Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/191

 SECT. V.] GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 155 renewed every year in a fast increasing ratio, and carried on with unexampled activity and energy, has produced those results unparalleled in the known history of nations. There was nothing to prevent the Indian from reaching the same state of agriculture and population, but his own indolence. It may be admitted that the intercourse with the whites has enlarged the sphere of ideas of the Indians and of late softened their manners.* Without examining whether, even with those who have preserved their lands, those advantages have not been more than counterbalanced by the introduction of new vices and new evils, it may be asserted, that the general ten- dency of that intercourse has rather been to perpetuate than to change their habits. The furs and skins of wild animals were the only articles they could offer in exchange of European commodities ; and commerce, which by increasing their wants might be considered as beneficial to them, has thus stimulated them to apply still more exclusively their time and faculties to the chase. Even the benevolent intentions of the government of the United States have not always taken the most proper direction. The larger compensation allowed for their lands, and the annuities bestowed upon them, have promoted the habit of being supported otherwise than by labor. It is not by treat- ing them as paupers, that a favorable change can be expected. So long as the Indians were formidable, their mode of war- fare and their excessive cruelty and ferocity made them objects of execration. The feeling has been universal, and is exhibit- ed in as strong colors in the contemporaneous accounts of New England, as it may have since appeared on our western frontiers. That state of things is at an end ; the natives have ceased to be an object of terror, and they are entirely at our mercy. We may indeed say, that, if a scrupulous regard had always been paid to the rights of the Indians, this nation would not have sprung into existence. The fact is not less true, that it has been created at their expense ; and the duty is imposed upon us to exhaust every practicable means to prevent the annihilation of those who remain, and to promote their happi- ness. Though their intellectual faculties were palsied and cessfully promoted by the government of the United States. There may have been, but I have not heard of any instance of a prisoner being tortured, burnt by a slow fire, &c.,during the last forty years.
 * The cessation of internal wars amongst the Indians has been suc-