USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Wilkes-Barre > A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, from its first beginnings to the present time; including chapters of newly-discovered, Vol. I > Part 21
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In the judgment of the present writer the most intelligent and best- informed men and women-both of past and present times-who have written honestly and with understanding and discernment about the North American Indian, have conenrred in the opinion that, before he had come m11ch in contact with the white man, he was brave, indus- trious and strictly honest. Lying was so despised that habitual caution in speech has always been the Indian's rule. He was faithful in friend- ship and to family and tribal ties; self-respecting, hospitable, light- hearted and mirth-loving. Heckewelder (mentioned on page 42) viewed the Indians in a very favorable light. He gives, in his various publica- tions, instances of kindness so disinterested and of generosity so noble and chivalrous, on the part of the mucorrupted Indians, as to excite our admiration and win our applause. When we read his descriptions of the sincerity and lasting nature of their friendship, their simple-hearted hospitality and their commanding greatness of mind, we are compelled, despite our horror at their cruelties and repugnance to their savage inode of life, to deplore their hard fate and pity their misfortunes.
Turner, in his. "Pioneer History of the Holland Purchase of West- ern New York" (Buffalo, 1849), wrote :
"Nowhere in a long career of discovery, of enterprise and extension of empire. have Europeans found natives of the soil with as many of the noblest attributes of humanity-moral and physical elements which, if they could not have been blended with ours, could have maintained a separate existence and been fostered by the proximity of civilization and the arts. Everywhere when first approached by our race, they welcomed
* Lieut. Gen. W. T. SHERMAN, U. S. A., in an official communication made in August, 1868, said : "The co-existence of two races such as ours and the Indian in the same district of country is a simple impos- sibility, without a constant state of war."-Harper's Magazine, XL : 735.
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us and made demonstrations of friendship and peace. Savage as they were usually called, savage as they may have been in their assaults and wars upon each other, there is no act of theirs recorded in the history of our early settlements and colonization of this new world, of wrong or outrage, that was not provoked by assault, treachery or deception -- breaches of the hospitality which they had extended to us as strangers in a bare and foreign land. Whatever of savage character they may have possessed, so far as our race was concerned, it was dormant until aroused to action by assault, or treachery of intruders upon their soil, whom they had met and treated as friends."
George Catlin, some years after his death, was charged by the writer of a Government report* with having "permitted his sympathy for the Indian to warp his judgment." "Mr. Catlin," said the writer, "saw but the man. He queried not at policies. His plea was humanity. His creed never changed. No one has had the courage as yet to publicly defend all the acts of the nation against the Indian. It would be a bold act in any person to even attempt it. But Mr. Catlin took the sentimental side of the Indian question in the matter of state policy until the day of his death. His creed was theory or opinion deduced from a most delightful eight years with the Indians."
Because of the length of time spent by Mr. Catlin among the Indians, carefully observing and endeavoring to understand their customs of life and traits of character ; because he had come in contact with so many Indians (forty-eight tribes, as previously mentioned) in almost all parts of this continent ; because he was a native of, and spent several years of his early manhood in, Wyoming Valley (where he learned well the story of Indian customs and cruelties that had been practised in this region in the lifetime of many of his friends and relatives, and upon the persons of some of them), and because he was an intelligent, honorable, God-fearing man, the present writer is firm in the belief that the "creed," or "theory," or "opinion," of George Catlin-as well as the vast amount of information obtained and recorded by him-regarding the North American Indians, was and is of value. Although we have already quoted many paragraphs from the writings of Mr. Catlin, we will here introduce a portion of his "Indian Creed" written in 1868 :+
"I have had some unfriendly denunciations by the press, and by those critics I have been reproachfully designated the 'Indian-loving Catlin.' What of this? What have I to answer? Have I any apology to make for loving the Indians? The Indians have always loved me, and why should I not love the Indians?
"I love the people who have always made me welcome to the best they had.
"I love a people who are honest without laws, who have no jails and no poor- houses.
"I love a people who keep the Commandments without ever having read them or heard them preached from the pulpit.
