White settler

“ Doubtless we must credit some advantages and facilities, as well as much trouble and mischief, to the score of these white men — recreants to civilization, outlaws, adventurers, prisoners, and half-breeds, in all their motley and miscellaneous crews — who have made themselves Indians among the distant tribes, in advance of white settlers of a better sort. They have served as go-betweens, as interpreters, as scouts and guides, and have enabled Government agents and military officers to hold some sort of intelligent intercourse with the natives. ”

“ Yes; that’s what the roving and unsettled bands are called by white folks. Those that are on reservations and earning their own living, or a part of it,––for the Government helps them out considerably,––are called town Indians; those that live in wigwams, or tepees, and rove from place to place, subsisting on what they can catch, are blanket Indians. They tell me that there are wild Indians out on the western frontier. But they are not hostile; at least, they were not, at last accounts. The Cheyennes have been rather uneasy, they say, since the white settlers began to pour into the country. ”

“ The influence of a single case of admixture of White blood, thus followed out to its results in the fourth generation, suffices to show how largely those tribes must be affected who dwell for any length of time in close vicinity to White settlers, and in intimate friendly relations with them. The earlier French and English colonists, like the Hudson Bay traders of later times, were mostly young adventurers, without wives, and readily entering into alliance with the native women. ”

“ Most of the Indians are anxious to move to the Indian country south of Kansas, where white settlers cannot interfere with them.
“Intermingled as the Kansas reservations are with the public lands, and surrounded in most cases by white settlers who too often act on the principle that an Indian has no rights that a white man is bound to respect, they are injured and annoyed in many ways. ”

“ It will probably be asked, why not retain and incorporate the blacks into the State, and thus save the expense of supplying by importation of white settlers, the vacancies they will leave? Deep-rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made ”

“ The process of acculturation of the frontier was marked by the impact of the aborigines upon the new white settlers in terms of the developing style of life in the West Branch Valley. In fact, the culture of the Indian may have affected the white settlers more than theirs affected that of the Indian. ”

“ The first European colonization here in patches of the wilderness, and in each successive stage of its advance through our inner belts and borders, was made by men who, save that they had with them a few tools and implements, were in all outward respects very much on a level with the Indians themselves as to conditions, circumstances, and means of life. The Indians first saw civilization in its inchoate, elemental stages. The early white settlers were glad even to help out their wardrobes with the skins which the Indian wore ”

“ Most of them went back to the vicinity of their old homes, and made temporary settlements on unoccupied Government land, as many of their old village sites were now in possession of white settlers. As there was a very large crop of acorns that season, they gathered an abundant supply for winter use, and, with what was given to them in the way of food and clothing by some of the white settlers, they managed to get through the winter fairly well. ”

“ They were not to blame for bein' half-Indian; an' we could not separate them from their mothers, ef we had a-wished. We did the only thing we could do, under the circumstances—married the mothers by White men's laws, to make the children legitimate. Even the heads of the Hudson's Bay Company were forced to comply with the sentiment of the White settlers; an' their descendants are among the first families of Oregon. But they had money an' position; the trappers had neither, though there were some splendid men among them—so our families were looked down upon. O, White Rose! ”

“ How stands the case of the negro, in the non-slave-holding States? Free to go in advance of settlement, into the wilderness of the West, and there to found a colony of their own, exempt from the inferiority they must ever experience while in contact with the white man, they have continued to hang about the towns and cities, and generally to gain their subsistence by menial service to the white race. ”

“ If we seek in a general view of the mode of life and resources of the red men, in some favored localities, to find any radical disadvantage or disablement which put them below all communities of the whites which we call civilized, we can readily convince ourselves of our error by comparing the state of our Indians at the time of the settlement of this continent with that of communities of whites in Europe at the same time. ”

“ A choked gurgle, snarl of rage, as Glaves fastened onto his throat, explained his mistake. "Hell! has no one a match?" His strangled voice issued from a dark whorl, crash of splintering furniture, as they swung and staggered in that pit of gloom. The struggle could have but one ending. Healthy, Glaves would have been no match for Shinn, and, as a match scratched, came the soft thud of his body as he was thrown with brutal force against the wall.
Flaring up, the flame revealed Helen, white, trembling, sick with that paralysis of fear that a mouse must feel in the claws of a cat. ”

“ Further, why do they fill their Plantations with Black People, so unnatural to the Whites, the Proprietors of the different Colonies, when it seems no way difficult to obtain White People to serve free in their stead? ”

“ The men who were engaged in tearing unoffending Africans from their native home were some time learning that this colony was at this time a ready market for their helpless victims. Whatever feeling or scruple, if such ever existed, the colonists had in reference to the subject of dealing in the slave-trade, was destroyed at conception by the golden hopes of large gains. The latitude, the products of the soil, the demand for labor, the custom of the indenture of white servants, were abundant reasons why the Negro should be doomed to bondage for life. ”

“ In the first place, the colonies of the North were settled by people from the lower and middle classes, who had been accustomed to working for themselves and who thus had no use for slaves, while the South was settled largely by adventurers, who had never worked and who looked upon labor as dishonorable. In the second place, the North had a temperate climate in which any man could safely work, while the heat of the South was so intense that a white man endangered his life by working in it, whereas the Negro was protected by facility of acclimation. ”

