Page:The American Indian as slaveholder and secessionist (Volume 1).djvu/20

14 they were neglecting the Indian even to an extent that amounted to actual dishonor, the Confederacy was offering him political integrity and political equality and was establishing over his country, not simply an empty wardship, but a bona fide protectorate.

Granting then that the negotiations of 1861 with the Indian nations constitute a phase of southern diplomatic history, it may be well to consider to what Indian participation in the Civil War amounted. It was a circumstance that was interesting rather than significant; and the majority will have to admit that it was a circumstance that could not possibly have materially affected the ultimate situation. It was the Indian country, rather than the Indian owner, that the Confederacy wanted to be sure of possessing; for Indian Territory occupied a position of strategic importance, from both the economic and the military point of view. The possession of it was absolutely necessary for the political and the institutional consolidation of the South. Texas might well think of going her own way and of forming an independent republic once again, when between her and Arkansas lay the immense reservations of the great tribes. They were slaveholding tribes, too, yet were supposed by the United States government to have no interest whatsoever in a sectional conflict that involved the very existence of the "peculiar institution." Thus the federal government left them to themselves at the critical moment and left them, moreover, at the mercy of the South, and then was indignant that they betrayed a sectional affiliation.

The author deems it of no slight advantage, in undertaking a work of this sort, that she is of British birth and antecedents and that her educational training, so largely American as it is, has been gained without re-