Indian war

“ And the Indians, William! Only think of going within sound of the Indian war-whoop!”
“The Indians are in a very different state now,” he replied, “from what they were when the Puritan women followed their husbands into the wilderness of this new world. They are few in numbers now. Their spirit has been tamed by accumulated wrongs, and they are too well aware of the power of the United States’ government, to make any aggressions upon those who are under its protection. Besides, you know it is my opinion that the Indians never would have made unprovoked aggressions. ”

“ At war the Indians are under the control of the military, at peace under the control of the civil officers. Exactly what constitutes Indian hostilities is not agreed on; and, besides this, as soon as the military forces, after a hard campaign, conducted with great hardship and at large expense, have succeeded in forcing the Indians into such a position that punishment is possible, the Indian, seeing the result and the impossibility of avoiding it, immediately proclaims his wish to make peace. ”

“ The present Indian war is essentially different from any former one. When Britain and France divided North America betwixt them, if the emissaries of both excited the Indians to war, the power of both afforded protection. When Britain became possessed of the Western posts, and many tribes of Indians commenced a war, the British Government conducted the war, carried it into the Indian country, and by the dread of their arms procured peace ”

“ And it is a matter of history that all along our Western frontier there has been a succession of Indian wars, with great destruction of life and property, and yet seldom has there been a formal declaration of war on the part of either the government or the Indians. ”

“ No one will be astonished that a war ensued which cost the government thirty million dollars, and carried conflagration and death to the border settlements. During the spring and summer of 1865, no less than eight thousand troops were withdrawn from the effective force engaged in suppressing the Rebellion, to meet this Indian war.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. ”

“ When day broke that Tuesday, the seventeenth of September, 1868, we saw our pickets riding toward camp as fast as their horses could carry them, excitedly yelling: “Indians! Indians!” As I looked up the valley toward the west I beheld the grandest, wildest sight—such as few mortals are permitted to see and live to tell about. Many hundreds of Indians in full war paraphernalia, riding their splendid war ponies, rushed toward us en masse. ”

“ For upon the success or failure of these two Indians depended in a great measure the question whether or not we were to be forced to continue the war; and among the hundreds who watched the departing bearers of the olive branch, there was not one but hoped earnestly that the mission would prove successful, and we be spared the barbarities which a further prosecution of the war would necessarily entail. Yet there are those who would have the public believe that the army is at all times clamorous for an Indian war. ”

“ When they had retired on beds raised about two feet from the ground at the end of their long bark-covered lodge, the Indians held a secret council. Some of the warriors had looked with envious eyes upon the canoes, clothes, and presents of the whites. Why not fall upon the strangers by night, beat out their brains with skull-crackers or Indian war clubs, and make away with the plunder? To some of the covetous Indians it was a tempting plan. The whites were defenseless and hundreds of leagues from their friends. ”

“ The land was already held by powerful Indian tribes and confederacies, who waged war after war, of the most ferocious and bloody character, against the men of the border, in the effort to avert their inevitable doom, or at least to stem for the time being the invasion of the swelling tide of white settlement. At the present time, when an Indian uprising is a matter chiefly of annoyance, and dangerous only to scattered, outlying settlers, it is difficult to realize the formidable nature of the savage Indian wars waged at the end of the last and the beginning of the present centuries. ”

“ It is called the French and Indian War, because there were many Indians on the side of the French. There were some on the side of the English, also. Indians are very savage and cruel in their way of fighting, as you already know. I shall have to tell you one instance of their love of bloodshed. [114] One of the English forts, called Fort William Henry, which stood at the southern end of Lake George, had to surrender to the French, and its soldiers were obliged to march out and give up their guns. ”

“ The first that is known of Indian hostilities is a sudden report that the Indians have commenced a war, and have devastated many miles of settlements or massacred parties of emigrants or travellers. By the time such information reaches the military commander, the worst has been accomplished, and the Indians have escaped from the scene of outrage. Nothing is left to the military except pursuit, and generally unavailing pursuit. The Indian agents are careful never to locate their agencies at the military posts, for reasons very well understood. ”

“ As we can gain nothing by blows, with such warriors, it is certainly our interest, as a trading people, to use proper measures to conciliate their affections; for whether we are conquerors, or conquered, we are always great losers in an Indian war.
When the invaders extend themselves cross the woods, in quest of their prey, if they make a plain discovery, either of fresh tracks, or of the enemy, they immediately pass the war-signal to each other, and draw their wings toward the center. ”

“ It may be a question likewise, whether colonization of the kind could be effected without an Indian war, and fighting for every inch of ground. The Indians have long been jealous of our power, and have no patience in seeing us approach their towns, and settle up on their hunting grounds; atonements may be made for a fraud discovered in a trader, and even the murder of some of their tribes, but encroachments upon their lands have often produced serious consequences. The springs of the last general war are to be discovered near the Allegany mountains, and upon the banks of the Ohio. ”

“ The more intelligent of the Americans realized that a general Indian war meant to them infinite horrors, and to the Indians ultimate extermination, and that the best interests of both would be subserved by peace. The Hud son s bay officers had every motive to desire peace that the Americans had, and the additional one, that war would destroy the company s business. ”