"I love a people who never swear, who never take the name of God in vain.
"I love a people who love their neighbors as they love themselves.
"I love a people who worship God without a Bible, for I believe that God loves them also.
"I love the people whose religion is all the same, and who are free from religious animosities.
"I love a people who have never raised a hand against me, or stolen my property, where there was no law to punish them for either.
"I love the people who never have fought a battle with white men except on their own ground.
"I love and don't fear mankind where God has made and left them, for they are children.
"I love a people who live and keep what is their own without locks and keys.
"I love all people who do the best they can-and, oh ! how I love a people who don't live for the love of money.
* * I was luckily born in time to see these people in their native dignity and beauty and independence, and to be a living witness to the cruelties with which they have
*"Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, to July, 1885," II : 737-739, + See his "Last Rambles," referred to on pages 84 and $5, ante.
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been treated worse than dogs, and now to be treated worse than wolves. And in my former publications I have predicted just what is now taking place-that in their thrown and hunted down condition the future 'gallopers' across the Plains and Rocky Mountains would see here and there the scattered and starving and begging and haggard remnants of these once proud and handsome people, [and would] represent them in their en- tailed misery and wretchedness as 'the Sionx,' 'the Cheyennes,' 'the Osages,' etc., and me, of course, as a liar." * *
Catlin was not the only man of his time who wrote and spoke enthusiastically and eulogistically of the Indian. Many other Amer- icans of that period, and some of carlier as well as later times-and nearly all of them men of knowledge and ability-raised their voices and wielded their pens in behalf of the Indian. We would like to in- troduce here a number of extracts from some of the eloquent tributes and appeals referred to, but lack of space prohibits the insertion of more than the two following-which are from addresses delivered in the year preceding that in which Catlin began his work among the Indians. The following is from an address entitled "Character and Fate of the Amer- ican Indians," delivered by the Hon. Joseph Story* before the Essex (Massachusetts) Historical Society, September 18, 1828.
"In the fate of the aborigines of our country-the American Indians-there is, my friends, much to awaken our sympathy, and much to disturb the sobriety of our judg- ments ; much which may be urged to excuse their own atrocities ; much in their charac- ters which betrays us into an involuntary admiration. What can be more melancholy than their history? Two centuries ago the smoke of their wigwams and the fires of their councils rose in every valley from Hudson's Bay to the farthest Florida-from the ocean to the Mississippi and the lakes. The shouts of victory and the war-dance rang through the mountains and the glades. The thick arrows and the deadly tomahawk whistled through the forests, and the hunter's trace and the dark encampment startled the wild beasts in their lairs. The warriors stood forth in their glory. The young listened to the songs of other days. The mothers played with their infants, and gazed on the scene with warm hopes of the future. The aged sat down, but they wept not. They would soon be at rest in fairer regions-where the Great Spirit dwelt-in a home prepared for the brave beyond the western skies. Braver men never lived ; truer men never drew the bow. They had courage and fortitude and sagacity and perseverance beyond most of the human race. They shrank from no dangers, and they feared no hardships. If they had the vices of savage life, they had the virtues also. They were true to their country, their friends and their homes. If they forgave not injury, neither did they forget kindness. If their vengeance was terrible, their fidelity and generosity were unconquerable also. Their love, like their hate, stopped not on this side of the grave.
"But where are they? Where are the villages and warriors and youth? The sachems and the tribes? The hunters and their families? They have perished ! They are consumed ! The wasting pestilence has not alone done the mighty work. No ! nor famine nor war! There has been a mightier power, a moral canker, which hath eaten into their heart-cores-a plague, which the touch of the white man communicated-a poison, which betrayed them into a lingering ruin. The winds of the Atlantic fan not a single region which they may now call their own. Already the last feeble remnants of the race are preparing for their journey beyond the Mississippi. I see them leave their miserable homes-the aged, the helpless, the women and the warriors-'few and faint, yet fearless still.' The ashes are cold on their native hearths. The smoke no longer curls round their lowly cabins. They move on with a slow, unsteady step. The white man is upon their heels, for terror or despatch ; but they heed him not. They turn to take a last look of their deserted villages. They cast a last glance upon the graves of their fathers. They shed no tears ; they utter no cries ; they heave no groans. There is something in their hearts which passes speech. There is something in their looks-not of vengeance or submission, but of hard necessity, which stifles both ; which chokes all utterance ; which has no aim or method. It is courage absorbed in despair ! They linger but for a moment. Their look is onward. They have passed the fatal stream). *
They know and feel that there is for them still one remove farther-not distant nor unseen. It is to the general burial-ground of their race."
