Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/564

544 made for their protection and welfare. President Washington and his successors, with the authority and ratification of successive Congresses, have again and again renewed this covenant.

The Sioux, who with affiliated tribes had occupied large portions of this territory, had long been regarded as a brave and noble race of red men of a superior grade, and as ever friendly to the whites, as the officers of the Northwest Fur-Company who had intimate relations with them had testified. They ranged from the British border on the north to Kansas on the south, and from the sources of the Mississippi to the spurs of the Rocky Mountains, through a rich and splendid country, for game, fish, and fruits. The tribes consented to regard themselves as within the territorial bounds of the United States, and claimed protection under our supremacy. After a succession of minor treaties had been made with them, the ripening of circumstances under what we call the exigencies and rights of civilization demanded a very serious and decisive negotiation with them. The constant pushing forward of the frontiers, the prospecting companies of miners, the emigrant trails to California and Oregon were opening an incessant encroachment on their territory, and a bloody war or a peaceful disposal of all matters of strife presented an alternative to our Government. A treaty was made at Fort Laramie, in 1851, between the United States and these tribes, under which it was covenanted that a region of about one hundred thousand square miles, — larger than the area of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, — including the largest and best part of Colorado, and parts of Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas, should be secured to them, while the Government was to be allowed to make military and other roads, with stations for agencies on the territory, and to have its citizens protected in their transit. The Indians were to yield all claims to any other lands, except the retaining a right to hunt and fish in roaming freely over them. They were