“ On one side the white man went armed to the field or the prayer-meeting, shooting an Indian on sight as he would a panther; on the other, a foe whose wife did the chores and hoed the scattering crops while he made war and extermination his joy by night and his prayer and life-long purpose by day.
Finally, however, the victory came sluggishly to the brave and deserving. One thousand Indians were killed at one pop, and their wigwams were burned. ”

“ If we had built our forts, established our corrals, and taken care of every thing we had, according to the instructions that all the new settlements received, this Indian war never would have commenced, because the Indians would have discovered there was no chance for plunder. ”

“ Indian wars are not conducted as with us, by opposing armies. It is altogether a guerilla affair. War parties are raised, marched, fight, and disperse in a few days. The war is carried on altogether by stealth and stratagem. Each one furnishes himself with food and weapons. ”

“ INDIAN PREPARATION. I interrupt the progress of the narrative to glance for a moment at the Indians in their military capacity, and observe how far they were qualified to prosecute the formidable war into which they were about to plunge.
A people living chiefly by the chase, and therefore, of necessity, thinly and widely scattered; divided into numerous tribes, held together by no strong principle of cohesion, and with no central government to combine their strength, could act with little efficiency against such an enemy as was now opposed to them. ”

“ Bargains have been broken and treaties violated, in almost every instance, first by the white man. The true history of almost every Indian war (so called) has been begun by the violence or provoked by the faithlessness of the white man. ”

“ While the rivalry between the two white nations was in progress, the red man was courted by each as holding in large degree the balance of power. But the war over, the ascendant Briton no longer regarded the Indians as necessary allies, and they were in large measure treated with indifference and injustice. The hostility of the Indian against the British was, of course, assiduously promoted by the French, who saw in it trouble for the British, possibly a regaining of their lost ground. The warlike and revengeful spirit of the Indian began to give itself vent. ”

“ The before unbroken peace of our Territory has been disturbed since the last spring, by an Indian war. Allied and hostile tribes have attacked our frontier settlements, driven in our settlers, destroyed their homes, attacked, burned, and plundered our freight and emigrant trains, and thus suspended agricultural pursuits in portions of our country, and interrupted our trade and commerce with the States. ”

“ While we bear any cool premeditated acts of Indian hostility with that crouching base behaviour, such passive conduct will serve only to tempt the Indians to advance in their favourite science of blood, and commence a general war. ”

“ To the student of Indian affairs it might at first seem that the gathering of the great chiefs from all the Indian tribes, wearing war-shirt and war-bonnet, carrying their coup sticks, tomahawks, spears, bows and arrows, guns and tom-toms, would necessarily reemphasize to the Indian the glory of his former prestige, and this impression would gather such momentum that deleterious results would follow ”

“ The Indian, thus independent, acknowledging no authority but his own, will proceed without compunction of conscience or fear of punishment, to wage war on the defenceless inhabitants of the frontier, whose lives and property, in many instances, were thus sacrificed at the shrine of an inordinate thirst for wealth in their governors, which in reality occasioned all those evils. ”

“ They continually gained ground, and have driven the Indians over the mountains, without any troops sent to their assistance from this country. And can it be thought necessary now to send troops for their defence from those diminished Indian tribes, when the colonies are become so populous, and so strong? There is not the least occasion for it; they are very able to defend themselves. Q. Do you say there were no more than 300 regular troops employed in the late Indian war? A, Not on the Ohio, or the frontiers of Pennsylvania, which was the chief part of the war that affected the colonies. ”

“ White men—some of them not even citizens of the United States—in violation of law enter the Indian reservation, steal the Indians’ ponies, drive off their cattle, shoot down a few of the Indians for resisting them, or perhaps for the mere fun of the thing. The Indians, maddened by the wrongs inflicted upon them, go on the war-path. ”

“ When we consider that two or three will go several hundred miles, to way-lay an enemy—the contiguous situation of such a prodigious number of corrupt, haughty, and mischievous savages to our valuable colonies, ought to draw our attention upon them. Those of us who have gained a sufficient knowledge of Indian affairs, by long experience and observation, are firmly persuaded that the seeds of war are deeply implanted in their hearts against us ”

“ The Indian has had no redress but war. In these wars ten white men were ed 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. ”

“ The fact is, however, that this condition of things is one unavoidably growing out of the clashing of adverse interests—the Indians being anxious to check, we to extend our dominion and power as a people; and the causes existing now, were in being nearly a century ago, and will, in all probability, continue until all vestige of Indian existence shall have passed utterly away. ”

“ And this was the only alternative, for if an Indian should kill, or even strike a white man, the aggression would be eagerly seized upon and exaggerated; the whole frontier population would rush to war, and the Indians would be hunted from their houses like wild beasts. ”

“ With bravery almost unparalleled in Indian warfare, they sought no covert, but rushed upon their foes in the open field face to face. They knew that the colonists were now drawn into a trap from which there was no possible escape. As soon as the battle commenced, the Indians who were in the rear, on the eastern bank of the narrow stream, sprang up from their ambush, and, crowding the shore, cut off all hope of retreat, and commenced a heavy fire upon their foe. ”

“ The whole history of Indian warfare in America proves, that not only in their ignorance, but in nature, and in reason, it was to be expected. And no less was it to be expected, that they would conduct their wars in their own way. They have done many cruelties, and those cruelties have been made an apology for taking possession of their inheritance. After all that has been said of their savage nature, they are uniformly found a meek, and patient, and long-suffering race. ”