Indian tribe

“ Protect the inhabitants of the frontiers, gradually push the Indians south, and at no distant day, the necessary, unavoidable and melancholy consummation must arrive, viz., the expulsion of the last tribe of red men from the soil over which they once roamed the sole lords and possessors. ”

“ And yet the solution of the Indian problem is not a matter of theory or of speculation, but is an accomplished fact. It has been wrought out before our eyes. Wild, savage Indian tribes, as fierce, as lawless, as intractable as any now existing, have been tamed, have been taught the arts and ways of peace, have subjected themselves to law, and are now living in orderly, peaceable, industrious communities. ”

“ As we gaze on in mute admiration, we behold the race of the red man receding westward before that same power pictured in this wonderful face: now the Indian tribes pass the Rocky mountains, they come within the roar of the Pacific, and, growing less and less, they at last vanish away into the uncertain mists of the ocean—a lost people, who have served the purpose for which they were created, and disappeared from our continent to make room for a nobler humanity. ”

“ These Wild Indians are evidently a former part of our own cast-off people and of late years have entirely disappeared and the Indians are wondering what has become of them. Some think they have gone back into the tribe in other places or went out and mixed with the present white people so as not to be known by them. ”

“ The Indian wise speakers in the book are the best men of their tribe. Only what is true is within this book. I want all Indians and white men to read and learn how the Indians lived and thought in the olden time and may it bring holy—good upon the younger Indian to know of their fathers. A little while and the old Indians will no longer be and the young will be even as white men. When I think, I know it is the mind of the Great Mystery that the white man and the Indians who fought together should now be one people. ”

“ The younger Indians of this tribe are considerably advanced in civilization. The intelligence which Young Boy displayed to me is an evidence that the Indians are fast becoming civilized in the British possessions as well as in the United States. For several years peace and good order have prevailed among all the northern tribes. It will not be long before the Indians will be self-supporting. The effect of the march of civilization on the most warlike tribes even indicates that Indian wars are a thing of the past. ”

“ No being is more patriotic than the Indian. He believes himself to be the result of a special creation by a partial deity and holds that his is the one favored race. The name by which the tribes distinguish themselves from other tribes indicates the further conviction that, as the Indian is above all created things, so in like manner each particular tribe is exalted above all others. ”

“ For several years past the government of the United States, as is well known, has been engaged in removing the Indian tribes, resident within the States, to tracts of wild but fertile land, situated beyond the verge of white population. ”

“ Besides the climate, which is so greatly in your favour, you have another great advantage in the tractability and good conduct of the Indian population. (Applause.) I believe I have seen the Indians of almost every tribe throughout the Dominion, and nowhere can you find any who are so trustworthy in regard to conduct— (hear, hear) —so willing to assist the white settlers by their labour, so independent and anxious to learn the secret of the white man's power. ”

“ You want by your distinctions of Indian tribes in allotting to each a particular tract of land, to make them to war with each other. You never see an Indian come and endeavor to make the white people do so. ”

“ The native Indian tribes were retreating before this irresistible march of the white man, or were settling on reservations selected for them by the government. For years they retained their right to roam about, and kill the game which still abounded, but which was rapidly becoming less as the white settlements increased. In addition to their hunting and fishing, the industrious Indians added to their comfort by manufacturing native baskets, brooms, handles for axes, hoes and similar articles, which they sold to the friendly settlers for food and clothing. ”

“ It seems evident that this concentration of the Indian tribes in the West must issue in great events,—either in their civilization, and their final accession, as citizens, to our republic, or in future struggles, in which their power will be made the instrument of chastising our country for its former course of injustice. ”

“ 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. ”

“ My next cardinal proposition was that Indian tribes, if civilized at all, must be civilized along the lines of their past history, habits and modes of life; that some tribes of Indians subsist, and have subsisted for ages, on the products of ocean, lake and river: that these are sometimes called fish Indians: that to make appropriations to teach these Indians agriculture, or the successful operation of the farm, is a wasteful expenditure of public money; they are naturally sailors, and have carried the art of canoe [98] making and sailing to a high degree of perfection ”

“ So we can understand how in one section would arise Indian tribes possessed of quite complicated systems of government and religion and a knowledge of agriculture. And from this as a center they would naturally spread out to other sections. The conclusion to which we seem driven is, that there is no necessity for supposing the Mound Builders to be any thing more than village Indians, in much the same state of development as the southern Indians at the time of the discovery. ”

“ No material change has taken place within the last year in the condition and prospects of the Indian tribes who reside in the Northwestern Territory and west of the Mississippi River. We are at peace with all of them, and it will be a source of pleasure to you to learn that they are gradually advancing in civilization and the pursuits of social life. ”

“ Admitting that there are certain physiological attributes common to nearly all the Indian tribes, sufficiently decided and clear to enable them to be classed together as one branch of the human family, yet an intimate study of all the tribes of North America will develop physical diversities sufficiently ample to justify the belief that the various tribes may have sprung from different nationalities. We find them, although generally of a copper color, presenting all shades of complexion from a deep black to a shade of white. Some tribes are of powerful stature, others are dwarfed. ”

“ But whatever degree of interest and originality may have been connected with his early observations and discoveries in science, geography, or antiquities, the circumstances which directed his attention to the Indian tribes--their history, manners and customs, languages, and general ethnology, have been deemed to lay his strongest claim to public respect. ”