* JOSEPH STORY was born at Marblehead, Massachusetts, September 18, 1779, and died September 10, 1845. He was graduated at Harvard University in 1798, and was admitted to the bar in 1801. From 1811 until his death he was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. I11 1829 he became Professor of Law at Harvard. He was the author of "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States," "Equity Jurisprudence," "The Conflict of Laws," and other important works.
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The following paragraphs are from an address entitled "Aboriginals of New England," delivered by the Rev. William B. Sprague, S. T. D .*
* * * "Here the wigwam blaze beamed on the tender and helpless, the council- fire glared on the wise and daring. Now they dipped their noble limbs in your sedgy lakes, and now they paddled the light canoe along your rocky shores. Here they warred. The echoing whoop, the bloody grapple, the defying death-song-all were here ; and when the tiger strife was over, here curled the smoke of peace. Here, too, they worshipped ; and from many a dark bosom went up a pure prayer to the Great Spirit. He had not written His laws for them on tables of stone, but He had traced them on the tables of their hearts. The poor child of Nature knew not the God of Revelation, but the God of the Universe he acknowledged in everything around. He beheld him in the star that sank in beauty behind his lonely dwelling ; in the sacred orb that flamed on him from his midday throne ; in the flower that snapped in the morning breeze ; in the lofty pine that defied a thousand whirlwinds ; in the timid warbler that never left its native grove ; in the fearless eagle whose untired pinion was wet in the clouds ; in the worn that crawled at his foot, and in his own matchless form, glowing with a spark of that light to whose mysterious source he bent in humble, though blind, adoration.
"And all this has passed away. Across the ocean came a pilgrim bark bearing the seeds of life and death. The former were sown for you ; the latter sprang up in the path of the simple native. Two hundred years have changed the character of a great con- tinent, and blotted forever from its face a whole, peculiar people. Art has usurped the bowers of Nature, and the anointed children of education have been too powerful for the tribes of the ignorant. Here and there a stricken few remain, but how unlike their bold, untamable progenitors ! The Indian of falcon glance and lion bearing, the theme of the touching ballad, the hero of the pathetic tale, is gone ; and his degraded offspring crawl upon the soil, where he walked in majesty, to remind us how miserable is man when the foot of the conqueror is on his neck.
"As a race they have withered from the land. Their arrows are broken, their springs are dried up, their cabins are in the dust. Their council-fire has long since gone out on the shore, and their war-cry is fast dying to the untrodden west. Slowly and sadly they climb the distant mountains and read their doom in the setting sun. They are shrinking before the mighty tide which is pressing them away ; they must soon hear the roar of the last wave which will settle over them forever. Ages hence the inquisitive white man, as he stands by some growing city, will ponder on the structure of their disturbed remains and wonder to what manner of persons they belonged. They will live only in the songs and chronicles of their exterminators. Let these be faithful to their rude virtues as men, and pay due tribute to their unhappy fate as a people."
When the Confederation of the American Colonies was formed in September, 1774, the Indians of the country became a charge, and under the control, of the Continental Congress; and in June, 1775, three departments of Indian affairs were created by the Congress. The first, known as the Northern Department, embraced the Indians of the Six Nations and all Indians northward of them ; the Southern Department included the Cherokees (then and for a long time previously settled in Georgia) and all Indians south of thein, while the Middle Department included all the Indian nations inhabiting the country lying between the other two departments. The affairs of each department were attended to by a board of commissioners, who were empowered to make treaties and were supplied with money for the purchase of presents to be made and for other expenses. This system was adopted and put into operation, not for the purpose of ameliorating the condition of the Indians, but simply in order that peace with them might be preserved during an anticipated period of trouble between the Colonies and the mother country.
