The Stockbridge Indians, whose original home was amid the beautiful valleys of old Berkshire, in Massachusetts, and who, while there--130 years ago--enjoyed the stated ministry of David Brainard, and afterwards of Jonathan Edwards, were moved west as far as the State of New York, ninety years ago. Since then they have been moved five times, and now a remnant of the tribe occupy a little reservation in Northern Wisconsin. Why should they have been exposed to such perils as haunt a people, thus violently and repeatedly torn up by the roots, and compelled to make new homes far distant from the graves of their sires? Or, rather, civilized and Christianized as they are and were, why should they not long ago have come to individual homestead rights of portions of their land in fee, _with citizenship_, as do multitudes of foreigners, of far less education? Instead of girding the Indians about with bands of love, and holding them to their ancient homes, where they could be easily reached by Gospel influences, the nation has taken it for granted that the “wilderness and solitary place” was the only fit home for them; and therefore, in the expressive language of Red Cloud, has “kept them on wheels.” We have been crowding them before the ever-increasing column of our Western emigration, and even now, the hand of the nation does not spare, neither does its heart relent. The Santee and other bands of Indians, fully civilized, are now petitioners for the right to take up homesteads that shall cover the present allotments, already cultivated and improved by them. Their petition is indorsed by the Indian Bureau and Interior Department, and though urged upon Congress last winter by all the added influence of the Board of Indian Commissioners, nothing was done. Congress has always shown more willingness to _feed_ the Indians than to _locate_ them. To secure progress in civilization, we must locate them--give them permanent homes, with all the motives for industry which they will inspire. To herd and feed them from the public crib permanently, like cattle, is to degrade and pauperize them, rather than to civilize and bring them to self-support. There is a feeling quite too common in the community, that Indians, after all, are only _outlaws_, _Ishmaelites_, _savages_, “having no rights which white men are bound to respect,” and no elements of character which encourage efforts for their improvement. A popular encyclopædia affirms that, “as a race, the animal propensities in the Indian strongly preponderate over the intellectual, and render their civilization, even with the help of education and Christianity, an event _hardly to be hoped for_.” Neither the experience of Christian philanthropists, nor the facts of history, will justify this sweeping assertion.