who will then fast fall away. Those dispossessed of their lands can not, as many suppose, retire farther west; the regions lying beyond one tribe are generally occupied by another, with whom deadly animosity exists. Even when the white settlers advance their frontier, the natives linger about till their own poverty and vice consign them to oblivion, and the present policy adopted by the government is the best that could be devised for their extermination. It is needless to say that many of the Sioux look forward to the destruction of their race with all the feelings of despair with which the civilized man would contemplate the extinction of his nationality. How indeed, poor devils, are they to live when the pale face comes with his pestilent fire-water and smallpox, followed up with paper and pen work, to be interpreted under the gentle auspices of fire and steel?
The advance of the settlements is universally acknowledged by the people of the United States to be a political necessity in the national development, and on that ground only is the displacement of the rightful owners of the soil justifiable. But the government, instead of preparing the way for settlements by wise and just purchases from those in possession, and proper support and protection for the indigent and improvident race thus dispossessed, is sometimes behind its obligations. There are instances of Congress refusing or delaying to ratify the treaties made by its duly authorized agents. The settler and pioneer are thus precipitated into the Indian country, without the savage having received the promised consideration, and he often, in a manner that enlists the sympathies of mankind, takes up the tomahawk and perishes in the attempt. It frequently happens that the Western settlers are charged with bringing about these wars; they are now, however, fighting the battles of civilization exactly as they were fought three centuries ago upon the Atlantic shore, under circumstances that command equal admiration and approval. While, therefore, we sympathize with the savage, we can not but feel for the unhappy squatter, whose life is sacrificed to the Indian's vengeance by the errors or dilatoriness of those whose duty it is to protect him.
The people of the United States, of course, know themselves to be invincible by the hands of these half-naked savages. But the Indians, who on their own ground still outnumber the whites, are by no means so convinced of the fact. Until the army of Utah moved westward, many of them had never seen a soldier. At a grand council of the Dakotah, in the summer of 1857, on the North Fork of the Platte River, they solemnly pledged themselves to resist the encroachments of the whites, and, if necessary, to "whip" them out of the country. The appearance of the troops has undoubtedly produced a highly beneficial effect; still,
Mr. Warren's opinion concerning the future of the Dakotahs as a contrast to that of the Dakotah Mission. My own view will conclude the case in p. 102.
