Early in the century Sidney Smith said of the English nation, in reference to the possibility of converting the Hindoos to Christ: “We have exemplified in our public conduct every crime of which human nature is capable.” Those words stand to-day the terms of the indictment of the United States in her dealings with the Indians.
We have persistently _broken faith with them_. A volume of testimony might readily be produced; but Gen. Leake’s able setting forth of the history of our Indian treaties furnishes all the proof necessary. But as a single illustration, take this statement from a Government official. In seven of our most important treaties with as many different tribes we have bound ourselves to provide education for the children of those tribes. At a low estimate there are 33,000 children of schoolable age. The Government has provided accommodations for but 2,589. Add 5,082 as the number who may possibly be further accommodated in the miserable makeshifts of transient day schools, and you have but 7,671 as the total provision. (Letter of Acting Indian Commissioner Brooks, April 28, 1879.)
But why begin this story? We have made the name Modoc one to frighten children with for a generation; but the Modoc chief who killed the brave Gen. Canby had first been himself betrayed, and had his kindred killed under a U.S. flag of truce; and his women had been violated and burned to death. (Bishop Whipple’s letter to _N. Y. Evening Post_, Jan., 1879.) We fought the Nez Perces; and when that able and manly chief Joseph surrendered, he did it on conditions the flagrant violation of which on the part of our Government is known to every Indian on the plains. (Mr. Tibball’s letter of October 9, 1879, in _N. Y. Tribune_.) We have justified the sneers with which Sitting Bull dismissed Assistant Secretary Cowan in a council held before the outbreak of the last Sioux war: “Return to your own land, and when you have found a white man who does not lie, come back.” We furnished occasion for the sorrowful words of the old chief who, after the Custer massacre, came to the Whipple Commission on the Missouri and said: “Look out there. The prairie is wet with the blood of the white man. I hear the voices of beautiful women crying for their husbands, who will never return. It is not an Indian war. It is a white man’s war, for the white man has lied. Take this pipe to the great Father and tell him to smoke it, for it is the pipe of truth.”