CHAPTER XII.

THE INDIAN TRIBES, THEIR POLITICAL RELATIONS, &c.

Before we introduce the particular business, intrusted to the Commission, sent to Green Bay, in 1830; and in whose company I happened to be, in their voyage through the Lakes; it will be quite necessary to the reader’s clear understanding of the general and future current of our story--that I should summon his attention to a few remarks on the present condition and political relations of the Indian Tribes, comprehended within the jurisdiction of the United States; and to the treatment they have generally received, since the occupation of North America by the descendants of Europeans.

Just at present, however, I have more especially in view the condition and relations of the Indian Tribes of the State of New York; although I shall hereafter have occasion to extend my views, by more particular observations, not only of all the Indians within the territories of the United States; but of those also, who fall under the jurisdiction of the government of Great Britain, in the Canadas.

It is sufficient for the present, to remark:--that although there has generally been an _ostensible_ respect paid by Europeans, in their occupancy and gradual encroachments on the territories of North America, to the territorial rights of the aboriginal Tribes, by holding public councils with them, and formally negotiating for such of their lands, as have not been acquired by force and conquest;--yet it is a dishonourable truth, not difficult of being made out, that the superior capacity of Europeans, in bargaining and over-reaching, has almost uniformly characterized their pretended and formal purchases. 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. I am aware it may be and is said, that an adequate and fair value rendered, would be of no use to them--that in many, perhaps, in most cases, when money is put to their disposal, it would ever be prejudicial to their moral, and thus to their political interests. And for this assumption there might be some apology, if the parental guardianship, at first arrogated, were well and conscientiously sustained throughout. But the misfortune and the crime--is--that a bargain is held as a bargain, with Indians, as with all other nations. The rapid growth and rising prosperity of European colonies in America, and their political and social interests have operated to induce them to forget their parental and moral obligations to the Aborigines. The fact has uniformly been:--that when they have failed to provoke hostilities, and thus to acquire the opportunity of conquest, they have negotiated away the lands of the natives, for the most trifling considerations; until only a few and small patches are left, that they can call their own, within the territories settled by the whites; and the ultimate possession of those small tracts is already anticipated by those who covet them.

It may be observed respecting the Indians, who fall within the jurisdiction of the United States, that for the most part, the national government asserts the sole right of negociating for their lands. It has happened, however, that the lands belonging to the smaller tribes of the northern and eastern States, and consequently their political existence and relations, have long since fallen under the control of the State governments, within whose limits they are found. It had also happened, before the rights of Indians had been so thoroughly discussed, that the _pre-emption right_ of the individual States thus concerned, was transferred, or negotiated for valuable considerations to rich capitalists, now corporate companies, and thus converted into a stock, the value of which in the market depends entirely upon the nearer or more remote prospects of the removal of the Indians--in other words, of their ejectment. Of course it becomes the interest of these stock-holders, or pre-emption right companies, to use all possible means of accomplishing the end they have in view; and from the almost incalculable increase of the value of the stock, they can well afford to be at any expense, that may be necessary. And the actual expense, having been hitherto successful, still multiplies the value of the investments to an indefinite amount. I cannot venture to specify the amount of increase in the value of this stock, having no certain data, only that it has been immense on the original fund; which, in the first instance, was a loan to the State, the history of which, in its successive changes, I am not able to trace. The Indian lands, thus subjected to the speculations of land-jobbers, have risen in value to an amount that cannot be told, by the increase of the white population with which they are surrounded. This peculiar condition of Indian rights is more particularly applicable to the State of New York, although it is virtually the same thing, when the right of pre-emption is in the government, only that the government, having a higher responsibility, is likely to be more honourable in its course of negotiation.

It is due to the State of New York to say, that in the original negotiations, by which this exclusive right of purchasing Indian lands was resigned to these capitalists, the present operation of it to the disadvantage of the Indians was not anticipated.

It may be imagined, however, that the many causes operating upon these Indians to constrain their removal are accidentally thrown very much under the control of those who are interested; and that, when they are obliged to go, as soon they must,--and many of them have already gone, as will yet be seen,--they have no power to bring their lands into an open market, but are compelled to accept of a price, which may satisfy the cupidity of the pre-emption right companies--which is a very trifling fraction of their real value at the moment. It is said, indeed, that the Indians are not _forced_ away--that their removal is voluntary. So far as the technicalities of _legal_ compulsion are concerned, this may be true; but they are _morally_ compelled; the causes brought to act upon them to induce this decision, are in fact irresistible.

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. Their rights then were no more regarded, than those of the brute creation; and the arrogance of those claims, and the consequences resulting from them, will doubtless become more and more the wonder of the world, as society advances, and the rights of all men shall be better defined. They actually formed the basis and prescribed the modes of a new constitution of society between emigrant Europeans and the aboriginal Americans--a state of society which has been in operation for ages, and the unfortunate influence of which will extend for ages yet to come, if it does not thoroughly and for ever annihilate those numerous, interesting, and in many respects noble and manly tribes, whose origin and early history time nor chance has yet unfolded. Society once constituted, on a large and momentous scale, is not easily changed; and we shall yet have occasion to see, that even the American republicans, in the face and in direct contradiction of their own declared principles, have entrenched themselves on this original ground to defend their treatment of the Indians. Like African slavery, entailed upon them by the sins of former generations, they have presumed to hold, by the law of precedent and the right of prescription, the nobler race of the red men of America, in a condition of grievous disadvantage, and subjected them to an unrelieved doom of the greatest injustice. They plead the high authority of long established national law in relation to barbarians--an apology, indeed, for want of a better reason, but no justification. It was natural, that the treatment originally instituted should continue; the relations first formed, for reasons of State, gradually become subject to the inexorable laws of State necessity. What one generation had done, another might think itself authorized, nay, in a manner, might deem itself compelled, to do. The injustice became incorporated with the essential economy and with the ordinary administration of society. Like slavery it could never find a remedy, except in the sacrifice of some great interests, which had long enjoyed the right of prescription; and reformation, in the practical application of political morality, it is too well known, is but gradually and slowly attained, even after a distinct and public recognition of better principles has been long and universally made. We shall see, that the American Indians are even yet treated most unjustly, and most inconsistently with recognized principles; and while we boldly assert the rightful claims of the oppressed, it will be no more than fair to keep constantly in view the origin and history of the wrong, and the manner in which it has passed from generation to generation.