“ Again, the rapid progress in the settlement and occupation of the country has resulted in the gradual displacement of the Indian tribes, so that very many have been removed from their ancient homes, some of whom have been incorporated into other tribes, and some have been absorbed into the body of civilized people. ”

“ It is significant, that, in every case in which careful and patient research or inquiry have been brought into intelligent use in estimating the number of one or more Indian tribes, and of the whole Indian population, previous calculations, guessings, and inferences on the subject have been found to be exaggerations. The only associated groups of tribes with which our acquaintance and knowledge have been continuous from the beginning is the Iroquois, who have been in intimate intercourse with the Dutch, the French, and the English for more than two hundred and fifty years. ”

“ He was perhaps better known to a larger number of Indian tribes than any other white man, and from his long life among them learned their habits and customs, understood their mode of warfare, and spoke their language as his mother tongue. No one man did more than he in furthering the settlement of the northwestern wilderness. ”

“ The half-breeds intensify Indian qualities. In the woods and lodges they do not show any sense of being a degraded caste, but they feel it when in the settlements. This mixture of the races, with the blending of some of the least noble and some of the most perverse traits of each, is found to introduce among the Indian tribes of the more remote places, and who have shared the least in amicable relations with the whites, influences unfavorable to civilization. ”

“ From a conviction that we consider them as a part of ourselves, and cherish with sincerity their rights and interests, the attachment of the Indian tribes is gaining strength daily, is extending from the nearer to the more remote, and will amply requite us for the justice and friendship practised towards them. Husbandry and household manufacture are advancing among them, more rapidly with the southern than northern tribes, from circumstances of soil and climate ”

“ They were pious and industrious themselves, and they designed to make the Indian tribes so. They bought their lands and paid for them, and proceeded to establish friendly neighborhoods among the tribes. ”

“ These Indian tribes are their descendants. When they first came here, they were a righteous people, and had with them the Scriptures, containing the law of Moses. When they came here, they made plates of gold, and on them they recorded their history, wars, contentions, &c. These plates were handed down among the ancient inhabitants of America for a thousand years after they came here. Their prophecies were recorded from generation to generation. ”

“ The members of the various Indian tribes, although presenting a wide range of differences, have many physiological and mental resemblances, which, like their languages, serve to set them apart from all other peoples. A composite picture of their persons would show a man sinewy rather than heavy in build, but there are many exceptions; of average stature, 5 feet 8 or 10 inches, but there are tribes whose average is more, and others in which it is less; dark brown, with a reddish undertone, in colour; deep-set, black, and in general small eyes, their alignment straight ”

“ There is not only abundant evidence in the collective architecture of the Indian tribes of the gradual development of this great faculty or aptitude of the human mind among them, through three ethnical periods, but the structures themselves, or a knowledge of them, remain for comparison with each other. ”

“ Within a generation diligent search has begun among some of the Indian tribes, to ascertain, through a sympathetic study of rites, ceremonies, and customs, what were the red man's ideals, what his beliefs, and what his actual attainments. Already this labour is bearing fruit. Scholars are recognising that the aboriginal conditions on this continent throw light on the slow development of human society and its institutions ”

“ They are [Pg 192] emphatically an agricultural and stock-raising people, and perhaps of all the Indian tribes, great and small, are first in general intelligence, in the acquisition of wealth, in the knowledge of the useful arts, and in social and moral progress. The evidences of a real and substantial advancement in these respects are too clear to be questioned ”

“ From several of the Indian tribes inhabiting the country bordering on Lake Erie purchases have been made of lands on conditions very favorable to the United States, and, as it is presumed, not less so to the tribes themselves. ”

“ No less than 26,873 full-blood male Indians were laboring in civilized pursuits, exclusive of those belonging to the five civilized tribes in the Indian Territory. These people are not savages; they worship God—many of them enjoying the light of Catholic truth; they educate themselves and their children; they live in houses and wear decent clothes; they toil and are producers of valuable articles. Let us see, now, what is said about these and the other Indians less advanced in civilization, by their rulers, the successive Commissioners of Indian Affairs and their subordinates, the agents. ”

“ In these queries he views the Indian race, not only as tribes having every claim on our sympathy and humanity, but as one of the races of the human family, scattered by an inscrutable Providence, whose origin and destiny is one of the most interesting problems of American history, philosophy, and Christianity. ”

“ A few of these tribes live a retired existence in the forests, but most of them mingle with the white people, and are employed by them in gathering rubber or other products of the forests. The skin of the Indians is a coppery-brown colour. They are of a medium height, but have not the high cheek bones of the North American Indian. ”

“ Indian Creek, in its whole length, flows through a magnificent forest. There dwells on its shore a tribe of Indians, a remnant of the Chickasaws or Chickopees, if I remember rightly. They live in simple huts, ten or twelve feet square, constructed of pine poles and covered with bark. They subsist principally on the flesh of the deer, the coon, and opossum, all of which are plenty in these woods. Sometimes they exchange venison for a little corn and whisky with the planters on the bayous. ”

“ The Indian, like all savages, is very superstitious. He loves to think over the time, hundreds of years ago, when the red men roamed over the whole continent from ocean to ocean. He dreams of those days, and believes they will again return—that the pale faces will be driven into the sea, and the vast land become the hunting ground of the Indians. ”