Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/594

574 our ridges of sand and gravel, and our rocky pastures where the hungry ribs of the earth seem actually to have broken through its skin, we are provoked at the thought of having our teeming regions of the West turned into a mighty poor-farm. The memory and traditions of the first settlements of rugged New England are still too fresh, — indeed the present hard-won subsistence of those who still plough and hoe its stingy farms are too real to them, — to reconcile them to the policy of a tax from the nation's revenue for maintaining the thriftless roamers of the West.

There is one very serious consideration bearing upon this momentous question of our immediate future relations with our Indian tribes, which so far as I have been able to note has not received its due, if indeed any, attention in our Congressional debates or in the discussions in our journals. I have already stated the fact that Great Britain has dominion over more territory on this continent than is controlled by our own Government. Great Britain was once our enemy. She certainly cannot have forgotten that; possibly she may have repented of it. The far-sighted and sagacious Dr. Franklin, in the treaty arrangements for closing up our war of Independence, distinctly recognized the inevitable fact, that territorial possessions on this continent by Great Britain would always be of the nature of a menace to us; at any rate would afford a harborage, a place of deposit, a base of operations, for any enemies of ours, whether her allies or not. Twice in the century of our history has that foresight of Dr. Franklin been certified, — in our war with Britain of 1812, and in our Civil War. And what has been the aspect of the case quite recently? Sitting Bull probably understands it better than some of us do. Our remaining Indian tribes not yet gathered into treaty reservations, or objecting to be sent south into the Indian territory, tend to cluster in our northwest border, just where we bound upon the vast expanses of the wilderness held by Great Britain. If we still pursue our war measures