the comparative happiness of their fellow mortals | suming that the earth we inhabit was given to man from outward circumstances, or extraneous means by his Maker. In the first instance he held it by

of enjoyment. No one knows-no one can ever know, the secret sources of suffering or delight enveloped in the unfathomable obscurity of the human heart. All we know, and all that befits us to know is, that whatever apparent diversities of happiness and misery may exist among mankind, the distribution is just and should be submitted to without murmuring.

this right alone; and, as in the early ages of the world, until the human race separated into tribes and nations, there was no collision of conflicting claims to adjust, so was there no occasion to resort to any other right but that of possession under this original universal grant. When, however, in process of time, the human race separated into tribes or nations, and spread over different portions of the globe, they gradually became neighbors, rivals

This preference of savage over civilized man has, if we mistake not, seduced Mr. Catlin into and enemies. Then, as there was no common umthe habitual indulgence of a severe and bitter prejudice against the latter, evinced in his perpetually taking occasion to stigmatize the course pursued by our ancestors, as well as our cotemporaries towards the race of the red men. We have an early sample of this in page 6 of his introductory observations. Speaking of the aborigines of America, he exclaims,

pire sufficiently disinterested to be relied on, or strong enough to enforce its decisions, these differences came at length to be settled by a resort to force, which usually resulted in the retreat, subjugation, or extermination of one of the parties. Hence originated a new principle, called the right of conquest, which has ever since been recognised, or acted upon, by civilized as well as savage nations. In later times, a third principle was originated, "Their country was entered by the white man a few hundred years since; and thirty millions of or at least brought into active operation, by the these are now scuffling for the goods and luxuries progress of maritime adventures, ending in the of life over the bones and ashes of twelve millions discovery of regions hitherto unknown, or unvisitof red men; six millions of whom have fallen vic-ed by christian and civilized nations; inhabited by tims to the small pox, and the remainder to the savages whose property in the soil was in common, sword, bayonet and whiskey; all of which means and who paying no regard to that system of interof destruction and death have been visited upon national law established by European powers, were them, by acquisitive white men and by white men whose fathers were welcomed and embraced in the considered out of the sphere of its protection. land where the poor Indian met and fed them with This was called the Right of Discovery, and is 'ears of green corn and pemican.' Of the 2,000,000 that under which these powers made grants of terremaining alive at this time, about 1,400,000 are ritory to the early adventurers to this new world. already the miserable living victims and dupes of white man's cupidity, degraded, discouraged and It was a right universally exercised by civilized lost in the bewildering maze that is produced by the use of whiskey and its concomitant vices; and the remainder are yet unroused and unenticed by the dread or love of the white man and his allure

ments."

We are perfectly willing to concede that the savages roaming at large through the boundless

christian nations, and was held to embody a legitimate claim to all countries thus situated. It is not necessary to insist on its indefeasibility. It is sufficent to say, that our forefathers came hither under the sanction of grants from a sovereign, made There is scarcely a letter of the whole collec-under the authority of this acknowledged right of tion in which Mr. Catlin fails to thrust in similar discovery. They were therefore not to blame in and, indeed, more heavy charges against his living the preliminary step; they acted in conformity countrymen, and against the memory of those illus- with a recognized principle, and were justifiable trious men, whose policy towards the Indians he in seeking their happiness in the new world. denounces, without discrimination and without exception. We propose to consider these charges coolly and deliberately; trusting that if it should wilderness, which they neither possessed nor occube perceived we have a preference for civilized pied, did, as Mr. Catlin asserts, meet and feed the over savage life, and of our countrymen over alien stranger with "ears of green corn and pemican." barbarians, still it will not be accompanied by any But this was only while they considered them as unkind feeling towards the latter, such as Mr. Cat- strangers visiting them for a brief period. From lin, we think, on all occasions exhibits in relation the time they discovered that the white men came to the former. Our purpose is, to enquire briefly, with views of permanent settlement, their hospiif all or any of these charges are true; for if so, talities became uncertain and precarious; their most assuredly our ancestors and their posterity good will subsided gradually into distrust, jealousy are laden with a heavy and increasing burthen of and hatred. A vague anticipation of the ultimate transgressions towards their fellow creatures, which, consequences of the increase and expansion of in the distribution of rewards and punishments, a these interlopers, such as has since been realized, jast Providence will not fail to visit with awful retribution.

