Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1879.djvu/6

4 with less trouble than it has brought upon us, but they themselves appear to see reason for apprehension.

Our Indians are scattered over an immense extent of country in tribes and bands of different size, with constantly growing and multiplying settlements of whites between them. The game upon which formerly most of them could depend for subsistence is rapidly disappearing. They occupy a number of reservations, some large and some comparatively small, some consisting in great part of fertile lands, some barren, many of which were secured to them for occupancy by treaties in times gone by. It may have been, and probably was, a great mistake to make such treaties with them as distinct nations; but those treaties were made and are entitled to respect. Many treaty reservations have turned out to be of far greater value in agricultural and mineral resources than they were originally thought to be, and are now eagerly coveted by the white population surrounding them. It is argued that the Indians cannot and will not develop those resources; that the country cannot afford to maintain large and valuable districts in a state of waste; and that therefore they should be thrown open to white people who can and will attend to their development. This demand becomes more pressing every year, and although in many cases urged entirely without regard to abstract justice, it is a fact with which we have to deal, and which must be taken into account in shaping an Indian policy.

Whatever troubles and perplexities the presence of the Indians among us may cause, every man who loves justice and who values the honor of the American name will admit that it is our solemn duty to leave nothing untried to prepare a better fate than extermination, and a better rule than that of brute force for the original occupants of the soil upon which so many millions of our people have grown prosperous and happy. That all the Indians on this northern continent have been savages and that many of them are savages now is true; but it is also true that many tribes have risen to a promising degree of civilization, and there is no reason to doubt that the rest, if wisely guided, will be found capable of following their example.

It is believed by many that the normal condition of the Indians is turbulence and hostility to the whites; that the principal object of an Indian policy must be to keep the Indians quiet; and that they can be kept quiet only by the constant presence and pressure of force. This is an error. Of the seventy-one Indian agencies, there are only eleven which have military posts in their immediate vicinity, and fourteen with a military force within one to three days' march. Of the 252,000 Indians in the United States, there have been since the pacification of the Sioux at no time more than a few hundred in hostile conflict with the whites. Neither does it appear that such partial disturbances have been provoked by the absence or prevented by the presence of a military force. Of the four disturbances that have occurred within the last two years, three broke out in the immediate presence of such a military