Some recent measures of the American government, in endeavouring to effect the removal of the Indian tribes on the east of the Mississippi to the west of it, have agitated the public mind in that country to an unprecedented degree, and occasioned the fullest and most public discussion of Indian rights in every possible form; and although the Supreme Court of the United States, the third and a co-ordinate branch of the government, has finally settled the great principles of the question to their own honour and to the honour of the nation, and thus far made an atonement to the injured and to the world for a practical course of injury, which, having passed an important crisis, cannot be so easily arrested, even with all the advantages of such a decision--that decision is notwithstanding an event of the greatest importance.[7] It will have its weight in the nation, and its influence over the world. It is of the highest possible authority, and may fairly be quoted, as an expression of the public opinion of the country, notwithstanding that the accidental combination of certain political causes has transiently sustained a course of administration opposed to it. And although it will be my duty in these pages to expose the injuries done to the American Indians, and to speak with great freedom, as an impartial regard to the common rights of man demands, I am proud to find myself sustained by the decisions of that venerable tribunal. What would otherwise be to the dishonour of my country, and which can never be concealed, I shall the less reluctantly handle, being in such company. The acknowledgment, and if possible, the confirmation of the rights of American Aborigines, is a cause which belongs to all nations; it is at least and practically a common cause between the people of Great Britain and the United States, as each of these governments has nearly an equal number of this race under its jurisdiction, and is necessarily obliged to legislate for their weal, or woe. I regard the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, as involving and settling principles, from which neither of these two nations can in sobriety and justice depart; and while I shall freely expose any violation of these principles, that may come in my way, I consider, that I am not only discharging a duty to a long oppressed and injured people, but I am proud, in being able to appeal to the above-named decision of the American Supreme Court, the authority and destined influence of which is at least as much a subject of national triumph, as the heretofore injurious treatment done to the Indians, is a subject of regret--and but for this atonement, an occasion of shame, nay, in any case, a shame.

It happens, as before suggested, that Great Britain is involved in a like responsibility, in regard to American Aborigines, as the government of the United States. Not, that the subject, in the hands of the British government, is in the same shape; but it is, at best, in a bad shape. These two nations, which ought to cherish the kindest feelings towards each other, and which possess unrivalled powers to benefit mankind, are alike and simultaneously responsible for the exercise of a direct ameliorating influence, by legislation and government, over two unfortunate and depressed classes of the human race: the Africans and American Indians. The condition of the former class, and the duties which they may rightfully claim from these two Governments, I do not at present undertake to discuss.

It is sufficient for my present purpose, and perhaps it may not be deemed improper to state the fact: that, as the British territories, in North America, are very extensive, and all of them peopled by these tribes, they must be numerous; and many of them so remote in the western and northern regions, that even a tolerably accurate census has probably never yet been obtained. Whether their numbers are equal to those within the jurisdiction of the United States, is not material. I would take liberty here to mention another thing, not because I am solicitous to bring the British government into the same condemnation;--but yet I am sufficiently informed--that the government of the Canadas is in the habit of assuming and asserting the right of removing the Indians, without their consent, from the lands they have occupied from time immemorial. It is true, that the British population of the Canadas has never crowded so hard upon the Indians, as the population of the United States; and consequently has never brought their rights so urgently and so publicly in question. And farther: as the government of the Canadas is not accustomed even to _moot_ the question of the territorial rights of the Indians, but assumes the disposal of them, as parents assign a place for their children, in their own discretion, there has been no occasion of controversy--neither is controversy possible, until the Indians are admitted in court, as a party,--unless they resort to the tomahawk. In _principle_, therefore, and in practice, so far as there has been occasion for it, it is unnecessary to say, how much less the government of the Canadas is in fault, in regard to the acknowledgment of Indian rights, than the government of the United States;--except that, the former has never promised, so far as I know, and then violated promise. The rapid extension of the population of the Union, and the old and public engagements of the government with the Indian tribes, guaranteeing their rights, have brought those rights into public and earnest discussion. And it must be confessed, that notwithstanding the public registry of treaties, and notwithstanding the recent solemn decision of the Supreme Judiciary of the nation, defining and affirming the rights of the Indians in all that they ask, those rights are yet in a train of actual violation. The decision of a Court is not sufficiently active to arrest and turn such an immense tide of injustice in a day.

So far, therefore, as there may be any disclosures in these pages of a dishonourable political character, it will be seen, that they are, in a great measure, equally applicable to the two governments of Great Britain and the United States;--except that, by accidental circumstances, the great question has come earlier to its crisis, under the administration of the latter, than of the former. It is a grave truth, that neither community can say to the other: You are guilty of a great sin in this matter. The world and heaven have laid the charge at the door of each: Ye are both alike responsible, and both guilty.