We have the highest possible authority for as

appears to have by degrees settled deeply into their minds, alienated their hearts and converted them into open or secret enemies, whose wrath was dead

ly and whose warfare nothing short of extermina- | country, are, firstly, having cheated the Indians tion. We do not blame them; for this feeling was out of their lands; secondly, demoralizing them natural, perhaps inevitable; much less do we blame with whiskey; thirdly, exterminating them by our forefathers for resisting their hostility, and the sword, the bayonet and the small pox; and sometimes, perhaps, anticipating it, when they had fourthly, in making them the dupes and victims of good cause to believe the savages meditated their the white man's cupidity. destruction. The law of self-preservation justified them both; and to apply the severe principles of abstract justice to such a case is the height of injustice.

We regret to see such harsh and indiscriminate denunciations cast upon our country and government by a native citizen of the United States. We have enough of this from foreigners, who, for the most part, assail us on all occasions with as little justice as Mr. Catlin, whose preference of savage over civilized life, and, perhaps, gratitude for being made "a great medicine-man," seems to have enlisted him in the ranks of our most bitter maligners and swallowed up all perception of that decorum which every good citizen ought to preserve when censuring his country, which he never will do, except from the highest of all possible motives, and then as a dutiful child would counsel a venerated parent. But enough of this for the present. The charges are not true to any thing like the extent asserted by Mr. Catlin; and we shall proceed to give what we consider a fair and candid view of the conduct of the Government of the United States towards the Indians, as well as of the causes which have produced the declension or extinction of so many of the North American tribes.

At the commencement of the colonization of the British Provinces of North America, the lands occupied by the adventurers were either purchased of the Indians, or consisted of their voluntary donations; for these were the only means by which they could be obtained, as the colonists were for a long period too weak to attempt any acquisitions by conquest. To us of the present day, the prices given for these lands appear so utterly disproportioned to their present value, as to convey an impression, if not generate a conviction, that the Indians were cheated in these bargains.

It is difficult, at this distance of time, to decide who were the first aggressors in that interminable warfare which has since continued between the races of the white and the red men in North America. For a long time the former were the weaker party, and consequently jealous and apprehensive of the stronger. It would have been highly imprudent for the white men, under such circumstances, to provoke hostility on the part of the savages, and it is therefore probable, that the former on all occasions acted on what they believed the defensive. When, however, the white man began to attain the ascendancy, the case was probably generally reversed. The savages became the weak and suspicious party, and very often set upon and massacred the early settlers without any immediate cause, or recent provocation. The great Pequod war, in which almost every town and settlement in New England was successively devastated by fire and sword, was of this character. It was the result of long brooding vengeance, engendered not more by past recollections, than by a conviction that the period had come, when there was no alternative between exterminating the white men and the total, irremediable extinction of the red. Such, too, was the case in the great massacre perpetrated by Opechancanough on the colonists of Virginia. It was unprovoked by any immediate cause of irritation; it was the offspring of long brooding revenge, looking to the future as well as the past. Such was, such is, and such will probably ever be, the result of an intercourse between savage and When we read of the sites of such flourishing civilized man. Mutual contempt and mutual fears: towns as Northampton and Springfield, in New Engthe feeling of superiority on one hand, of inferi-land, having been purchased for a few blankets and a ority on the other, which generates unavoidable few fathoms of wampum, and compare this price disparities in bargaining and all the modes of inter- with their present value, these bargains would seem course; the harsh contact of irreconcilable con- distinctly to indicate something like fraud and detrasts in those points which separate every species ception, cupidity and cunning, playing on ignorance of animal; together with that inevitable and irre- and credulity. But when we come to reflect, that sistible supremacy, every where and at all times these lands were then in a state of nature, covered acquired by knowledge over ignorance, must, of with gigantic forests requiring immense labor to necessity, produce relations of the most hostile bring them into cultivation; that every implement character between the civilized and savage man, required for this tedious and harassing process was whenever they come together in intimate associa- to be procured from a vast distance, perhaps across tion. the Atlantic Ocean, at a cost bearing no proportion The direct and specific charges brought by the to its present value; that there were then few or author of these letters, against the people and gov-no laborers for hire, so that every man was obliged ernment of the United States, neither of which to do his own work; and that the value of these can justly be made responsible for the acts of Great lands to their Indian possessors was little or nothBritain previous to their separation from the mother 'ing-when these and other facts, which might be

