Indian Peace Commission

“ The object of greatest solicitude should be to break down the prejudices of tribe among the Indians; to blot out the boundary lines which divide them into distinct nations, and fuse them into one homogeneous mass. Uniformity of language will do this -- nothing else will. As this work advances each head of a family should be encouraged to select and improve a homestead. Let the women be taught to weave, to sew, and to knit. Let polygamy be punished. Encourage the building of dwellings, and the gathering there of those comforts which endear the home. ”

“ Let civilized man be his companion, and the association warms into life virtues of the rarest worth. Civilization has driven him back from the home he loved; it has often tortured and killed him, but it never could make him a slave. ”

“ Resolved, That the recent outrages and depredations committed by the Indians on the plains justify the government in abrogating those clauses of the treaties made in October, 1867, at Medicine Lodge creek, which secure to them the right to roam and hunt outside their reservations; that all said Indians should be requested to remove at once to said reservations and remain within them, except that after peace shall have been restored, hunting parties may be permitted to cross their boundaries with written authority from their agent or superintendent. ”

“ Indians of different tribes associate with each other on terms of equality; they have not the Bible, but their religion, which we call superstition, teaches them that the Great Spirit made us all. In the difference of language to-day lies two-thirds of our troubles.
Instead of adopting the plan indicated, when the contact came the Indian had to be removed. He always objected, and went with a sadder heart. His hunting grounds are as dear to him as is the home of his childhood to the civilized man. He too loves the streams and mountains of his youth ”

“ Rich mines had been opened in the mountains, and through the streets of these young cities poured the streams of golden wealth. This had once been Indian property. If the white man in taking it was "kind" to the savage, this at least carried with it some honor, and deserves to be remembered. By some it may be thought that a more substantial return might well have been made. By others it may be imagined that the property of the Indians and the amiable courtesies of the whites were just equivalents. But "kind treatment" here was estimated at more than the Indians could give. ”

“ The third article of the treaty of 1851 contained the following language: "The United States bind themselves to protect the aforesaid Indian nations against the commission of all depredations by the people of the United States after the ratification of this treaty." The Indians, however ignorant, did not believe that the obligations of this treaty had been complied with.
If the lands of the white man are taken, civilization justifies him in resisting the invader. Civilization does more than this: it brands him as a coward and a slave if he submits to the wrong. ”

“ Promises have been so often broken by those with whom they usually come in contact, cupidity has so long plied its work deaf to cries of suffering, and heartless cruelty has so frequently sought them in the garb of charity, that to obtain their confidence our promises must be scrupulously fulfilled and our professions of friendship divested of all appearance of selfishness and duplicity. ”

“ If an Indian is to be trusted at all, he must be trusted to the full extent of his work. If you betray symptoms of distrust, he discovers it with nature's intuition, and at once condemns the falsehood that would blend friendship and suspicion together. Whatever our people may choose to say of the insincerity or duplicity of the Indian would fail to express the estimate entertained by many Indians of the white man's character in this respect. ”

“ Is it because the Indians are not worth the effort at civilization? Or is it because our people, who have grown rich in the occupation of their former lands -- too often taken by force or procured by fraud -- will not contribute? ”

“ Fleeing women, holding up their hands and praying for mercy, were brutally shot down; infants were killed and scalped in derision; men were tortured and mutilated in a manner that would put to shame the savage ingenuity of interior Africa. ”

“ Members of Congress understand the Negro question, and talk learnedly of finance and other problems of political economy, but when the progress of settlement reaches the Indian's home, the only question considered is, "how best to get his lands." When they are obtained, the Indian is lost sight of. While our missionary societies and benevolent associations have annually collected thousands of dollars from the charitable, to be sent to Asia and Africa for the purposes of civilization, scarcely a dollar is expended or a thought bestowed on the civilization of Indians at our very doors. ”

“ Among civilized men war usually springs from a sense of injustice. The best possible way then to avoid war is to do no act of injustice. When we learn that the same rule holds good with Indians, the chief difficulty is removed. But it is said our wars with them have been almost constant. Have we been uniformly unjust? We answer unhesitatingly yes. We are aware that the masses of our people have felt kindly toward them, and the legislation of Congress has always been conceived in the best intentions, but it has been erroneous in fact or perverted in execution. ”

“ And we fully recognize the fact that the Indian must not stand in the way of this result. We would only be understood as doubting the purity and genuineness of that civilization which reaches its ends by falsehood and violence, and dispenses blessings that spring from violated rights. ”

“ But suppose, when civilized, our pride had still rejected his association, we could at least have removed the causes of war by giving him a home to himself, where he might, with his own race, have cultivated the arts of peace. ”

