entire matter of Indian civilization. The truth will be best shown by examples.

The Cherokees, who originally owned and occupied portions of the States of Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee, have now a reservation of nearly four million acres in the tract known as the Indian Territory. They number about fifteen thousand, and are increasing. They have their own written language, their national constitution and laws, their churches, schools, and academies, their judges and courts. Their dwellings consist of five hundred frame and three thousand five hundred log houses. During the year 1872 they raised three million bushels of corn, besides large quantities of wheat, oats, and potatoes, their aggregate crops being greater than those of New Mexico and Utah combined. Their stock consists of sixteen thousand horses, seventy-five thousand neat-cattle, one hundred and sixty thousand hogs, and nine thousand sheep. It is needless, after such an enumeration of stock and crops, to say that they not only support themselves, but sell largely to neighboring communities less disposed to agriculture. The Cherokees have sixty schools in operation, with an aggregate attendance of two thousand one hundred and thirty-three scholars. Three of these schools are maintained for the instruction of their former negro slaves. All orphans of the tribe are supported at the public expense. The Cherokees are the creditors of the United States in the sum of a million seven hundred and sixteen thousand dollars, on account of lands and claims ceded and relinquished by them. The interest on this sum is annually paid by the treasurer of the United States to "the treasurer of the Cherokee nation," to be used under the direction of the national council for objects prescribed by law or treaty.

From the statements made above, all upon the authority of official reports, it will doubtless appear to every candid reader that the Cherokees are entitled to be ranked among civilized communities. Their condition is far better than that of the agricultural classes of England; and they are not inferior in intelligence or in the ability to assert their rights.

There are in the Indian Territory several other important tribes, and a number of small and broken bands, aggregating forty or forty-five thousand persons, who are in the same general condition as the Cherokees, and are equally--though not, perhaps, in every case, with quite as much emphasis--entitled to be called civilized. Nor are the Indians of this class confined to the Indian Territory so called. They are found in Kansas and Nebraska, in New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and upon the Pacific coast. The ninety or one hundred thousand Indians thus characterized will bear comparison, on the three points of industry, frugality, and sobriety, with an equal population taken bodily out of any agricultural district in the Southern or border States. In general intelligence and political aptitude they are still necessarily below the lowest level of American citizenship, if we exclude the newly-enfranchised element and the poor white population of a few districts of the South.

It is just and proper to call an Indian semi-civilized, no matter how humble his attainments, when he has taken one distinct, unmistakable step from barbarism; since "it is the first step that costs."

The Sioux of the Lake Traverse agency in Dakota number about fifteen hundred,--to be exact, fourteen hundred and ninety-six. These were of the Indians of Minnesota, and escaped to the West after the massacre of 1862, though claiming to have been innocent of participation in it. They are genuine specimens of the Indian race in its pure form. They have within three or four years made considerable progress in agriculture. Nearly all the men have of choice adopted the dress of the whites. Great interest is manifested in the education of the children of the tribe: four schools are in operation, with an attendance of one hundred and twenty-three scholars; and two more schoolhouses are in course of erection. By the provisions of the treaty of 1867, only the sick, the infirm, aged widows, and orphans of tender years, are to be supported by the government. The number thus enrolled for subsistence during the past year was six hundred and sixty, made up as follows: ninety-two men, aged, infirm, blind, crippled, &c.; two hundred and sixty-four women of various conditions; one hundred and eighteen children under seven years; one hundred and eighty-six children between seven and sixteen years. The remainder of the tribe supported themselves fully by their own labor. The agent says, "It is highly gratifying to be able to report commendable progress in agriculture by these Sisseton and Wahpeton Sioux on this reservation, who, almost to a man, have become fully satisfied that they cannot any longer rely upon the chase, but must of necessity turn their attention to the cultivation of the soil and stock-growing, for the future, as the only reliable source of subsistence. Many of them have learned to work; and some of them have learned to love to work as well; and they evidently enjoy the labor of their hands."

Tribes which show a higher actual attainment might have been taken for illustration out of the semi-civilized list; but these have been chosen, first, because they are meat-eating Indians, and secondly, because the plan of partial support adopted with them is the one most likely to be applied to all the Sioux bands, as fast as the government shall find itself in a position peremptorily to control their actions and movements.

Again: we select the Pawnees, numbering twenty-four hundred and forty-seven, for illustration, for the reason that they have been long distinguished over all the plains for their warlike power and ferocity, yet, under the care and instruction of the government, have within three years made a great degree of progress in three most important respects, as follows:--

First, while the Pawnees, from their situation, are still enabled and disposed to go upon the summer hunt, they are already engaged to a small extent, and with encouraging success, in the raising of vegetables and garden products, and even of corn and wheat. Two hundred and ten acres were planted by them last year in the several crops.

Second, while the chiefs and braves of the tribe still look to their traditional resource of hunting, the children of the tribe generally are being carefully instructed in letters and in labor. The day-schools and the manual-labor schools of the Pawnees have elicited the most enthusiastic praise from all persons, official or private, who have visited the reservation.

Third,--and this is a point to which we ask special attention, as indicating capabilities of higher things than are usually credited of Indians,--the inveterate and ferocious animosities of the Pawnees toward the Brule Sioux have been so far sacrificed to the requirements of the government and the personal entreaties of their agent, that the past summer witnessed the phenomenon, astonishing to all who were cognizant of the deadly feuds existing for generations between these tribes, of Pawnees and Brules hunting almost side by side, the camp-fires of both being distinctly visible upon the same plain, without a murder being committed, or so much as a horse stolen, by either party.

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If, then, we may assume that Indian civilization is not altogether impossible, let us inquire what should be the policy of the government towards the Indian tribes when they cease to be dangerous to our frontier population, and to oppose the progress of settlement, either by violence or by menace. In such a discussion, we are bound to have a reasonable consideration for the interests of the white man as well as for the rights of the red man, but above all to defer to whatever experience declares in respect to the conditions most favorable to the growth of self-respect and self-restraint in minds so strangely and unfortunately constituted as is the mind of the North American Indian.

_First._ The reservation system should be made the general and permanent policy of the government. By this is meant something more than that the Indians should not be robbed of their lands in defiance of treaty stipulations, or that the Indian title should be respected, and the Indians maintained in possession until they can be made ready to cede their lands to the government, or to sell them, with the consent of the government, to the whites. The proposition is that the United States, as the only power competent to receive such lands by cession, or to authorize their sale, should formally establish the principle of separation and seclusion, without reference to the wishes either of the Indians or of encroaching whites; should designate by law an ample and suitable reservation for each tribe and band not entitled by treaty; and should, in any reductions thereafter requiring to be made, provide that such reductions shall be by cutting off distinct portions from the outside, and not in such a way as to allow veins of white settlement to be injected, no matter whether along a stream or along a railway.