Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/535

Rh embarrassments and perplexities under which our Government became charged with its responsibilities to the natives. We must even pause for a moment upon that word “government.” The confederation of the colonies was not a government; and, so far as any of its measures in dealing with the Indians implied or required the possession or exercise of authority to give them effect, this prime condition failed. We were left, at the acknowledgment of our independence, in a state of exhaustion and poverty, with no immediate or effective means of relief. Our British enemies had subjected us to a terrific Indian warfare, and, so far from pacifying our red allies towards us, left them to annoy and harass us after the treaty of peace. One of the first makeshifts of our initiatory national organization for replenishing an exhausted treasury, was by following up pioneer settlers, who were rushing into the ceded lands of the Ohio valley and of the Northwest, and exacting of them payment for grants. These pioneers raised quarrels with the Indians, and then called upon the shadowy Government to send troops to their aid, and to try to make treaties with the red men. Altogether the situation was a very complicated one, not promising any better results than such as followed.

The first Congress committed to the Secretary of War the management of Indian affairs; and General Knox, the first of these officials, recommended the anticipatory purchase of large tracts of Western lands and the removal of the Indians from them before the whites would be ready or desirous of occupancy. Congress also voted $20,000 to defray the expenses of negotiations with the Indians. But tribes both at the North and the South were then making trouble, regardless of their treaties. Instigated and supplied with arms by the British on the Northern frontier, they kept up a steady and destructive warfare. In our war with the Creeks, in 1793, we used Indian allies against Indians. Our treaties with England and Spain, in 1794 and 1795, for the most part cut the natives off from receiving