The Indian Question Part 2

Unfortunately, the same wise provision for the future has not been made in the case of other Indians who have ceded or surrendered to the government the main body of their lands. There is a painfully long list of tribes that have to show for their inheritance only a guaranty on the part of the United States of certain expenditures, more or less beneficial, for a series of years longer or shorter, as the case may be.

The Report on Indian Affairs for 1872 (pp. 418-430) states the aggregate of future appropriations that will be required during a limited number of years to pay limited annuities at $15,819,310.46. The annuities covered by this computation have from one to twenty-seven years to run (the average term being about seven years), and embrace almost every variety of goods and services which human ingenuity could suggest. Many of the things stipulated to be given to the Indians, or to be done for them, are admirable in themselves, but far in advance of the present requirements of the tribes; and the expenditures involved are therefore perfectly useless. Other things would be well enough if the Indians could have every thing they wanted, but are absurd and mischievous as taking the place of what is absolutely essential to their well-being.

Of other things embraced in the schedule of annual appropriations, it can only be said that the Indians need them no more than a toad needs a pocket-book. For such waste of Indian moneys the responsibility rests in many cases upon the commissioners, who, on the part of the United States, negotiated the treaties under which these appropriations are annually made. Had they been half as solicitous for the future of the Indians as they were for the attainment of the immediate object of negotiation, the government would have been left free to apply the amounts, to be paid in consideration for cessions, in such manner as to make them of substantial benefit; or, better still, the amounts would have been capitalized, and a permanent income secured. As it is, many tribes now see approaching the termination of annuities which have for many years been paid them with the very minimum of advantage, and have no prospect beyond but that of being thrown, uninstructed and unprovided, upon their own barbarous resources.

Let us ill.u.s.trate. A tribe makes a treaty with the United States, ceding the great body of their lands, and accepting a diminished reservation sufficient for their actual occupation. In consideration, it is provided that there shall be maintained upon the reservation, for the term of fifteen years, at the expense of the United States, a superintendent of teaching and two teachers, a superintendent of farming and two farmers, two millers, two blacksmiths, a tinsmith, a gunsmith, a carpenter, and a wagon and plough maker, with shops and material for all these mechanical services. This "little bill" is presumably made up without much reference to the peculiarities in character and condition of the tribe to be benefited by the expenditures involved. As soon as the treaty goes into effect, the United States in good faith fulfil their part of the bargain. The shops are built, the employees enlisted; and the government, through its agent, stands ready to civilize the Indians to almost any extent. But, unfortunately, the Indians are not ready to be civilized. The glow of industrial enthusiasm, which was created by the metaphorical eloquence of the commissioners in council dies away under the first experiment of hard work: an hour at the plough nearly breaks the back of the wild man wholly unused to labor: his pony, a little wilder still, jumps now on one side of the furrow and now on the other, and finally settles the question by kicking itself free of the galling harness, and disappears for the day. The Indian, a sadder and wiser man, betakes himself to the chase, and thereafter only visits the shops, maintained at so much expense by the government, to have his gun repaired, or to get a strap or buckle for his riding-gear. But still the treaty expenditures go on: the United States are every year loyally furnishing what has been stipulated; and the Indian is every year one instalment nearer the termination of all his claims upon the government.

Meanwhile, population is closing around the reservation: the animals of the chase are disappearing before the presence of the white man, and the sound of the pioneer's axe: scantier and scantier grow the natural means of subsistence, fainter and fainter the attractions of the chase; and when at last hunger drives the Indian in to the agency, made ready by suffering to learn the white man's ways of life, the provisions of the treaty are well-nigh expired. One, three, or five years pa.s.s. All the instalments have been honorably paid: the appropriation committees of Congress, with sighs of relief, cross off the name of the tribe from the list of beneficiaries; and another body of Indians, uninstructed and unprovided, are left to shift for themselves.

The importance of the subject will justify us in dwelling so long upon it. Of the expenditures made within the last twenty years under treaty stipulations, probably not one-half has been directed to uses which the government would have chosen, had it been free to choose. It is most melancholy thus to see the scanty patrimony of this people squandered on worthless objects, or dissipated in efforts necessarily fruitless. The action of Congress at its last session, in authorizing the diversion of sums appropriated under treaty stipulations to other specific uses, at the discretion of the President and with the consent of the Indians, is a step in the right direction. But the time has come for a complete and comprehensive fiscal scheme, looking to the realization from Indian lands of the largest possible avails, and their capitalization and investment upon terms and conditions which will secure the future of the several tribes, so far as human wisdom may be able to feet this.

