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Show Mr. Powell attribntes this depletion to mars with whites, wars with each other, diseases, and dissipations introduced among tllein by the lower class of mhite men. Ulnny Indians, separating froin their tribes and attetnpting to take part in civilized life, e,nc,onnter a coinl?etition which soon becomes ~ O I J ~ ~ a~nSdS t, h y fall into despair :nid become paupers, sots, or criminals. He adds: -411 tribes which have held to tribal oorlranizations hnve male more or less ],rag-rass, and those that hwe clung to it most firmly lmvg lunde the mo8t progress, while those tribes that have p~emstarely abanclgtned savagery and attemptod to eoliform to the ways of civilization have invariably deteriorated and beorlnle the moatde,ornded of human beings. Here enrl there oxooptiona xrofoond. A few have abandoned savage lifo and eooeeuded i~~oivilisolidfe , hut they art!very few. * * With respeot to wars, with ?00,000 of the Indians all pprobablllty or oros ponsi-bility of war with the whits race is past. .4l,oot 50,000 hldians may yet give us tronble of this imture, hut evor in a clirninishi~~dge gree. Intertribal wars have wholly <lis&ppeered. Dep!etion by war h;ts thus been minimized, and wili soon be n tiling of the l ~ a ~ t . If the conclnsiana set t'0rt.h are valid-and I think they are \vell established by facts-we may properly eoncll~det hm the Indim tribes are not to he ertingnished by wilr md degradation, and that we have already reached the point where we ,nay hope to save the relnnant to be absorbed into lnodern civilization. " * " In the periodof tutelage yet necessary, a. few tribes who have made the least progress in oulture, perhaps one-third of all, will yet diminish i u n~~mb e rasn;o ther third are now holding their own and may be expected slowly to increase, while another third have made the turniug point and are now iuorerasing in numbers. How long must this state of tutel&g,rre continneq Gradually, as the tribes are able to stand alone, they should be turuod over to their own resonrces. DIVERSE SENTIXENTS. Some, though~nota ll, of the first Europeans who came to our eastern shores seem tohavebeen fascinated with t l ~ eab origines. This appears in Columbus's description of them to Ferdinand and Isabella. Roger Williams said that "for temper of brain', 'Ithe Creator hath not made them inferior to Europeans." Gen. Winslow, of Plymouth, wrote: We have folmrl t,he Indians very faithfld to their covenants of oesce with Us. very loving, and ready to pleastue ui. We o with them in same oases 50miles into thi country, and work aa safely andpeaoeab?y in the woo& as in the highways of Eng-land. I Governor Winthrop, of Boston, in 1631, sat tho Sachem Chicatabot at his own table and re-p orted that Ithe behaved himself as an Enr-r lish .g entleman." D I Ii~t wa.; nor loliy bofure :I vll:~npb ecame npp;lrmt, a ~ u~~ldclc rc llu strvsq of lieu. cir~.umstn~~ces-the~ ~~i s d u iuniflds 11o.st~lities-miiny-bl~ all1 &a\. all ?-V~I I IP to Lli~tet he I I I ~ I ; ~nlIldI St r ~1 ,e;ili vf ~ I J P IUn s -Ilid-eous crea~iires," "the scum of humanity." of thatAmighty savage, King Philip, when his dead body was drawn o11t of the swamp where he had fallen, Oapt. Ohnrcli said "he was a doleful,great, naked, dirty beast." In the dire emergencies of this later perlod even the Quakers in Pennsylvania are said to have been obliged to abandon their peace policy; Two types of sentiment now prevail among those who discuss the Indian qnestion, types radically different and sometimes unfriendly, com~nonly called "the Eastern" and "the Western." The latter has grown up among people who have been much in hostile contact with t.he red man on the frontiers, and have felt the exasperating effect of sangninary collisions. Western men regard Indian reformers from the East as mere sent.imeutalists, void of practical ideas, aud visionary in their projects; and Eastern men think Westerners deficient in humane sentiment and just ideas of the capability of the Indian to true, sob- |
