{"id":1327,"date":"2023-01-03T11:47:44","date_gmt":"2023-01-03T17:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aigenom.org\/?post_type=document&p=1327"},"modified":"2023-01-03T11:58:21","modified_gmt":"2023-01-03T17:58:21","slug":"harpers-weekly-saturday-march-19-1870-our-indian-policy-of-extermination","status":"publish","type":"document","link":"https:\/\/aigenom.org\/document\/harpers-weekly-saturday-march-19-1870-our-indian-policy-of-extermination\/","title":{"rendered":"\u200b\u200bHARPER\u2019S WEEKLY Saturday, March 19, 1870 OUR INDIAN POLICY OF EXTERMINATION"},"content":{"rendered":"
On the 24th of May, 1637, before dawn, Captains Mason and Underhill prayed, broke camp, and
\nsurprised a Pequot fort upon the Mystic River in Connecticut. \u00a0Within an hour it was burned to the ground,
\nand of the four hundred Indians not more than five escaped. \u00a0This fearful blow, says the historian, secured
\ncivilization in New England. \u00a0William Penn secured it differently in Pennsylvania . \u00a0But without refining too
\nclosely upon the necessities of war in the earliest colonial times, is it not evident that what may have been
\nnecessary for a band of settlers in a strange and savage country three thousand miles from their own land
\nis hardly justifiable two hundred and fifty years later in a civilized nation of forty millions of people dealing
\nwith some thousands of skulking savages?
\nYet the recent destruction of the Piegan Indians by United States troops was in pursuance of that policy
\nof Indian warfare which has undoubtedly the general approval. \u00a0We mean that it is the common opinion
\nthat the Indians are a treacherous, \u00a0cruel, \u00a0remorseless race, wretched human vermin, who observe no
\nrules of honorable war, and who will ravage and murder the innocent and helpless wherever and
\nwhenever they can, \u00a0\u00a0and that nothing but striking them \u201cwhere it hurts,\u201d \u00a0as General SHERIDAN says, will
\ntend to protect our women and children from their ferocity. \u00a0Last year when we had spoken deprecatingly
\nof some government severities toward the Indians, \u00a0we received an indignant protest from the frontier,
\nassuring us that the most ingenious tortures that could be devised for their punishment were mild in
\ncomparison with the horrors they inflicted. \u00a0And recently we knew of the wife of a Territorial judge in an
\nIndian region, \u00a0who, \u00a0starting with her husband upon a journey, mad him promise to shoot her if they were
\ntaken by the Indians. \u00a0\u201cAnd I would have done it,\u201d \u00a0said the judge, quietly.
\nIt is not surprising that under such circumstances the popular Indian policy of the frontier should be
\nextermination. \u00a0And, \u00a0undoubtedly, \u00a0the feeling which led to the destruction of the Piegans was, \u00a0at bottom,
\nprecisely the same as that which burned the Pequot fort upon the Mystic. \u00a0Nevertheless, \u00a0the policy of
\nextermination is inhuman and unworthy of the United States; \u00a0and it is enormously expensive. \u00a0It costs the
\nGovernment, says Mr. Phillips, \u00a0about a million of dollars to kill a single Indian. \u00a0Moreover, what must be
\nthe moral effect upon an army and its officers of such a system of warfare? \u00a0In the Middle Age chronicles
\nwe read that captured cities were given up to the license of the soldiery for several days. \u00a0And one such
\nlittle sentence appalls the imagination quite as much as the most harrowing stories of Indian enormities.
\nNo exposed family upon the frontier need suppose that we are indifferent to its situation, nor to the
\nquestion of \u00a0its most vigorous and successful \u00a0defense. \u00a0The very point to determine is how it can be best
\ndefended. \u00a0General PARKER, \u00a0the Indian agent or superintendent, himself of Indian descent, does not
\napprove the policy of extermination. \u00a0President GRANT does not approve it. \u00a0The country, which gives but
\na languid attention to the subject, and is willing to believe any crime of savages, \u00a0must yet observe that the
\nIndian question is by no means settled by the present policy; \u00a0the exposed families are not defended;
\nand, \u00a0if it inquires, it will discover that in Canada Indian wars are unknown, \u00a0and that the Indian policy of
\nthat country is radically different from ours. \u00a0One of the most valuable and interesting documents laid
\nbefore Congress during its present session is the Report upon the Management of the Indians in British
\nNorth America by the British Government, by Mr. F. N. BLAKE, \u00a0United States Consul at Hamilton,
\nOntario. \u00a0According to the census of 1868 there were more than 20,000 Indians in the Dominion of
\nCanada, and the effort of the Government is directed to their incorporation with the rest of the inhabitants
\nas citizens. \u00a0The British policy aims to place the Indians under the protection of the law of the land. \u00a0Our
\nplan is to keep them aliens, \u00a0and to make treaties with them as foreign people living upon our own
\ndomain. \u00a0The result in the first case is unbroken peace; \u00a0in the second, \u00a0endless war.
\nThe British act of 1869 for the management of Indian affairs recognizes, \u00a0indeed, \u00a0to a certain degree,
\nthe existence and the authority of tribes, \u00a0and provides a Superintendent-General of Indian affairs. \u00a0The
\nchiefs are elected under his supervision, \u00a0and certain local duties are laid upon them. \u00a0But the culmination
\nof the system is that, \u00a0on the report of the Superintendent, \u00a0the Governor-General in council may issue
\nletters of enfranchisement to any Indian by which he may acquire the fee of land, \u00a0and all legal distinctions
\nbetween him and other subjects cease. \u00a0But Mr. BLAKE is of \u00a0opinion that the better plan for the Indian is
\nnot in this manner to separate the best men from the communities, \u00a0but to divide the land question from
\nenfranchisement , \u00a0and to give ordinary political rights to the most thrifty and intelligent without tempting
\nthem to desert their communities. \u00a0Mr. BLAKE adds, \u00a0that careful study of the subject brings him to the
\nconclusion of the Canadian Commissioners in 1858, \u00a0that, \u00a0although there can be no sudden
\ntransformation, the Indian is capable of civilization; \u00a0and he concludes his report with these significant
\nwords: \u00a0\u201cWhatever \u00a0may be the ultimate result, \u00a0those who have aided in this honorable effort may safely
\nbe assured that their country will be known in history as having striven to do justice to the aborigines
\nwhom the white man found in possession of it; \u00a0and that they have so far founded their empire or dominion
\nupon the principles of humanity and true civilization.\u201d
\nThat is more than the United States have done, \u00a0and if we are not very careful our Indian policy will stain
\nour name as indelibly as its Irish policy has disgraced England hitherto. \u00a0The statesman who regards
\nhumanity as sentimentality is not capable of dealing with the Indian question; \u00a0and a policy of extermination
\nis a policy of crime. \u00a0The savages of the plains–the Sioux, \u00a0the Comanches–may be a very different
\npeople from the Canadian Indians. \u00a0But it is enough that our policy toward them hitherto has totally failed.
\nAnd if not for the Indians, then for ourselves, \u00a0let us ascertain who is to blame in these endless quarrels,
\nand whether the force of the army should not rather be directed against our own people, whose endless
\ncheating and lawlessness rouse their victims to revenge.<\/div>\n
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