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1 A Glance at Our Indian Record 1 (1884)

handle is hein.amindian/fefactsia0001 and id is 1 raw text is: A GLANCE AT OUR INDIAN RECORD. OUR NATIONAL PROMISES TO INDIANS.-Our Govern- ment has made hundreds of treaties with the Indians during the last century, and our Constitution declares that:- All treaties made under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the law or constitution of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. In these treaties the Indian tribes are uni- formly acknowledged to be nations, a treaty indeed being a compact between independent communities, each party acting through the medium of its government. These treaties promise the payment of annuities due; that their territories shall never be invaded by any individual, State, or by the United States, but shall be a permanent home to remain theirs forever ; that their property s all never be taken from them except in war duly authorized by Congress, and also that education shall ha given to Indian children. HAVE WE KEPT OUR COVENANTS ?-In less than a half century we had broken scores of Indian treaties. They have seldom, if ever, been kept. Says Jlishop Whipple: I have asked scores of brave officers who have grown grey in the service if they knew of a single instance where Indians have been the first to break the treaty, and they have always answered, No. In 1828 we gave the Cherokees solemn guaranty of their lands forever; ten years afterwards, at the request of Georgia 18,000 of them* were driven from their homes and tilled acres, before the arm3, with great loss of prop- erty and also of one-fburth their number, many hundreds of miles into an unknown wilderness. In 1876 seven hundred Poncas were thus robbed and driven fifty-five days' march away from their own home, losing more than 150 of their number in less than a year, from changes and conditions which only the stronger could survive. In 1878 a remnant of the Cheyennes, having been thus driven to a new home, and having been compelled by starvation to attempt return- ing to their former home, were pursued, captured, and for five days in a Dakotaprison, in mid-winter without food or fire, suffered till their chief, madened by the long torture, attempted suicide, his wife finish- ing the deed for his sake, and then taking her own life. A few others of these captives escaping, were again pursued by soldiers, overtaken in a narrow caftion, and thcre killed or re-captured. Four times within a century have the Stoekbridges and Delawares suffered the horrors of removal. * Some authorities estimate the number much higher. Reproduction by Permmission of Buffalo & Erie County Public Library Buffalo, NY

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