In addition to the lands held by the eighty thousand Indians who have already been spoken of as amply endowed, there are one hundred thousand square miles of territory yet secured by treaty to Indian tribes aggregating one hundred thousand persons. Besides these, forty thousand Indians enjoy, by executive order, the occupation of other sixty thousand square miles of territory, which, or the substantial equivalent of which, should be secured to them by law for their ultimate endowment.

It is to these lands that such a fiscal scheme as has been indicated should be applied. The reservations a.s.signed to tribes and bands are generally proportioned to the needs of the Indians in a roving state, with hunting and fishing as their chief means of subsistence. As the Indians change to agriculture, the effect is to contract the limits of actual occupation, rendering portions available for cession or sale, which with proper management may be so disposed of, without impairing the integrity of the reservation system, as to realize for nearly every tribe and band a fund equal, _per capita_, to that of many of the civilized tribes of the Indian Territory. But this cannot be done by helter-skelter or haphazard administration. The subject must be taken up as a whole, broadly considered, and intelligently treated, and the scheme which shall be adopted thereafter be regarded as not less sacred than the compromises of the Const.i.tution, or than existing treaty obligations.

For the tribes and bands having no reservations secured to them, separate provision should be made. These number about fifty thousand persons, deduction being made of such as already have their lands in severalty, or as are hopelessly scattered among the settlements. Many of these tribes and bands might, with the a.s.sistance of the government, advantageously "buy themselves in" to the privileges of tribes already provided for, without involving any further donation of lands.

Where it is found impracticable thus to place the unprovided bands, the government should secure their location and endowment separately. Their right is no less clear than the right of other tribes which had the fortune to deal with the United States before Congress put an end to the treaty system. We have received the soil from them; and we have extinguished their only means of subsistence. Either consideration would be sufficient to require us, in simple justice, to find them a place and ways to live.

The foregoing const.i.tute what we regard as the essential features of an Indian policy which shall seek positively and actively the reformation of life and manners among the Indians under the control of the government, as opposed to the policy of hastening the time when all these tribes shall be resolved into the body of our citizenship, without seclusion and without restraint, letting such as will, go to the dogs, letting such as can, find a place for themselves in the social and industrial order, the responsibility of the government or our people for the choice of either or the fate of either being boldly denied; suffering, meanwhile, without precaution and without fear, such debas.e.m.e.nt in blood and manners to be wrought upon the general population of the country as shall be incident to the absorption of this race, relying upon the inherent vigor of our stock to a.s.similate much and rid itself of more, until, in the course of a few human generations, the native Indians, as a pure race or a distinct people, shall have disappeared from the continent.

The reasons for maintaining that nothing less than a system of moral and industrial education and correction can discharge the government of its obligations to the Indians, or save the white population from an intolerable burden of pauperism, profligacy, and petty crime, have been presented sufficiently at length in this paper. The details of management and instruction need not be here discussed: most of them are within the administrative discretion of the department charged with Indian affairs; and, where power is wanting to the department, the good feeling of Congress may be safely trusted to give the necessary authority. But the points which have been presented are of vital consequence, and must, if the evils we apprehend are to be prevented, at an early date be embodied in legislation which shall provide means and penalties ample for its own enforcement.

Are the Indians destined to die out? Are we to make such provision as has been indicated, or such other as the wisdom or unwisdom of the country shall determine, for a vanishing race? Or are the original inhabitants of the continent to be represented in the variously and curiously composed population which a century hence will const.i.tute the political body of the United States? If this is to be in any appreciable degree one of the elements of our future population, will it be by mixture and incorporation? Or will the Indian remain a distinct type in our museum of humanity, submitting himself to the necessities of a new condition, adapting himself, as he may be able to do, to the laws and customs of his conquerors, but preserving his own ident.i.ty, and making his separate contribution to the life and manners of the nation?

The answers to these questions will depend very much on the course to be followed in the immediate future with respect to the tribes not yet embraced within the limits of States of the Union. If, for the want of a definite and positive policy of instruction and restraint, they are left to scatter under the pressure of hunger, the intrusion of squatters and prospectors, or the seductions of the settlements, there is little doubt that the number of Indians of full blood will rapidly diminish, and the race, as a pure race, soon become extinct. But nothing could be more disastrous than this method of ridding the country of an undesirable element. Not only would it be more cruel to the natives than a war of extermination; but it would entail in the course of its accomplishment a burden of vice, disease, pauperism, and crime upon a score of new States, more intolerable than perpetual alarms or unintermitted war.