“ Their numbers have fallen off very fast in the face of the extension of the white settlements, partly on account of the fierce wars that have prevailed between them and the colonists, but more in consequence of the inroads of the vices and maladies which they have contracted from the whites. ”

“ The settlements now in prospect to be made in that large extent of country, from the west side of the Allegany mountains to the Mississippi, on a breadth of four or five hundred miles, would afford a suitable and beneficial means of settlement for many of them among the white people, which would in all probability be as profitable to the negroes as to the new settlers. ”

“ Having reached the conclusion that the right of local tribes to portions of the territory on which the white men found them was the right of actual possession or occupancy for different and unknown terms of time of regions won by conquest and liable at any time to be yielded to a stronger party, another suggestion comes up, which seems to intimate an acknowledgment by the whites of a certain legality in their tenure of the soil by the Indians. ”

“ By our last census we had one hundred and fifty whites, and twelve negroes or mulattoes, to each Indian.
We are experiencing, in our joint interests as a nation and in those of a common civilization, the embarrassments attending this system of reservations. The single States and Territories in whose bounds they lie are subjected by them to all sorts of annoyances, complications, and practical evils. It is found to be utterly impossible to restrict the Indians to them. In some treaties a conditional privilege has been covenanted to the occupants of hunting beyond them ”

“ A year later a big bull-fly thudded at the screen door of Carter's cabin in vain efforts to enter and take toll of Helen's white flesh. By the gentlemen who ordain the calendar, a year is given as a space of time between points that are fixed, immutable as the stars. Sensible folk know better. Years vary—are long or short according to the number, breadth, and depth of the experiences their space covers. This year had marked Helen. She was fuller lipped, rounder, enveloped by the sensuous softness of young wifehood. ”

“ Thus I answered in 1902, in Southside, Virginia. After further travel, I amend: Negroes do not wish to work for white land-owners; they wish to remain in the South or to return to the South, [Pg 400] as land-owners. They are acquiring considerable property. But, generally speaking, they are thinning out. One may journey miles along Southern railroads and see but few in fields where once were thousands. In Northern cities and pleasure resorts negroes increase. The race problem is broadening, changing territory. ”

“ The colonists had learned enough of the Indian tongue for the purposes of trade and barter; they had made the natives feel the power and superiority of the white men, and kept them at a distance as barbarians and pagans, holding them subject to their own laws for theft, polygamy, and murder, and waging dire war against them for acts which the Indians regarded only as a defence of their natural rights; but as yet, and not till a long interval of years had passed, had the white men proposed to make the savages equal sharers in the blessings of their civilization and religion. ”

“ It is more reasonable, therefore, to suppose that the whites, not believing that the savage roamers had a legal and inextinguishable claim to the whole or even any part of the territory, thought they were making a generous settlement of any doubt there might be in the case, by bounding a region here and there, and assuring it to the Indians. The pledges of these reservations use the phrase “for ever.” The tendency of modern thought and speculation is to regard nothing as eternal except eternity itself. ”

“ The fears of the colonists were at length realized. A Negro riot broke out. A house was burned, and a number of white persons killed; and, had it not been for the prompt and efficient aid of the troops, the city of New York would have been reduced to ashes.
Now, what was the condition of the slaves in the Christian colony of New York? They had no family relations: for a long time they lived together by common consent. They had no property, no schools, and, neglected in life, were abandoned to burial in a common ditch after death. They dared not lift their hand to strike a Christian or a Jew. ”

“ Confining ourselves to the territory which became the United States, we may say that the first attempt was made to enslave the Indians, and when this failed to work, white people were imported from Europe as chattel slaves. All through the colonial period this importation continued with its consequent effects on the social and political life of the colonies. Most people will be surprised to learn that the first Fugitive Slave Law was framed, not in the south, but in the north, and was made not for black but for white laborers. ”

“ Though certain small areas of land in these rich territories are held by whites, the bulk of the country is reserved for the exclusive use and benefit of the natives, and it is not at all likely that any more land will be alienated for purposes of settlement by Europeans. ”

“ Southern white newspapers unaccustomed to give the Negroes any mention but that of criminals have said that the Negroes are going North because they have not had a fair chance in the South and that if they are to be retained there, the attitude of the whites toward them must be changed. ”

“ In time the tribes came, through advancing settlements, to be surrounded by a large and increasing white population, many of the whites entering their districts and living there-some as tenant farmers, stock growers and merchants, and others as mere adventurers. The United States then perceived a need for making a larger use of its power. ”

“ The houses, with farms attached, of these people, which we passed in walking through the settlement, were similar to the homes of the industrious civilised American negro. Very little encouragement on mission work could be gained from our colonial friends. Many cases were cited by them to prove that the religious beliefs of the white man do not throw any whiter rays of new light upon the barbaric mind than it already has. ”

“ Foreigners, seeking employment, have gone to the South in large numbers during the last five years, and finding there the typical poor whites, who are the ancient enemies of the Colored people and ever ready to do them harm, have united with them on the color line and raised that old familiar cry that “this is a white man’s country, that white men must and shall rule it; no Negro domination over white men.” ”

“ The enslaving of the negro race in the colonies—and which was largely confined to those called Southern, and almost entirely to them after the ending of the slave trade—placed the white people of the colonies on a higher and broader plane and released them from the daily struggle after the "almighty dollar." ”