Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1880.djvu/18

16 care and guidance on the part of the government during the intermediate period, would be the greatest cruelty to him. The adoption of the principles first mentioned would keep the Indians in barbarism for the purpose of accelerating their extinction; but general and premature action upon the second would precipitate upon them a conflict with overwhelming superior forces, unprotected and unguided by the hand of a friendly power, and thus accelerate their destruction likewise.

While the government, therefore, must recognize its duty to protect the rights of the Indian, it should at the same time not forget that, during the period of transition from savage life to civilization, he stands very much in need of its care and guidance. That period is one of hope, but at the same time one of great danger. Then the picturesque, warlike, self-relying Indian of the wilderness gradually disappears. He enters into conditions and relations of life entirely new to him; his self-reliance gives way; he does not know whether that which he learns is good or evil; he is liable to acquire with the virtues of civilization its vices, and the latter more easily than the former; he is a mere child, alike accessible to evil and to good influences; if prematurely relieved of all restraints of intercourse, he is apt in the sparsely-settled countries of the far West to fall first into the hands of elements of population whose influence upon him will not be elevating; he is in danger of becoming a drunkard before he is able to measure the evils of drunkenness; he is liable to be tricked out of his property before he has a full estimate of its value; he has to overcome his life-long habit of careless improvidence as to the coming day; his first introduction into the contests of civilized life will be likely to overwhelm him with a feeling of helplessness, and he naturally looks up to the “Great Father” for a protecting and guiding hand. That hand must not be prematurely withdrawn on the theory that the mere recognition of the Indian's rights will be sufficient to enable him intelligently to exercise and to maintain them.

We must not expect too much of his first efforts. If the results of those efforts do not speedily rise to the white man's standard, patient help must be given to raise them to the level which they can attain. Neither must we indulge in the hope that the Indian, however hopeful his progress at the beginning, will very soon become as useful a citizen as the average of his neighbors; but we may certainly hope to see a large number of them gradually raise themselves to that position in a working and productive community which many Indians in the Indian Territory, in Indiana, Michigan, and other States have already reached. There are many among them who are now intelligent and useful citizens, many others rapidly qualifying themselves for citizenship, and there is no reason to doubt that this class may in the course of time be largely increased.

Experience has strengthened my conviction, which, this being my last report, I now feel at greater liberty to express, that while the guiding care of the government is necessary, that task should be intrusted to the