But if, on the other hand, the policy of seclusion shall be definitely established by law and rigidly maintained, the Indians will meet their fate, whatever it may be, substantially as a whole and as a pure race.

White men will still be found, so low in natural instincts, or so alienated by misfortunes and wrongs, as to be willing to abandon civilization, and hide themselves in a condition of life where no artificial wants are known, and in communities where public sentiment makes no demand upon any member for aught in the way of achievement or self-advancement. Here such men, even now to be found among the more remote and hostile tribes, will, unless the savage customs of adoption are severely discountenanced by law, find their revenge upon humanity, or escape the tyranny of social observance and requirement. Half-breeds, bearing the names of French, English, and American employees of fur and trading companies, or of refugees from criminal justice "in the settlements," are to be found in almost every tribe and band, however distant. Many of them, grown to man's estate, are among the most daring, adventurous, and influential members of the warlike tribes, seldom wholly free from suspicion on account of their relation on one side to the whites, yet, by the versatility of their talents and the recklessness of their courage, commanding the respect and the fear of the purebloods, and, however incapable of leading the savages in better courses, powerful in a high degree for mischief.

The white men, who, under the reservation system, are likely to become affiliated with Indian tribes as "squaw men," are, however, probably fewer than the Indian women who will be enticed away from their tribes to become the cooks and concubines of ranchmen. One is surprised even now, while travelling in the Territories, to note the number of cabins around which, in no small families, half-breed children are playing.

However moralists or sentimentalists may look upon connections thus formed by men who are in effect beyond the pale of society and of law, they const.i.tute already a distinct feature of border life; nor is any statute likely to prevent Indian women occasionally thus straying from their own people, or to compel their return so long as they are under the protection of white men.

But, while the seclusion of the two races upon the frontier is certain to be thus broken in instances which will form no inconsiderable exception to the rule, the substantial purity of blood may be maintained by an early adjustment of reservations, the concentration of tribes, and the exercise of disciplinary control by their agents over the movements of wandering parties. Whether, in such an event, the Indians, thus left to meet their fate by themselves, with reasonable provision by the government for their instruction in the arts of life and industry, will waste away in strength and numbers, is a question quite too large to be entered upon here. Popular beliefs and scientific opinion undoubtedly contemplate the gradual if not the speedy decline of Indian tribes when deprived of their traditional freedom of movement, pent up within limits comparatively narrow, and compelled to uncongenial occupations. But there is grave reason to doubt whether these causes are certain to operate in any such degree as to involve the practical extinction of the race within that immediate future on which we are accustomed to speculate, and for which we feel bound to make provision. On the contrary, there are many considerations and not a few facts which fairly intimate a possibility that the Indian may bear restriction as well as the negro has borne emanc.i.p.ation; and, like the negro, after a certain inevitable loss consequent upon a change so great and violent, adapt himself with increased vitality to new conditions. It is true that the transition, compulsory as to a great degree it must be, from a wholly barbarous condition of life, which remains to be effected for the eighty to one hundred thousand Indians still outside the practical scope of the Indian service, is likely to further reduce, for some years to come, the aggregate number of this race; but it is not improbable that this will be coincident with a steady increase among the tribes known as civilized.

In the foregoing discussion of the policy to be pursued in dealing with the Indians of the United States, there has been no disposition to mince matters, or to pick expressions. The facts and considerations deemed essential have been presented bluntly. Some who cannot bear to hear Indians spoken of as savages, or to contemplate the chastis.e.m.e.nt of marauding bands, may blame our frankness. But we hold fine sentiments to be out of place in respect to a matter like this, which in the present is one of life and death to thousands of our own flesh and blood, and in the future one of incalculable importance to a score of States yet to be formed out of the territory over which the wild tribes of to-day are roaming in fancied independence. The country has a right to the whole naked truth,--to learn what security our fellow-citizens have for their lives, and also to learn what becomes of the seven millions of dollars annually collected in taxes and disbursed on Indian account.

If the case has been fairly presented, it will doubtless appear to our readers, that, so far as the hostile and semi-hostile Indians are concerned, the government is merely temporizing with a gigantic evil, pocketing its dignity from considerations of humanity and economy, and awaiting the operation of causes both sure and swift, which must within a few years reduce the evil to dimensions in which it can be dealt with on principles more agreeable to the ideas and ways of our people.