In March, 1778, the Continental Congress first authorized the em- ployment of Indians in the army, "if General Washington thinks it prudent and proper ; " and later in the same year the first formal treaty was inade between the United States and an Indian tribe-the Dela- wares. The treaty system thus inaugurated-by and between the
* WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE was born in October, 1795. From 1829 to 1869 he was pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, Albany, New York. In 1828 he received the degree of S. T. D. from Columbia College. He was the author of more than one hundred published sermons, memoirs, addresses and essays.
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United States (by its commissioners) and the various Indian tribes as separate and independent nations-continued until the year 1869, resulting in about 380 treaties and almost endless confusion. Then Congress ordered that the making of such treaties should be stopped, and thenceforward the Indians of the United States (with the exception of those in Alaska) have been regarded and treated as "wards of the Nation." Indirectly at first, and then directly, the affairs of the Indians were under the supervision and management of the Department of War from 1787 till 1849, when the Bureau of Indian Affairs was transferred to the Department of the Interior, where it is now known as the "Office of Indian Affairs," is presided over by a "Commissioner" (who is subor- dinate to the Secretary of the Interior), and "has charge of the Indian tribes of the United States (exclusive of Alaska), their lands, moneys, schools, purchase of supplies, and general welfare."
Since the year 1794, by means of treaties, purchases and executive orders made in pursuance of Acts of Congress, reservations in various parts of the United States have been from time to time erected for the use and occupancy of particular tribes or nations of Indians, and they have been required to live thereon. These reservations, as they exist now, are domains ranging in area from 350 to 9,442,240 acres within the bounds of certain States and Territories. When occupied they are under the absolute control of United States Indian Agents, who are supervised and directed by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. For a good many years-particularly during the time that the Department of War had the supervision of Indian affairs-many of the Indian Agents were United States Army officers, drawn from the active as well as the retired list of the Army. But the reservation system-even with trained military officers as Agents-did not, of course, put a stop to Indian out- breaks, and whenever they occurred the strong military arm of the Government was used to quell them and to punish with severity the law- less and refractory "wards of the Nation." Finally, in December, 1869, President Grant, in his annual message to Congress, wrote :
"From the foundation of the Government to the present time the management of the original inhabitants of this continent, the Indians, has been a subject of embarrass- ment and expense, and has been attended with continuous robberies, murders and wars. From my own experience, upon the frontier and in Indian countries, I do not hold either legislation or the conduct of the whites who come most in contact with the Indians blame- less for these hostilities. ** * I have adopted a new policy towards these wards of the Nation ( they cannot be regarded in any other light than as wards), with fair results so far as tried, and which I hope will be attended ultimately with great success."
The policy of President Grant became known as the "peace policy," and in it he was aided by the representatives of various religious denom- inations. The entire Indian population was apportioned out, and a large number of Indian Agents having been named by eleven different relig- ious bodies were duly appointed by the President.
In January, 1882, Gen. W. T. Sherman wrote as follows to Col. R. I. Dodge :
"In the treatment by the National Government of the Indians, the military and civil officers of the Government have generally been diametrically opposed. The former (the military) believing the Indians to be as children, needing counsel, advice and example, coupled with a force which commands respect and obedience from a sense of fear. The latter (the civilian), trusting mostly to moral suasion and religious instruction. The absolute proof produced by you that the Indian has a strong religious bias, but is absolutely devoid of a moral sense as connected with religion, more than ever convinces me that the military authorities of the United States are better qualified to guide the
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steps of the Indian towards that conclusion which we all desire-self-support and peace- ful relations with his neighbors-than the civilian agents, most of whom are members of some one of our Christian Churches. "*
Time demonstrated that the civilizing of the Indian is one thing, the christianizing another, and that civilization and christianization did not seem to work well when taught and enforced by the denominational Agents. Therefore, after a few years of trial this policy was abandoned, and since then Agents have been appointed by the President without regard to the recommendations of religious bodies.