“ The vast and complicated duties now devolved upon the Secretary of the Interior leave him too little time to examine and determine the multiplicity of questions necessarily connected with government and civilization of a race. The same may be said of the Secretary of War. As things now are, it is difficult to fix responsibility. When errors are committed, the civil department blames the military; the military retort by the charge of inefficiency or corruption against the officers of the bureau. ”

“ Now, by educating the children of these tribes in the English language these differences would have disappeared and civilization would have followed at once. Nothing then would have been left but the antipathy of race, and that too is always softened in the beams of a higher civilization.
Naturally the Indian has many noble qualities. He is the very embodiment of courage. Indeed, at times he seems insensible of fear. If he is cruel and revengeful, it is because he is outlawed and his companion is the wild beast. ”

“ When the Indian goes to war he enters upon its dreadful work with earnestness and determination. He goes on an errand of vengeance, and no amount of blood satisfies him. It may be because, with him, all wrongs have to be redressed by war. ”

“ Why limit us to certain boundaries, beyond which we shall not follow the game? If you want the lands for settlement, come and settle them. We will not disturb you. You may farm and we will hunt. You love the one, we love the other. If you want game we will share it with you. If we want bread, and you have it to spare, give it to us; but do not spurn us from your doors. Be kind to us and we will be kind to you. If we want ammunition, give or sell it to us. ”

“ Of one thing we are satisfied -- that so long as the war lasts the road is entirely useless to emigrants. It is worse than that; it renders other routes insecure, and endangers territorial settlements. It is said that a road to Montana, leaving the Pacific railroad further west and passing down the valley west of the Big Horn mountains, is preferable to the present route. The Indians present no objection to such a road, but assure us that we may travel it in peace. ”

“ These Indians saw their former homes and hunting grounds overrun by a greedy population, thirsting for gold. They saw their game driven east to the plains, and soon found themselves the objects of jealousy and hatred. They too must go. The presence of the injured is too often painful to the wrongdoer, and innocence offensive to the eyes of guilt. It now became apparent that what had been taken by force must be retained b the ravisher, and nothing was left for the Indian but to ratify a treaty consecrating the act. ”

“ He wages war with the same pertinacity, and indeed in the same spirit, with which a party litigant in full conviction of the right prosecutes his suit in court. His only compromise is to have his rights, real or fancied, fully conceded. ”

“ The wave of our population has been from the east to the west. The Indian was found on the Atlantic seaboard, and thence to the Rocky mountains lived numerous distinct tribes, each speaking a language as incomprehensible to the other as was our language to any of them. As our settlements penetrated the interior, the border came in contact with some Indian tribe. The white and Indian must mingle together and jointly occupy the country, or one of them must abandon it. ”

“ Money annuities, here and elsewhere, should be abolished forever. These more than anything else have corrupted the Indian service, and brought into disgrace officials connected with it. In the course of a few years the clothing and provision annuities also may be dispensed with. Mechanics and artisans will spring up among them, and the whole organization , under the management of a few honest men, will become self-sustaining.
The older Indians at first will be unwilling to confine themselves to these districts. They are inured to the chase and they will not leave it. ”

“ We must take the savage as we find him, or rather as we have made him. We have spent 200 years in creating the present state of things. If we can civilize in 25 years, it will be a vast improvement on the operations of the past. If we attempt to force the older Indians from the chase, it will involve us in war. The younger ones will follow them into hostility, and another generation of savages will succeed. When the buffalo is gone the Indians will cease to hunt. ”

“ But one thing then remains to be done with honor to the nation, and that is to select a district or districts of country, as indicated by Congress, on which all the tribes east of the Rocky mountains may be gathered. For each district let a territorial government be established, with powers adapted to the ends designed. The governor should be a man of unquestioned integrity and purity of character; he should be paid such salary as to place him above temptation ”

“ No one will be astonished that a war ensued which cost the government $30,000,000, and carried conflagration and death to the border settlements. During the spring and summer of 1865 no less than 8,000 troops were withdrawn from the effective force engaged in suppressing the rebellion to meet this Indian war. The result of the year's campaign satisfied all reasonable men that war with Indians was useless and expensive. ”

“ If it should suggest to civilization that the injunction to "do good to them that hate us" is not confined to race, but broad as humanity itself, it may do some good even to ourselves. It will at least, for the practical man honestly seeking a solution of these troubles, serve a better purpose than whole pages of theorizing upon Indian character.
At this point we were informed by our scouts that the northern Sioux, who were waging war on the Powder river, would not be able to meet us at Fort Laramie at the time indicated ”

“ Small war parties emerging from this vast extent of unexplored country would suddenly strike the border settlements, killing the men and carrying off into captivity the women and children. Companies of workmen on the railroads, at points hundreds of miles from each other, would be attacked on the same day, perhaps in the same hour. Overland mail coaches could not be run without military escort, and railroad and mail stations unguarded by soldiery were in perpetual danger. All safe transit across the plains had ceased. To go without soldiers was hazardous in the extreme ”