Greater Britain: A Record of Travel in English-Speaking Countries During 1866-7Dilke, Charles Wentworth, Sir
History
Greater Britain: A Record of Travel in English-Speaking Countries During 1866-7
Dilke, Charles Wentworth, Sir
Great Britain -- Colonies -- History -- 19th century; United States -- Description and travel; Voyages around the world
Peace commissioners are yearly sent from Washington to treat with
hostile tribes upon the plains. The Indians invariably continue to fight
and rob till winter is at hand; but when the snows appear, they send in
runners to announce that they are prepared to make submission. The
commissioners appoint a place, and the tribe, their relatives, allies,
and friends, come down thousands strong, and enter upon debates which
are purposely prolonged till spring. All this time the Indians are kept
in food and drink; whisky even is illegally provided them, with the
cognizance of the authorities, under the name of “hatchets.” Blankets,
and, it is said, powder and revolvers, are supplied to them as necessary
to their existence on the plains; but when the first of the spring
flowers begin to peep up through the snow-drifts on the prairies, they
take their leave, and in a few weeks are out again upon the war-path,
plundering and scalping all the whites.
Judging from English experience in the north, and Spanish in Mexico and
South America, it would seem as though the white man and the red cannot
exist on the same soil. Step by step the English have driven back the
braves, till New Englanders now remember that there were Indians once in
Massachusetts, as we remember that once there were bears in Hampshire.
King Philip‘s defeat by the Connecticut volunteers seems to form part of
the early legendary history of our race; yet there is still standing,
and in good repair, in Dorchester, a suburb of Boston, a frame-house
which in its time has been successfully defended against Red Indians. On
the other hand, step by step, since the days of Cortez, the Indians and
half-bloods have driven out the Spaniards from Mexico and South
America. White men, Spaniards, received Maximilian at Vera Cruz, but he
was shot by full-blooded Indians at Queretaro.
If any attempt is to be made to save the Indians that remain, it must be
worked out in the Eastern States. Hitherto the whites have but pushed
back the Indians westward: if they would rescue the remnant from
starvation, they must bring them East, away from Western men and Western
hunting-grounds, and let them intermingle with the whites, living,
farming, along with them, intermarrying, if possible. The hunting Indian
is too costly a being for our age; but we are bound to remember that
ours is the blame of having failed to teach him to be something better.
After all, if the Indian is mentally, morally, and physically inferior
to the white man, it is in every way for the advantage of the world that
the next generation that inhabits Colorado should consist of whites
instead of reds. That this result should not be brought about by cruelty
or fraud upon the now existing Indians is all that we need require. The
gradual extinction of the inferior races is not only a law of nature,
but a blessing to mankind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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