West Indians

“ The Indians of the Far West, of the present day, are not the Indians of former times, whose wigwams once rose where now stand our cities and hamlets, and whose daring in war, when led by a Phil lip, a Pontiac, or a Tecumseh, could only be excelled by their cunning and ferocity. ”

“ With abundance of leisure, and the ever present influences of their genial clime, where the heart's blood leaps more swiftly to the promptings of the imagination and where the female form earliest attains its maturity, the West Indians seem peculiarly adapted for romance and for love. ”

“ These men felt a great deal of sympathy for the wild tribes, so long as their lands were under the control of Indians, who had learned, by experience, how to keep them from the white man. That is:—They had learned how, so far as any dependence was to be put in covenants. But the moment this country is wrested from the New York Indians, all their tender scruples vanish; and they are ready to enter immediately into negotiations, that shall place the same lands in their own power, and compel the former possessors to retire into an unknown wilderness! ”

“ This shocking custom, however, is seldom heard of among the Indians of this neighbourhood; but is said to prevail with the Chipewyan or Northern Indians, who are no sooner burdened with their relations, broken with years and infirmities, and incapable of following the camp, than they leave them to their fate. Instead of repining they are reconciled to this dreadful termination of their existence, from the known custom of their nation, and being conscious that they can no longer endure the various distresses and fatigue of savage life, or assist in hunting for provisions. ”

“ That's true, but I understand the Indians. Those who are my friends are my friends, and those who are my enemies are my enemies. I take it that in the West Indies you never know what change is coming. ”

“ The negotiations then went on quietly and deliberately, the Commissioners giving the Indians all the time they desired. The Indians were apprehensive of their future. They saw the food supply, the buffalo, passing away, and they were anxious and distressed. They knew the large terms granted to their Indians by the United States, but they had confidence in their Great Mother, the Queen, and her benevolence.
They desired to be fed. Small-pox had destroyed them by hundreds a few years before, and they dreaded pestilence and famine. ”

“ The relation of the American people to the Indians, since the first settlement of this country, has been one of conflict, which has been almost incessant in some sections of the land. By the opening of the nineteenth century the red men had been driven back in great measure from the thirteen original states, but the tribes in the west were still frequently hostile, and stood sternly in the way of our progress westward. ”

“ As to the more numerous tribes of Indians, immediately connected with the national government of the United States, and who have larger and more momentous interests at stake, we shall by and by have occasion to notice more particularly their relations and prospects. It may in this place be observed generally, that the original principles asserted and the practice pursued by those European powers, who first laid their claims and their hands upon the American continent, and parcelled it out among themselves, laid the foundation for all the misfortunes of the American Aborigines. ”

“ There is another class of the population in the North-West whose position I desire to bring under the notice of the Privy Council. I refer to the wandering Half-breeds of the plains, who are chiefly of French descent and live the life of the Indians. There are a few who are identified with the Indians, but there is a large class of Metis who live by the hunt of the buffalo, and have no settled homes. ”

“ You think only for yourselves, we have to think of the Indians all over the country, we cannot treat one better than another, it would not be just, we will therefore do this, and what I tell you now is the last. ”

“ Whatever types of Indians with Mongolian characteristics were found settled in South America were to be found to the west of the Andes and not to the east. This does not of course mean that in recent years, when roads and railways and steamships have been established, and communication made comparatively easy, individuals or families may not have been conveyed from one coast to the other of the South American continent. But I wish my reader to keep in mind for a moment a clear distinction between the Indians of the western coast and the Indians of the interior. ”

“ In the West Indies the native Caribs were nearly exterminated by the Spaniards early in their occupation of the islands, their places as labourers being supplied by the importation of negro slaves, and at the present time but few, if any, Indians of pure blood are to be found. Throughout Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies amalgamation of the Indian with both Europeans and negroes has taken place, and a mixed race, consisting of a large percentage of the total population, has resulted. ”

“ We may say even more certainly of the Red Indians, that if they had chosen to learn agriculture from the first European settlers, they would soon have been numerous enough to bar all progress to the West. The Indians of Mexico, of Central America, and of Peru, who had attained to this level were not exterminated, though they were treated for generations with the most atrocious cruelty. At this moment pure or half-caste Indians predominate in all the Spanish colonies that lie to the north of Chili, and their predominance is becoming more marked every year. ”

“ The prospects of living on amicable terms with the numerous and formidable tribes of Indians infesting our frontier borders, in fact, occupying the whole extent of country from the British possessions in the north to Mexico in the south, and from beyond the Rocky mountains on the east to the Pacific ocean on the west, is certainly anything but flattering. ”

“ These Indians are described as well proportioned, swarthy, black-haired, very expert with their bows and arrows, very serviceable and courteous to the English, being of a ready wit and very apt to receive instruction from them, "but there are now but few Indians on the island, being strangely decreased since the English first settled there, for not long ago there were six towns full of them which are now reduced to two villages, the rest being cut off by wars among themselves or some raging mortal diseases." ”

“ The voice of humanity claims this attention to them, under their almost incredible privations at times: but prejudices may exist in the country which prevent this desirable object being carried into effect. There was a time when the Indians themselves had begun to collect into a kind of village towards the mouth of the Red River, had cultivated spots of ground, and had even erected something of a lodge for the purpose of performing some of their unmeaning ceremonies of ignorance and heathenism, and to which the Indians of all the surrounding country were accustomed at certain seasons to repair ”

