In the management of Indian affairs there has been little, if any, progress since colonial days. I. The New World was supposed to belong to its discoverers, and the Indians also, because they belonged to the land. When England transferred her colonies to the new Republic, it was without any mention of the aboriginal inhabitants, or their rights. Trees and stones could not have been more completely ignored. With the single exception of the Treaty of 1803, by which Louisiana was obtained, all the Indian population was unconditionally transferred with the land. “In our first treaty of peace with Great Britain, by which the latter yielded all claims to the country as far as the Mississippi River, not a single stipulation appears in regard to the aboriginal inhabitants, and when they were received they were considered to be in the same situation,—as far as their legal status was concerned,—as the nation by which they were surrendered had placed them.” (The Indian Question, Otis, p. 51.) What was that status? The Indians were many; the colonists were weak. The stronger compelled the weaker to treat with them as sovereign tribes. The weaker became stronger. The same method was pursued then because of jealousy of the French. Treaties were made, and what the colonists could not compel by force they accomplished by intrigue. In the wars between England, Spain and France, the aborigines held the balance of power, and thus compelled their own recognition. When the war for independence came, the same was true. Both British and colonists sought their friendship, and paid for it. Thus, in a word, grew up the recognition of the sovereignty of the tribal and national organizations. Thus commenced the atrocious policy of quietly, by treaty and gifts, removing the Indians westward, as lands were required for settlement. Since the revolution, until 1871, when the treaty system was abolished, the same general plan has been followed. In everything else, there has been progress. In the management of our Indian affairs, we are hardly a step in advance of those who, in 1753, in forming a unity of action against the savages, organized the germ of our Union of States. II. The Reservation system seems to have had its birth in the administration of Jefferson. The object was to make conflict impossible until the natives could be civilized by isolating them. Education was to be provided, missionaries sent, protection guaranteed until they should become new men. Did the plan succeed? It had hardly been commenced before its failure was recognized. It has been continued, and the longer it has lasted the worse it has failed.