That the poor Indians to whom reserved lands have been granted, and who,
on the faith of treaties, have made their homes and gathered themselves
into villages on such lands, should, whenever it is deemed expedient, be
driven out of their possessions, either by purchase, or by persuasion,
or by force, or by measures which include all three, and sent to seek a
livelihood in distant and strange regions--as in the case of these
Delawares--is horrible, and bears cruelty and injustice on the face of
it. To say that they cannot exist in amicable relation with the whites,
without deprivation of their morals, is a fearful imputation on us as
Christians;--but thus it is. And I do wish that those excellent and
benevolent people who have taken the cause of the aborigines to heart,
and are making appeals in their behalf to the justice of the government
and the compassion of the public, would, instead of theorising in
England, come out here and behold the actual state of things with their
own eyes--and having seen all, let them say _what_ is to be done, and
what chances exist, for the independence, and happiness, and morality of
a small remnant of Indians residing on a block of land, six miles
square, surrounded on every side by a white population. To insure the
accomplishment of those benevolent and earnest aspirations, in which so
many good people indulge, what is required? what is expected? Of the
white men such a pitch of lofty and self-sacrificing virtue, of humane
philosophy and christian benevolence, that the future welfare of the
wronged people they have supplanted shall be preferred above their own
immediate interest--nay, their own immediate existence: of the red man,
that he shall forget the wild hunter blood flowing through his veins,
and take the plough in hand, and wield the axe and the spade instead of
the rifle and the fishspear! Truly they know not what they ask, who ask
this; and among all those with whom I have conversed--persons familiar
from thirty to forty years together with the Indians and their mode of
life--I never heard but one opinion on the subject. Without casting the
slightest imputation on the general honesty of intention of the
missionaries and others delegated and well paid by various societies to
teach and protect the Indians, still I will say that the enthusiasm of
some, the self-interest of others, and an unconscious mixture of pious
enthusiasm and self-interest in many more, render it necessary to take
their testimony with some reservation; for often with them "the wish is
father to the thought" set down; and feeling no lack of faith in their
cause or in themselves, they look for miracles, such as waited on the
missions of the apostles of old. But in the mean time, and by human
agency, what is to be done? Nothing so easy as to point out evils and
injuries, resulting from foregone events, or deep-seated in natural and
necessary causes, and lament over them with resistless eloquence in
verse and prose, or hold them up to the sympathy and indignation of the
universe; but let the real friends of religion, humanity, and the poor
Indians, set down a probable and feasible remedy for their wrongs and
miseries; and follow it up, as the advocates for the abolition of the
slave-trade followed up their just and glorious purpose. With a definite
object and plan, much might be done; but mere declamation against the
evil does little good. The people who propose remedies, forget that
there are two parties concerned. I remember to have read in some of the
early missionary histories, that one of the Jesuit fathers, (Father le
Jeune), full of sympathy and admiration for the noble qualities and
lofty independence of the converted Indians, who could not and would not
work, suggested the propriety of sending out some of the French
peasantry to work and till the ground for them, as the only means of
keeping them from running off to the woods. A doubtful sort of
philanthropy, methinks! but it shows how _one-sided_ a life's devotion
to one particular object will make even a benevolent and a just man.