According to a decision of a Judge of the United States District Court for Nebraska, rendered in 1879, the "Indian is a person within the meaning of the laws of the United States ; * and Indians possess the inherent right of expatriation as well as the more fortunate white race, and have the inalienable right to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' so long as they obey the laws." This decision was never reversed, but still by law and Government practice the Indian continued to be looked upon as "a ward of the Nation" and so treated. The United States Courts early decided that the Indian was not the owner of the soil he occupied, and that he was incompetent to transfer any rights to that soil.
When the reservation system was first introduced, and for some years thereafter, each of the reservations was for the exclusive use, in common, of the members of the particular tribe or tribes assigned to it; or, in other words, definite areas of the lands comprising the reservation were not allotted to the Indians in severalty. From time to time, however- particularly in very recent years-millions of acres lying within the bounds of various reservations have been allotted to the Indians occupy- ing the same ; and when further allotments, for which arrangements are now under way, shall have been made, about two-thirds of the Indians in the United States (exclusive of Alaska) will have been provided for in this inanner.
Under the reservation system nothing on the reservation is the subject of taxation, and the nonallotted Indians are not citizens; but Congress can at any time, by an Act, declare all Indians in the United States citizens of the country. In 1891 the Indians who were not citizens were the nonallotted reservation Indians, the Six Nations of New York and the "Five Civilized Tribes" of Indian Territory-to whom further reference will be made later. Since 1891 many of these Indians have become citizens by operation of law, as previously noted. The allotting of definite areas of reservation lands wipes out the reservation, of course, and confers upon the Indian allottees citizenship in the par- ticular State or Territory in which the lands lie.
For many years rations and clothing were gratuitously and indis- criminately issued by the Government at regular stated times to the Indians on the reservations-with few exceptions; but this system is being gradually abolished. By those who have given attention to the subject it has been realized for some years that, in the Indian's progress towards self-support, the first, and perhaps the principal, obstacle has been the prevailing ration system. It has been justly condemned as encouraging idleness, with its attendant vices, and as foreign in its results to the very purpose for which it was designed. At the same
* see "Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1885," Part II, page 740.
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time, while an evil, it was admitted to be a necessary evil, but to be endured only while the Indian was learning the art of self-support, or was being put in a way where, by the exercise of ordinary industry, he could support himself. The continuance of the practice of indiscriin- inately issuing rations to all alike, without regard to their worldly condi- tions, was earnestly opposed about four years ago, and it was then determined by the Government authorities "that only the old and help- less should be supported, while the able-bodied, if not already self- supporting, should be given the opportunity to work and should then be required to take care of themselves."
In 1894 an intelligent, educated, Christian Apache Indian of full- blood delivered an address in Wilkes-Barré on the present-day Indians. He argued that the reservation idea was all wrong. "Do not waste time and money on reservations," he said, "which only multiply and perpetuate pauperism. Give the Indian freely of your civilization, and the problem is solved. The reservation idea is not common sense ; it is a theory, and you cannot solve the Indian question on theory. The Indian should not be treated as a different being from the white man, but just like the white man and along side of him. The reservation is a promoter of idleness, and it fosters beggary and ruin." Ten years later, in March, 1904, the President of the United States received a delegation of Oglala Sioux Indians, visiting Washington from their reservation in South Dakota. The Indians on this reservation own about 40,000 ponies, and it is said that they are more addicted to horse-racing and gambling than they are to agriculture. The President informned the delegation that it is now the determined policy of the Government to take care of the older Indians, but that the younger members of all the tribes soon would have to look out for themselves, as other citizens of the United States do. Idleness and laziness would not be tolerated, and they must learn to cultivate industry and self-reliance. Tribal relations are to be broken up and each Indian made independent in the same way as white citizens.
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