easily multiplied, are taken into the account, these case is entirely inapplicable to the times of which primitive purchases will not appear so unreason- we are treating. For a considerable period after able. It is human labor and industry that gives the first settlements in all the old colonies, the value to the earth we inhabit, and it has required whites, as before stated, were the weaker party, and more than two centuries of incessant exertion to for a still longer period, there was a severe struggle produce those extraordinary disproportions of prices between the two races for the ascendancy. No between the uncultivated Indian wilds and the fer- one can attentively study the early history of these tile regions inhabited by that most laborious of all colonies, without seeing at once that there were animals, the civilized man. times in which their fate hung by a single hair and Even at this moment, when the tide of popula- that nothing but their indomitable courage and hartion is incessantly flowing into the fertile regions dihood, aided by the blessing of Providence, preof the West; when protection and consequent served them from utter extermination. On these safety from savage warfare render the first pio- occasions, our forefathers fought for all that was neers secure in their possessions, the richest lands dear to them, wives, children, kindred, life and in the universe are disposed of by the government property, with a savage enemy who spared neither; of the United States at one dollar and twenty-five and the records of those trying times every where cents the acre. In the course of two centuries, exhibit examples which, we regret to see, there is the labors of man will probably enhance their one American citizen at least, who cannot or will value fifty or an hundred fold, and shall posterity not appreciate. infer from thence, that there was fraud or collusion in the sale or purchase? A rational, dispassionate consideration of this subject, will, if we do not mistake, convince the most enthusiastic admirer of savages and savage life, that in all those early purchases of Indian lands, there was much more reciprocity than may at first sight appear. It is on record, or at least traditionary, that a tract of land, over a great portion of which the town of Springfield, on Connecticut river, has now extended, and which was either given or sold for a trifle by the Indians, was some years afterwards exchanged by the proprietor for a second-hand wheelbarrow. Under this view of the subject, we think we are authorized to assume, that the rights acquired through purchase by the early settlers, were gained at a price, which was fair and proper, and that the terms were perfectly satisfactory to the Indians at the time.

From the first settlement of this country to the era of our independence, few cases occur in which the colonies had the power of oppressing the Indians, or taking advantage of their weakness. Even the great State of New York was exposed during the whole Revolutionary war to the ravages of the Six Nations, stimulated by British influence and British bribes: and as Mr. Catlin is a native of Wyoming, we will content ourselves with referring him to the catastrophe of that beautiful valley, which has called forth the sympathies of millions of hearts, and awakened the genius of a foreign Bard to strains of the most beautiful and affecting tenderness.

Our author takes occasion to dwell, in one of his letters, apparently with great satisfaction, on the preference given by the Sioux or Dahcotas to his English companion over himself; and the inference which might be drawn in favor of the policy of the When, in consequence of those causes to which British Government towards the savages from that we have already reverted, and which in every age circumstance, though not expressed, seems pretty and country have produced dissension and blood- clearly indicated. To this, we have only to obshed between savage and civilized man, the early serve, that, if Mr. Catlin thinks the policy of that settlers and the Indian occupants came into fre- Government in subsidizing the savages and inciquent collision and resorted to arms, other relating them to murder our people by paying a price tions between the parties were gradually introduced for their scalps, preferable to that of the Governand became the basis of a new system of inter- ment of the United States towards these ferocious course. Hostilities were followed by treaties of peace; and according to the course of things at all times and every where, the party which was worsted made concessions to that which got the better. Had the Indians prevailed, the whites would have been massacred and exterminated; but the latter were satisfied with the acquisition of lands, which at one and the same time gave them new means of subsistence and new security by removing the Indians to a greater distance.

barbarians, he is welcome to his opinion.