For the rest, it will be seen that the United States have, without much order or comprehension, but with a vast amount of good-will, undertaken enterprises involving considerable annual expenditures for the advancement of individual tribes and bands, but that the true permanent scheme for the management and instruction of the whole body of Indians within the control of the government is yet to be created. Let it not for a moment be pretended that the prospect is an agreeable one.

Congress and the country might well wish to be well rid of the matter.

No subject of legislation could be more perplexing and irritating; nor can the outlay involved fail for many years to be a serious burden upon our industry. But the nation cannot escape its responsibility for the future of this race, soon to be thrown in entire helplessness upon our protection. Honor and interest urge the same imperative claim. An unfaithful treatment will only make the evil worse, the burden heavier.

In good faith and good feeling we must take up this work of Indian civilization, and, at whatever cost, do our whole duty by this most unhappy people. Better that we should entail a debt upon our posterity on Indian account, were that necessary, than that we should leave them an inheritance of shame. We may have no fear that the dying curse of the red man, outcast and homeless by our fault, will bring barrenness upon the soil that once was his, or dry the streams of the beautiful land that, through so much of evil and of good, has become our patrimony; but surely we shall be clearer in our lives, and freer to meet the glances of our sons and grandsons, if in our generation we do justice and show mercy to a race which has been impoverished that we might be made rich.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] From "The North American Review," April, 1873.

[B] The writer does not intend to say that the citizens of the border States are always just or reasonable in their disposition towards the Indians. It cannot be denied, that, in the exasperation of conflict, they often commit atrocities rivalling those of the savages; that, moreover, under the smart of wrong, they are very often indiscriminating in their revenge, and do cruel injustice to peaceful bands; and that, with the recklessness characteristic of border talk, they indulge to a vast extent in denunciations of horrible sound. To this is added, that in such communities are found more than the usual number of persons of a natural malignity of disposition, often refugees from criminal justice, who delight in committing outrages upon the exposed and helpless members of an inferior race. The opinion which the writer has given above is entirely consistent with the present admissions. The animosities felt and expressed are not towards the Indians as Indians, but arise out of the sense of injuries suffered, and the apprehension of further suffering. Were the Indians once rendered, by the extension and strengthening of our settlements, powerless for harm, the easy tolerance, the rough good-nature, and the quick condonement of wrong, which characterize pioneer communities, would speedily reconcile the whites to their presence, and establish relations not wholly unworthy of both parties.

[C] The relations of the Arickarees--or, as they are commonly called, even in official reports, the 'Rees--to the government, form one of the most instructive chapters of Indian history. In 1838 the agent for the Upper Missouri Indian agency, in his annual report to the Department of Indian Affairs, used the following language in respect to this tribe:--

"The Riccaras have long been notorious for their treachery and barbarity, and, within my own recollection, have murdered and pillaged more of our citizens than all the other tribes between the western borders of Missouri and the heads of the Columbia River."--_Report on Indian Affairs_, 1838-9, p. 65.

This is language which one might expect from the agent of some exceptionally troublesome band of Sioux. But, to the contrary, in another portion of his report (_Ib._ p. 64) the same agent says, "No Indians ever manifested a greater degree of friendship for the whites in general, or more respect for our government, than the Sioux." This report was made thirty-four years ago, the limit of one human generation. To-day the Sioux are among the most dangerous and troublesome Indians on the hands of the government, while the Arickarees are our fast friends and allies. Lieut.-Gen. Sheridan, in 1871, writing of these Indians, now located at Fort Berthold, says, "They have always been civil and well disposed, and have been repaid by the government with neglect and starvation. Of all Indians in the country, they were the best ent.i.tled to be looked after, and made happy and contented."

Something, clearly, has made this difference; and an inquirer would doubtless find here an explanation of no small part of the difficulties which the United-States Government has experienced in dealing with the Indian tribes.

[D] To take one of the most recent examples: Col. Baker's attack upon a Piegan camp in 1869, even though it should be held to be justified on the ground of necessity, must be admitted to be utterly revolting in its conception and execution. Yet no merited chastis.e.m.e.nt ever wrought more instant and durable effects for good. The Piegans, who had been even more wild and intractable than the Sioux, have since that affair been orderly and peaceable. No complaints whatever are made of their conduct; and they are apparently as good Indians as can be found among the wholly uncivilized tribes.

