The American Missionary — Volume 33, No. 12, December 1879Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 33, No. 12, December 1879
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
Your committee, to whom has been referred that part of the report
of the Executive Committee which concerns the American Indians,
beg leave to report as follows:
Another event has occurred, in what may surely be termed the
providence of God, to compel the attention of Christians to the
condition of the Indians, and to our methods of dealing with them.
Whatever may be said of the policy of the Government, the fact
is that the paroxysm into which the country is thrown at each
new Indian outbreak, the perplexed uncertainty which is then
manifested by our chief public officers, the conflict of orders
which issue from the different departments of the Government, the
passionate demands which are then made for radical changes in our
policy, and the general hopelessness of permanent improvement
in the condition of the Indian which that wide-spread demand
indicates—these conspire to prove that, if not a fundamental
change, at least a more intelligent aim is necessary in our
method of dealing with these, the most perplexing of our national
wards.
In the hope of furnishing a basis of discussion, and of guiding
the efforts of the Association in the new problems which are
arising, your committee venture to embody their suggestions
in the form of a series of resolutions, which we present for
adoption, if your wisdom approves them.
_Resolved_, That the aim of this Association shall be, as far as
possible and as rapidly as possible, to secure for the Indians—
1. A legalized standing in the Courts of the United States.
2. Ownership of land in severalty.
3. The full rights of American citizenship.
These three things, we believe, are essential if the Indian is to
be, not Christianized or civilized, but saved from extermination.
_Resolved_, That this Association most heartily indorses the plan
of the Indian Bureau to secure to as many Indians as possible
the advantages of education offered at such distant schools
as those at Hampton and Carlisle; at the same time we believe
that the system of boarding schools on the reservations, which
for many years have been maintained by the Government and the
missionaries, is the chief educational agency that must be relied
upon for bettering the condition of the Indian.
_Resolved_, That to this end the members of this Association will
do all in their power to make the Indian question a pressing
question until the attention of Congress is so secured and held
to it that the legislative enactment necessary to bring about
these changes be completely accomplished.
H. A. STIMSON,
A. F. SHERRILL,
S. R. RIGGS
WM. CRAWFORD,
M. B. WILDER,
JOSEPH HART,
E. P. SMITH.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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