In the great contest between the mother country and her colonies, the Indians of the frontier were employed by Great Britain, and committed various atrocities. No one can forget Lord Chatham's eloquent and thrilling denunciation of this unhallowed warfare; and still less the massacres of Cherry Valley, Wyoming and various other places, or subsequently that at the River Raisin during the late war. The former, our author rather exMuch has been said on the cruelty of thus taking cuses than blames; and a kindred enthusiastic adadvantage of the weakness of the Indian tribes, to mirer of Indian chivalry and humanity has endeadespoil them of their lands and expel them from vored lately, to divert the odium of that inhuman their ancient possessions. But this view of the butchery of all ages and sexes, from the head of

his favorite hero, Joseph Brant, to whom all history | former example, and required room for their expanand tradition ascribe the exploit. Be this as it may, sion. They spread in every direction, and every whoever was the leader, the massacre was perpe- where came in contact with tribes of roving savatrated by the Indians and constitutes one of those ges, claiming possession of vast regions, whose recollections which have justly embittered the feel- boundaries being undefined and undefinable, were ings of the citizens of the United States towards the subject of perpetual warfare among themselves, the red men. until one or the other was exterminated or forced When, therefore, the United States had con- to emigrate to distant regions, where they either quered their Independence, and established a new expelled the possessors as they had themselves Government, they were smarting under Indian in- been expelled, or were adopted by them and lost flictions recently perpetrated, and rejected all over- their identity forever. tures on the part of Great Britain to have them in- We do not pretend to say what ought to have cluded in the Treaty of Peace, as independent na- been the result of such a state of things. The abtions. They determined to chastise their unprovo-stract principle of justice might have dictated that ked hostilities and cruel massacres. They did the tide of population should stop on the first conchastise them, and they were justly chastised, for tact with the Indians and that they should be left they had plundered without provocation and mur- in possession of all they claimed. But such has dered for sordid gain. They had been paid the never been the case in any age or nation of the price of blood and they received their reward in world; and so uniform has been the contrary reblood. This being done, the Government of the sult every where and at all times, that, setting aside United States proceeded to the exercise of one of its all abstract reasoning, we think the conclusion may most difficult and arduous duties, that of maturing a be fairly drawn from ages of invariable experience, uniform system of policy towards the Indians inhab- as well as from the language of Scripture, that, as iting the territory over which they had acquired man was commanded to go forth and multiply, so the supremacy by the treaty with Great Britain, in that condition of life which best subserves this conformity with the recognized law of nations, great purpose must and will prevail. Agriculture and those on our borders not included in the circle and the arts of civilization undoubtedly afford the of civilized settlements, and whose lands had not means of existence to the greatest number, and it been acquired from them by purchase or by treaty. would seem from the authority of the Great CreaIt must be obvious that this was a most delicate tor himself, it was never intended that millions and difficult task, owing to the equivocal position should be straitened in the comforts of life, in order occupied by the savage tribes and the yet more that a few thousands should have sufficient space novel situation of the United States, which was in to hunt deer and buffaloes. Hence the invariable many respects totally dissimilar to that of any co-result of the struggle between savage and civilized temporary nation. With tribes of savages, having man has been, and will probably be, until the same no regard to, or knowledge, or perception of that causes produce dissimilar effects, either that the code by which the civilized world at least professes to be governed, it was next to impossible to preserve those relations which are created by compacts between Governments acknowledging the supremacy of international law. These savage tribes might in one respect be called independent, being governed by their own laws and customs; yet, in one very important point, they were not so; they came within the limits of grants made by different sovereigns of England, under the sanction of a principle universally recognized by civilized nations, and the United States possessed all the rights which England had originally claimed or exercised on the ground of discovery. This anomalous position required a mode of political intercourse different from that of one independent civilized nation with another.

former gradually yields to the influence and example of the latter, or becomes subjected to that destiny which has operated so disastrously on the North American tribes, and, according to Mr. Catlin, doomed them to final and inevitable extinction.

But be this as it may, we maintain that the policy of the Government of the United States, from its first establishment to the present time, towards the Indians, may bear a comparison with that of any other that ever existed under similar circumstances, if history presents such an example, and that so far from having been more oppressive and unjust, it has been distinguished for its superior justice and humanity throughout a long series of the most difficult and embarrassing relations, which demanded a course of policy different in so many respects from that which subsists among civilized States, in their intercourse with each other.

But this difficulty was trifling when compared with another which soon manifested itself. Other It is well known that these relations were among nations had reached their meridian; the United the objects which early occupied the attention of States had just peered above the horizon. The ri- Washington on his elevation to the Presidency of sing sun was their emblem, and "Excelsior," their the United States. His youth had rendered him motto. The people of these new born States were familiar with the habits, customs, condition and naincreasing in numbers with a rapidity beyond all ture of the savages. He had penetrated their

sible.

