Читать книгу Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2) - Benton Thomas Hart - Страница 14

The Indian tribes in the different sections of the Union, had experienced very different fates – in the northern and middle States nearly extinct – in the south and west they remained numerous and formidable. Before the war of 1812, with Great Britain, these southern and western tribes held vast, compact bodies of land in these States, preventing the expansion of the white settlements within their limits, and retaining a dangerous neighbor within their borders. The victories of General Jackson over the Creeks, and the territorial cessions which ensued made the first great breach in this vast Indian domain; but much remained to be done to free the southern and western States from a useless and dangerous population – to give them the use and jurisdiction of all the territory within their limits, and to place them, in that respect, on an equality with the northern and middle States. From the earliest periods of the colonial settlements, it had been the policy of the government, by successive purchases of their territory, to remove these tribes further and further to the west; and that policy, vigorously pursued after the war with Great Britain, had made much progress in freeing several of these States (Kentucky entirely, and Tennessee almost) from this population, which so greatly hindered the expansion of their settlements and so much checked the increase of their growth and strength. Still there remained up to the year 1824 – the last year of Mr. Monroe's administration – large portions of many of these States, and of the territories, in the hands of the Indian tribes; in Georgia, nine and a half millions of acres; in Alabama, seven and a half millions; in Mississippi, fifteen and three quarter millions; in the territory of Florida, four millions; in the territory of Arkansas, fifteen and a half millions; in the State of Missouri, two millions and three quarters; in Indiana and Illinois, fifteen millions; and in Michigan, east of the lake, seven millions. All these States and territories were desirous, and most justly and naturally so, to get possession of these vast bodies of land, generally the best within their limits. Georgia held the United States bound by a compact to relieve her. Justice to the other States and territories required the same relief; and the applications to the federal government, to which the right of purchasing Indian lands, even within the States, exclusively belonged, were incessant and urgent. Piecemeal acquisitions, to end in getting the whole, were the constant effort; and it was evident that the encumbered States and territories would not, and certainly ought not to be satisfied, until all their soil was open to settlement, and subject to their jurisdiction. To the Indians themselves it was equally essential to be removed. The contact and pressure of the white race was fatal to them. They had dwindled under it, degenerated, become depraved, and whole tribes extinct, or reduced to a few individuals, wherever they attempted to remain in the old States; and could look for no other fate in the new ones.

"What," exclaimed Mr. Elliott, senator from Georgia, in advocating a system of general removal – "what has become of the immense hordes of these people who once occupied the soil of the older States? In New England, where numerous and warlike tribes once so fiercely contended for supremacy with our forefathers, but two thousand five hundred of their descendants remain, and they are dispirited and degraded. Of the powerful league of the Six Nations, so long the scourge and terror of New-York, only about five thousand souls remain. In New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, the numerous and powerful tribes once seen there, are either extinct, or so reduced as to escape observation in any enumeration of the States' inhabitants. In Virginia, Mr. Jefferson informs us that there were at the commencement of its colonization (1607), in the comparatively small portion of her extent which lies between the sea-coast and the mountains, and from the Potomac to the most southern waters of James River, upwards of forty tribes of Indians: now there are but forty-seven individuals in the whole State! In North Carolina none are counted: in South Carolina only four hundred and fifty. While in Georgia, where thirty years since there were not less than thirty thousand souls, there now remain some fifteen thousand – the one half having disappeared in a single generation. That many of these people have removed, and others perished by the sword in the frequent wars which have occurred in the progress of our settlements, I am free to admit. But where are the hundreds of thousands, with their descendants, who neither removed, nor were thus destroyed? Sir, like a promontory of sand, exposed to the ceaseless encroachments of the ocean, they have been gradually wasting away before the current of the advancing white population which set in upon them from every quarter; and unless speedily removed beyond the influence of this cause, of the many tens of thousands now within the limits of the southern and western States, a remnant will not long be found to point you to the graves of their ancestors, or to relate the sad story of their disappearance from earth."

Mr. Jefferson, that statesman in fact as well as in name, that man of enlarged and comprehensive views, whose prerogative it was to foresee evils and provide against them, had long foreseen the evils both to the Indians and to the whites, in retaining any part of these tribes within our organized limits; and upon the first acquisition of Louisiana – within three months after the acquisition – proposed it for the future residence of all the tribes on the east of the Mississippi; and his plan had been acted upon in some degree, both by himself and his immediate successor. But it was reserved for Mr. Monroe's administration to take up the subject in its full sense, to move upon it as a system, and to accomplish at a single operation the removal of all the tribes from the east to the west side of the Mississippi – from the settled States and territories, to the wide and wild expanse of Louisiana. Their preservation and civilization, and permanency in their new possessions, were to be their advantages in this removal – delusive, it might be, but still a respite from impending destruction if they remained where they were. This comprehensive plan was advocated by Mr. Calhoun, then Secretary of War, and charged with the administration of Indian affairs. It was a plan of incalculable value to the southern and western States, but impracticable without the hearty concurrence of the northern and non-slaveholding States. It might awaken the slavery question, hardly got to sleep after the alarming agitations of the Missouri controversy. The States and territories to be relieved were slaveholding. To remove the Indians would make room for the spread of slaves. No removal could be effected without the double process of a treaty and an appropriation act – the treaty to be ratified by two thirds of the Senate, where the slave and free States were equal, and the appropriation to be obtained from Congress, where free States held the majority of members. It was evident that the execution of the whole plan was in the hands of the free States; and nobly did they do their duty by the South. Some societies, and some individuals, no doubt, with very humane motives, but with the folly, and blindness, and injury to the objects of their care which generally attend a gratuitous interference with the affairs of others, attempted to raise an outcry, and made themselves busy to frustrate the plan; but the free States themselves, in their federal action, and through the proper exponents of their will – their delegations in Congress – cordially concurred in it, and faithfully lent it a helping and efficient hand. The President, Mr. Monroe, in the session 1824-'25, recommended its adoption to Congress, and asked the necessary appropriation to begin from the Congress. A bill was reported in the Senate for that purpose, and unanimously passed that body. What is more, the treaties made with the Kansas and Osage tribes in 1825, for the cession to the United States of all their vast territory west of Missouri and Arkansas, except small reserves to themselves, and which treaties had been made without previous authority from the government, and for the purpose of acquiring new homes for all the Indians east of the Mississippi, were duly and readily ratified. Those treaties were made at St. Louis by General Clarke, without any authority, so far as this large acquisition was concerned, at my instance, and upon my assurance that the Senate would ratify them. It was done. They were ratified: a great act of justice was rendered to the South. The foundation was laid for the future removal of the Indians, which was followed up by subsequent treaties and acts of Congress, until the southern and western States were as free as the northern from the incumbrance of an Indian population; and I, who was an actor in these transactions, who reported the bills and advocated the treaties which brought this great benefit to the south and west, and witnessed the cordial support of the members from the free States, without whose concurrence they could not have been passed – I, who wish for harmony and concord among all the States, and all the sections of this Union, owe it to the cause of truth and justice, and to the cultivation of fraternal feelings, to bear this faithful testimony to the just and liberal conduct of the non-slaveholding States, in relieving the southern and western States from so large an incumbrance, and aiding the extension of their settlement and cultivation. The recommendation of Mr. Monroe, and the treaties of 1825, were the beginning of the system of total removal; but it was a beginning which assured the success of the whole plan, and was followed up, as will be seen, in the history of each case, until the entire system was accomplished.