dealings of our Government with the Indians. But it has not been so in intent, in premeditated or deliberate defiance of humane methods. Far otherwise. Very easily might a mass of evidence be spread before us, with testimony from documents, messages of Presidents, beginning with those of Washington, acts and resolves of Congress, schemes, appropriations, and all sorts of public measures devised by our Government and the constituency behind it,—all showing an honorable intention to treat the aborigines, as a whole and in their tribes, with mercy, humanity, and a lavish generosity. And these righteous aims have been complemented by an infinite succession of philanthropic, missionary, and educational enterprises, undertaken by individuals and associations. Sums of money, which would have covered any estimate which the Indians themselves would have made of the value of what have been regarded as their lands, have been paid for ends of peace with them, to say nothing of the cost of fighting them.
Yet all these humane and kindly purposes have been thwarted, and the actual results are humiliating to us; convicting us of grievous wrong; seemingfully to justify the stinging reproaches against our Government. Possibly, those reproaches may be somewhat lightened by a candid statement of the means and causes through which just intentions have in effect yielded to injustice and treachery. These good purposes have faltered, and have then