The example of other nations and of all ages of the world, might have justified a resort to force on this occasion. The United States might have made use of their superiority in arms and numbers, to conquer the Indian lands as fast as their possession became necessary to the rapid expansion of the white population. But they did not do so. They waged war against the savages either in defence of the inhabitants of the frontier, who had a right to their protection, or in retaliation for outrages on the lives and property of those who had ventured among them for purposes of trade.

innate sense of inferiority, jealous of those advantages they are too proud to adopt, and who have long since become fully aware of the ultimate consequences of the first appearance of white men among them.

haunts in peace and encountered them in wars, in which his native State had frequently bitterly suf! fered by their ferocious inroads and indiscriminate massacres. He therefore knew them well, and was aware of the extreme difficulty of managing these wild, vindictive barbarians, whose friendship The causes above indicated have undoubtedly could never be relied on, and whose hatred was so produced frequent wars between the white and the terrible in its consequences. Under his adminis- red man, which have invariably been attended with tration was established that system of Indian policy the acquisition of territory by the latter. But by which has been ever since pursued. It was, in the far the greater portion of Indian lands has been nature of things, impossible to prevent the white acquired by purchase, a mode which Mr. Catlin and red men from coming into contact on our al- stigmatizes with the epithets of fraudulent cupidity, most illimitable frontier; and experience had al- preying on ignorance and credulity. In our opinready proved it equally impossible to prevent colli-ion, he is not justified in such wholesale denunciasion between them. The tide of emigration could tions of a policy uniformly pursued for more than not be arrested by any human power, and all that half a century by the Government of the United was left for the wisdom or virtue of man was, to States, administered by a succession of Chief Magprepare the way with as little destruction as pos-istrates, whose whole life and character preclude the inference that they would thus persevere in a course of injustice and inhumanity. Was the great and good Washington, whom the united suffrages of the civilized world have canonized as the purest heroic model of ancient or modern times, a miserable cheater of savages? Were his successors, who, however assailed for their political creeds, without exception, sustained among all parties, the character of honest and just men in all their dealings;-were these men, from first to last, during the entire course of their administration, the inexorable oppressors and robbers of the Indians? We cannot acquiesce in such a monstrous conclusion. It would be utterly vain to attempt an investiga- It should rest on some more solid basis than the tion of the particular causes of these perpetual bitter, sarcastic declamations of Mr. Catlin, which broils between the savages and the early pioneers, are given with such a zest, and uttered so frequentor to strike the ballance between them. Without ly, in season and out of season, we cannot resist the doubt, sometimes one, sometimes the other, and often impression that they are the result of a settled anboth were to blame. These outrages happened afar tipathy to his unfortunate white fellow-citizens. off, in the obscure wilderness, where the arm of Jus- The Government of the United States has paid tice was never wielded, where its eye never penetra- to the Indians, in these purchases of lands, almost ted, and as every Government owes protection to its countless millions of dollars in ready money and citizens or subjects, it was the duty of ours to pro- annuities. In addition to this, it has given them tect the first pioneers, who paved the way for the possession of a territory bordering on the States advance of the great caravan of civilization, unless of Arkansas and Missouri, amply sufficient for it was incontestibly proved that they had forfeited their present as well as future maintenance, provithat protection by their own conduct. There ded they will only apply those simple modes of were no judicial tribunals to appeal to, and if there cultivation with which they are already acquainthad been, the appeal would not have been made. ed. This immense region is watered by the Red, The savage is his own avenger; and his example the Arkansas, the White, the Osage and the Konis too often followed by that anomalous class of men sas rivers, and is represented by Mr. Catlin as which will always be found in advance of regular rich and beautiful in the highest degree. Provipermanent settlers, and which, as may be well sup- sions were also supplied the emigrating tribes, until posed, consists of daring, reckless adventurers, who, they could cultivate sufficient for themselves, and scrupling not to risk their own, are as little scrupu- they are protected from the incursions of the Calous with regard to the lives of others. In the manches and other roving tribes of the Rocky Moungradual progress of civilization, as exhibited in the tains, by a sufficient force of United States troops. history of the United States, such men always take Yet Mr. Catlin denounces this whole arrangement the van, as a matter of course, since it is not to be expected that quiet, peaceable, industrious people, will all at once precipitate themselves into the region of wild and revengeful savages, soured by an

with his usual unqualified bitterness. He maintains that these emigrant Indians, in their present situation, must either work or starve, and that as they will not condescend to the former, the latter