[E] The Report on Indian Affairs for 1872 shows that, in addition to physicians, clerks, cooks, herders, teamsters, laborers, and interpreters, there are employed at all the agencies eighty-two teachers, eighty farmers, seventy-three blacksmiths, seventy-two carpenters, twenty-two millwrights and millers, seventeen engineers, eleven matrons of manual-labor schools, and three seamstresses.--_Report_, pp. 68-71.

[F] We are speaking of the tribe socially, not politically. Factions and faction wars are known to the Indian as well as to his betters.

[G] Report on Indian Affairs, 1872, p. 84.

[H] The popular and doubtless the correct use of the word "Iroquois"

confines it to the Five Nations (subsequently the Six Nations) of New York, which during the third quarter of the seventeenth century destroyed or dispersed successively the Hurons or Wyandots, the nation called (for the want of a more characteristic name) the Neutral Nation, the Andastes of the Susquehanna, and the Eries. These four large and important peoples were closely kindred to the Five Nations; and the term "Iroquois" was long applied to this entire family of tribes. Later in the history of the continent, it embraced only the Five (or Six) Nations for the best of good reasons, as this formidable confederacy had practically annihilated all the other branches of the family. The career of the Iroquois was simply terrific. Between 1649 and 1672 they had, as stated, accomplished the ruin of the four tribes of their own blood, containing in the aggregate a population far more numerous than their own. A feeble remnant, a few score in number, of the Wyandots, now survive, and are represented at Washington by an exceptionally shabby white man, who has received the doubtful honor of adoption into the tribe. These are all the recognizable remains of a nation once estimated to contain thirty thousand. The names of the Eries, the Andastes, and the Neutral Nation do not appear in any treaty with the United States.

Many, doubtless, from all these tribes fled to Canada. Considerable numbers were also, according to the custom of the Five Nations, adopted by the conquerors to make good the waste of war.

Nor did the Iroquois wait to complete the subjugation of their own kindred, before turning their arms against their Algonquin neighbors.

The Delawares (Lenni Lenape, or Original Men) were subjugated almost coincidently with the Hurons; and the same year which brought the downfall of the Andastes witnessed the expulsion of the Shawnees from the valley of the Ohio. Re-enforced in 1712 by the Tuscaroras, a warlike tribe from the South, the Five Nations (now become the Six Nations) carried their conquests east and west, north and south. The tribes confronting the invaders in New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia were continually disturbed and distracted by their incursions.

Taking the part of the English in the wars against the French, they shook all Canada with the fear of their arms, while to the west they extended their sway to the Straits of Michilimackinac and the entrance to Lake Superior. The height of their fame was at the close of the Old French War in 1763. Their decline and downfall, as a power upon the continent, followed with the briefest interval. Reduced by incessant fighting to seventeen hundred warriors, they took the part of England against the Colonies in 1775. The glorious and the terrible incidents of the Indian campaigns of the Revolution are familiar as household words.

The peace of 1783 found the Iroquois broken, humbled, homeless, helpless, before the power of the United States, whose pensioners they then became and have since remained. The bulk of these tribes still reside in New York, while fragments of them are found in the extreme West, having removed under the treaty of 1838.

Such, in brief, is the history of the Iroquois. They were the scourge of G.o.d upon the aborigines of the continent, and were themselves used up, stock, lash, and snapper, in the tremendous flagellation which was administered through them to almost every branch, in turn, of the great Algonquin family. It will not do to say, that, but for the Iroquois, the settlement of the country by the whites would not have taken place; yet a.s.suredly that settlement would have been longer delayed, and have been finally accomplished with far greater expense of blood and treasure, had not the Six Nations, not knowing what they did, gone before in savage blindness and fury, destroying or driving out tribe after tribe which with them might, for more than one generation at least, have stayed the western course of European invasion.

[I] The impudent character of these invasions will be best shown by a recital of the facts in two cases occurring within the year. In 1870-71 the Osages living in Kansas sold their lands under authority of the government, and accepted a reservation, in lieu thereof, in the Indian Territory. Scarcely had they turned their faces towards their new home when a sort of race began between them and some hundreds of whites, which may be described, in the language of boys, as having for its object "to see which should get there first." In October, 1871, the agent reported that five hundred whites were on the Osage lands, and actually in possession of the Osage village, while the rightful owners were encamped outside. Orders having been issued from the War Department for the removal of these intruders, political pressure was brought to bear upon the executive to prevent the orders from being carried into effect. This effort failing, delay was asked, in view of the hardships to be antic.i.p.ated from a removal so near winter. This indulgence having been granted, the number of the trespa.s.sers continued to increase through the winter, in spite of the notice publicly given of the intentions of the government: so that in the spring of 1872 the military authorities found fifteen hundred persons on the Osage lands in defiance of law. On this occasion, however, the land-robbers had failed in their calculations. The government was in earnest; and the squatters were extruded by the troops of the Department of the Missouri.

