Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/364

356 T. W. DAVENPORT. justice, then our people perceive that they have a power to contend with that is more to be dreaded than the temporary mis-verdicts of public opinion. It has been proved hundreds of times that despotic governments are favorable to what is termed "law and order," but the individual surveillance promotive of it is also destructive to that individual freedom without which human progression is impossible. So, as we in the United States have adopted progression as our shibboleth, our Indian question and the history we have made in connection with it, must be viewed from our standpoint. And this means that we must look at what the people have done individually or rather desultorily (and this of course points to the frontiersman), and what has been done by the government. And upon separating these two modes of conduct great dissimilarity may be observed. On the frontier where individualism prevailed, unhindered to a great extent by governmental restraint, the contest between the two forms of society was one of mutual distrust, hate, and retaliation, in which the destructive faculties of both races were conspicuously displayed.

On our part it was always one of encroachment, of necessity, so as we have seen, in which the view point of the Indian was never essayed; his ideas, customs, and rights as he viewed them, seldom respected, and hence all his powers of resistance were brought to the front with most alarming ferocity. It must not be assumed, however, that this fretful edge of civilization was all brutishness; there were conspicuous examples of wisdom and benevolence on our part, enough to temper in some degree the asperities of the conflict, but not enough to control. The government, on the other hand, took a larger view of the situation by recognizing the possessory rights of the Indians, making treaties, buying large tracts needed by us for expansion and, with the consent of the tribes, moving them westward or placing them upon reservations where advancements of money and goods were made to assist them in becoming agriculturists. It is pleasant to know that such was the declared policy of the national government, though we