Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/264

244 miles) is necessary for the support in his way of life of a single Indian with his family. And the land must be and continue in a perfectly wild state — of forest, meadow, swamp, coverts, and streams — that it may shelter and subsist all the creatures which live on each other, and then serve the Indian. The axe must never be heard in those deep forest recesses; the streams must not be dammed at the peril of the fish-ways; the scent of humanity must not needlessly taint the air; the tinkle of a cow-bell is a nuisance, and the restless enterprise of the white man is a fatality.

No inapt illustration of the contrasted uses of territory by the red man and the white man may be suggested in setting against each other a countless herd of bellowing buffaloes, trampling over the succulent grasses of the prairie, and the groups of domestic cattle lowing in their fenced pastures and barn-yards. The pond which being dammed to a falling water-power grinds the food of families and saws the lumber for their dwellings, is put to better service so than when it shelters the lodges even of the industrious and wise beavers. It has been said by a United States Indian Commissioner that a single Indian requires for his support a number of square miles fully equal to the number of civilized whites that can subsist on one square mile. The latest proposition and argument looking towards the most humane and practical dealing with the Indian question, recognize the very same principle which has asserted itself in reference to the actual land-tenure of the natives. The most hopeful solution for all our difficulties is said to offer in dividing Indian lands, breaking up all tribal communes, and assigning to each person a severalty of possession to be for a term of years inalienable. At present the United States holds in Reservations some one hundred and fifty-six millions of acres for an estimated population of two hundred and sixty-two thousand Indians. Any one who pleases may cast the sum as to the number of acres which would fall to