The other instance referred to is that of an expedition projected and partially organized in Dakota, in 1872, for the purpose of penetrating the Black Hills, for mining and lumbering. Public meetings at which Federal officials attended were held, to create the necessary amount of public enthusiasm; and an invasion of Indian territory was imminent, which would, beyond peradventure, have resulted in a general Sioux war.

In this case the emergency was such that the executive acted with great promptness. A proclamation was issued warning evil-disposed persons of the determination of the government to prevent the outrage; and troops were put in position to deal effectively with the marauders. This proved sufficient; and the Black Hills expedition was abandoned.

[J] Report on Indian Affairs, 1872, p. 440.

INDIAN CITIZENSHIP.[K]

The proper treatment of the Indian question requires that we deal with the issues arising out of the peculiar relations of the aboriginal tribes of the continent to the now dominant race, in much the same spirit--profoundly philanthropic at bottom, but practical, sceptical, and severe in the discussion of methods and in the maintenance of administrative discipline--with which all Christian nations, and especially the English-speaking, nations, have learned to meet the kindred difficulties of pauperism. It is in no small degree the lack of such a spirit in the conduct of Indian affairs, which has rendered the efforts and expenditures of our government for the advancement of the race so ineffectual in the past; and for this the blame attaches mainly to the want of correct information and of settled convictions respecting this subject, among our people at large. So long as the country fluctuates in an alternation of sentimental and brutal impulses, according as the wrongs done to the Indian or the wrongs done by him are at the moment more distinctly in mind, it cannot be wondered at that Congress should be reluctant to undertake the re-organization of the Indian service on any large and lasting plan, or that the Indian Office should hesitate to cut out for itself more work than it can look to make up in the interval between sessions.

What, to take a recent and memorable instance, would have been the fate of any scheme of Indian legislation which was at its parliamentary crisis when the murder of Gen. Canby occurred? The work of years might well have been undone under the popular excitement attendant upon that atrocious deed. Yet it would be quite as rational to denounce the established systems for the care and control of the insane, and to turn all the inmates of our asylums loose upon the community because one maniac had in an access of frenzy murdered his keeper, as it would have been to abandon the established Indian policy of the government, the only fault of which is that it is incomplete, on account of any thing that Capt. Jack and his companions might do in their furious despair.

The more atrocious their deed, the more conspicuous the justification of the system of care and control from which this one small band of desperadoes had for the moment broken free to work such horrid mischief.

Yet there is much reason to believe, that, had the Indian service at that time depended, as every service must once a year come to depend, on the votes of Congressmen, it would have failed, temporarily at least, for the want of them. Nor is it only acts of exceptional ferocity on the part of marauding bands, which have sufficed to check all the gracious impulses of the national compa.s.sion. The reasons which have existed in the public mind in favor of the Indian policy of the government have not always been found of a sufficiently robust and practical nature to withstand the weariness of sustained effort, and the inevitable disappointments of sanguine expectation; and thus the service has at times suffered from the general indifference scarcely less than from the sharpest revulsions of public feeling.

Much has been said within the past three years, of the Indian policy of the administration; and, if by this is meant that the policy of the government in dealing with the Indians has become more and more one of administration, and less and less one of law, the phrase, with the exception of an article too many, is well enough. As matter of fact, the sole Indian policy of the United States deserving the name was adopted early in the century; and it is only of late years that it has been seriously undermined by the current of events; while it is within the duration of the present administration that the blow has been struck by legislation, at the already tottering structure, which has brought it nearly to its fall.

To throw upon a dozen religious and benevolent societies the responsibility of advising the executive in the appointment of the agents of the Indian service is not a policy. To buy off a few bands, more insolent than the rest, by a wholesale issue of subsistence and the lavish bestowal of presents, without reference to the disposition of the savages to labor for their own support, and even without reference to the good or ill desert of individuals,--this, though doubtless expedient in the critical situation of our frontier population, is the merest expediency, not in any sense a policy. Yet the two features specified have been the only ones that have been added to the scheme of Indian control during the continuance of the present administration; while, on the other side, an irreparable breach has been effected in that scheme by the action of powerful social forces, as well as by the direct legislative contravention of its most vital principle.