Indian wars

“ 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. ”

“ The men who were the strongest advocates of the scheme generally wanted the Indians’ property—the one main cause back of all Indian wars. From the warlike Apaches to the peaceful Nez Perces, all the tribes of the plains were hunted from place to place; then the government resorted to peace negotiations, but always with an army at hand to coerce. Once disarmed and helpless, they were to be taken under military guard to the Indian Territory. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When we fight Indians, they fight too, and their fighting is apt to be, in proportion to their numbers, much more successful than ours. In the Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1868, there is an estimate of the expenditure of some late Indian wars, from which we learn that it has cost the United States Government on an average one million of dollars, and the lives of twenty-five white men to kill an Indian. ”

“ We will have a sort of predatory war for years, every now and then be shocked by the indiscriminate murder of travellers and settlers, but the country is so large, and the advantage of the Indians so great, that we cannot make a single war and end it. From the nature of things we must take chances and clean out Indians as we encounter them." Although it was the tendency of military control to provoke Indian wars, the army was near the truth in its notion that Indians and whites could not live together. ”

“ The assault was made in ground comparatively open—a tract of pine-woods, where the trees grew thin and straggling—so that the Indians had in reality no great advantage either from position or intrenchment. Neither has it been proved that they were greatly superior in numbers to the troops they destroyed—not more than two to one; and this proportion in most Indian wars has been considered by their white antagonists as only “fair odds.” ”

“ The immigrants imposed upon the savages, ill-treated their wives, and were truculent and over-bearing to their men. The Indians stole from the immigrants, and drove off their horses. Then began a season of conflict which, by one tribe and another, yet with many intermissions, lasted almost down to our own day. For the most part, these Indian wars are well within the memory of living men. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To precipitate a conflict by striking the Indians unnecessarily would in the unprotected condition of the settlers have been a crime, while to let the Indians escape to carry on in unbroken force an Indian warfare would have been worse. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Another ground of violent outcry against the Indians is their barbarity to the vanquished. This had its origin partly in policy and partly in superstition. The tribes, though sometimes called nations, were never so formidable in their numbers but that the loss of several warriors was sensibly felt; this was particularly the case when they had been frequently engaged in warfare; and many an instance occurs in Indian history where a tribe that had long been formidable to its neighbors has been broken up and driven away by the capture and massacre of its principal fighting-men. ”

“ About three hundred Indians were slain or drowned in the awful tumult of these midnight hours. Several of the most conspicuous of the Indian chiefs were killed. Only one white man lost his life. In the midst of the confusion the wigwams of the Indians were set on fire, and the black night was illumined by the lurid conflagration. The flashing flames, the dark billows of smoke, the rattle of musketry, the shouts of the assailants, the shrieks of women and children, and the yells of the savage warriors, presented a picture of earthly woe which neither the pen nor the pencil can portray. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Western Indians have no hummocks or everglades to fight among, but they have their boundless prairies to weary an army in, and the fastnesses of the Rocky Mountains to retreat to. Should a majority of those powerful nations coalesce in defence against one common enemy, it would be the worst Indian war—the most costly in blood and treasure that the national government has ever entered into. The coalition tribes could bring two hundred and fifty thousand warriors against any hostile force, and I know I am greatly within the limits of truth in assigning that number to them. ”

“ It is upon men thus exposed, without hope of escape or chance of resistance, that the first wrath of a general Indian war would break. No note of recall would avert their doom. Long before friendly runners could reach them, the war-whoop would be in their ears; and alone, unfriended, undefended, unaided, they would perish, as hundreds and thousands of our countrymen have perished, at the hands of the infuriated savages. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Advanced in the arts, dwelling in cities, and living under a well-organized government, they were happy in their position and circumstances.
Who were the barbarians of the early history of America, our Mayflower ancestors, or the Red Men of the forest?
With a careful study of the early records, the question answers itself.
Four hundred years ago Indian warfare began. Shall it continue until we exterminate the race? When it is, alas, too late, the American people will awaken to the fact that the preservation of the Indian race will be a theme that will stir the very heart of the Nation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But I desire to point out that by far the larger part of our Indian troubles have sprung from the greedy encroachments of white men upon Indian lands, and that, hostilities being brought about in this manner, in which the Indians uniformly succumbed, old treaties and arrangements were overthrown to be supplanted by new ones of a similar character which eventually led to the same results. ”

“ Therefore most of the Indians took sides with the French; and therefore most of the scalps lifted were British scalps. The question of the barbarity of Indian warfare remains. The Indians were in fact living the same sort of barbarous life that the ancestors of the French and British had lived two or three thousand years earlier. So the Indians did, of course, just what the French and the British would have done at a corresponding age. Peoples take centuries to grow into civilized nations ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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 ”