“ The successes of the Northern tribes over our late unfortunate armies have created great exultation throughout the whole Southern Indians, and the probabilities may be they expect to be equally successful. The Spaniards are making use of all their art to draw over the Southern tribes, and I fear may have stimulated them to commence their hostilities. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They promise and engage that they will, in all respects, obey and abide by the law: that they will maintain peace and good order between each other, and between themselves and other tribes of Indians, and between themselves and others of Her Majesty's subjects, whether Indians, Half-breeds or whites, now inhabiting, or hereafter to inhabit, any part of the said ceded tract ”

“ The Indians have always been and are now childlike and simple, and from their habitual and total desuetude of the commercial arts, are ever open to commercial impositions. It is well known, that they have been accustomed to resign, by solemn compact, the most valuable and most extensive territories, for mere toys—or for the most trifling considerations. ”

“ Irving thinks it marvellous that so many Indians should have survived at the West, considering the stern conditions of their life, their fierce wars with each other, fragments of almost extinct tribes timidly cowering in mountain fastnesses and wasted by the ravages of the small-pox. ”

“ It may be premised further that the Spanish adventurers who thronged to the new world after its discovery found the same race of Red Indians in the West India Islands, in Central and South America, in Florida, and in Mexico. In their mode of life and means of subsistence, in their weapons, arts, usages, and customs, in their institutions, and in their mental and physical characteristics, they were the same people in different stages of advancement. ”

“ With one or two of these tribes the explorers had some difficulty, and owed their safety to their unceasing vigilance, and to the prompt decision with which they gave the Indians to understand that they would tolerate no bad treatment; while yet themselves refraining carefully from committing any wrong. ”

“ In 1853, the government of the United States, which has ever acted paternally toward the Indians, treating with them—Great Britain did the same with the East Indians—as though they were a civilized people, availed itself of the savages’ desire to sell lands encroached upon by the whites, and set apart for a general reservation 181,171 square miles. Here, in the Far West, were collected into what was then believed to be a permanent habitation, the indigenes of the land, and the various bands once lying east of the Mississippi. ”

“ The challenge of the attention of the British community to this subject is especially proper, as they are involved in the same responsibility with the United States, by having an equal number of Indians, more or less, upon their hands, in their North American colonies ”

“ In the West, American traders poured into the land, and, freighted with fire-water, purchased their peltries and their horses, and impoverished the tribes. In the East, white men took possession of the soil and made for themselves homes, and as time went on steamboats were placed on the inland waters--surveyors passed through the territories--and the "speaking wires," as the Indian calls the telegraph, were erected. ”

“ Indians seem to have great pity for the unfortunate few of their tribe who have lost their senses, becoming either insane or foolish. A certain professor belonging to a well-known eastern college had reason to be thankful for this trait not many years ago. He had been gathering plants and insects in one of the desolate regions in the west. He was unarmed, and knew nothing of any Indian language or of the sign language so much used west of the Mississippi. ”

“ Another charge of great magnitude is brought against our friends in the west of "keeping up a constant communication with the Indian tribes on our frontier, with declaring, even from the pulpit, that the Indians are a part of God's chosen people, and are destined, by heaven, to inherit this land, in common with themselves." ”

“ Their war-path has reached the shores of the Pacific Ocean on the west, Hudson's Bay on the north, and into the very heart of Mexico on the south. They are not clannish in their dispositions like most other Indians, nor by their habits confined to any given locality, but are found as traders, trappers, or hunters among most of the Indian tribes inhabiting our continent. I even saw them living with the Mormons in Utah. They are among the Indians as the Jews among the whites, essentially wanderers. ”

“ It at once secures to the Indian tribes tracts of land, which cannot be interfered with, by the rush of immigration, and affords the means of inducing them to establish homes and learn the arts of agriculture. ”

“ The vast territory, which lies outspread north of the great chain of lakes which separate the British provinces from the United States, and far in the west beyond the sources of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers, is inhabited by numerous tribes of Indians. Among these, in the British provinces, are the Chippewas, the Assinniboins, the Snake, Stone, Beaver, Copper, and Hare Indians. These are wandering tribes, who have no history deserving the name; though they are more or less involved, from time to time, in wars with each other. ”

“ They are a race of warriors fighting with bows and arrows. The same Indians also gave us to understand that between west-north-west and north-west, one quarter north, there are many tribes of Indians with such large settlements that it is a day’s journey to pass from one end to the other; and all are rich in white and yellow metal, and wear clothes. They may be reached in a short time, always passing through inhabited country. ”

“ For twelve months subsequent to this dreadful defeat, the frontiers were exposed to more ferocious assaults than before. Numerous instances are related of the boldness of the Indians in attacking the settlers, and also of the bravery of those hardy pioneers of the West in repelling the foe. ”

“ When America was first discovered, it was found to be inhabited by a race of men different from any already known. They were called Indians, from the West Indies, where they were first seen, and which Columbus, according to the common opinion of that age, supposed to be a part of the East Indies. On exploring the coasts and the interior of the vast continent, the same singular people, in different varieties, were everywhere discovered. ”