Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/276

256 defined to admit of being legally transferred; and the Indians have put the estimate of their rights as a race at a very low and dubious condition of tenure.

Among the various theories and opinions as to the relations between the red and the white men on the present territory of the United States, we recognized in the opening of this chapter that one which perhaps a majority of persons on hearing it stated would flout as mean and abominable, while the rest would grant that it is at best but specious and plausible. Yet it has had its advocates. This theory proceeds upon what are said to be admitted principles under the law of nations and the usages which apply to rights of conquest and accession to territory that has changed sovereigns. Spain, France, and England once claimed and substantially had possession of the whole northern part of this continent, and also claimed sovereignty over its inhabitants. We are not, it is said, to inquire too curiously about the method and process, nor even the justice and effect, of the way in which this mastery was obtained: we are to regard only the fact. Now, with the exception of those portions of the territory which we have purchased, with all the claimed rights from France and Spain, we conquered this country from Great Britain. She claimed to own the territory, and that the people on it, red and white, were her subjects. We have sprung into being upon it, a new and independent nation; and the same struggle which freed us from the mother country made us owners of the territory and masters of all the natives on it whom Great Britain regarded as a subject race. Great Britain set us an example for our own following as a nation, in claiming this incidental right of conquest. At the close of the long and savage conflict which we call the French and Indian War, — and which led to the cession of Canada and extinguished French occupation here, except in Louisiana, — Great Britain acted upon the assumption that its conquest covered that of all the Indians who had been the helpful