Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/153

Rh are now more easily accessible than Ohio and Indiana were at the beginning of this century, and the same process which resulted in crowding the Indians out of these States has begun and is rapidly going on in those Territories. The settler and miner are beginning, or at least threatening, to invade every Indian reservation that offers any attraction, and it is a well-known fact that the frontiersman almost always looks upon Indian lands as the most valuable in the neighborhood, simply because the Indian occupies them and the white man is excluded from them. From the articles in the newspapers of those remote Territories, it would sometimes appear as if, in the midst of millions of untouched acres, the white people were deprived of the necessary elbow-room as long as there is an Indian in the country. At any rate, the settlers and miners want to seize upon the most valuable tracts first, and they are always inclined to look for them among the lands of the Indians. The fact that wild Indians—and here it is proper to say that when in this discussion Indians are spoken of as “wild,” and their habits of life as “savage,” these terms are not used in their extreme sense, but as simply meaning “uncivilized,” there being of course among them, in that respect, a difference of degrees—hold immense tracts of country which, possessed by them, are of no advantage to anybody, while, as is said, thousands upon thousands of white people stand ready to cultivate them and to make them contribute to the national wealth, is always apt

to make an impression upon minds not accustomed to nice discrimination. It is needless to say that the rights of the Indians are a matter of very small consideration in the eyes of those who covet their possessions. The average frontiersman looks upon the Indian simply as a nuisance that is in his way. There are certainly men among them of humane principles, but also many whom it would be difficult to