unhappy people. Better that we should entail a debt upon our posterity
on Indian account, were that necessary, than that we should leave them
an inheritance of shame. We may have no fear that the dying curse of the
red man, outcast and homeless by our fault, will bring barrenness upon
the soil that once was his, or dry the streams of the beautiful land
that, through so much of evil and of good, has become our patrimony; but
surely we shall be clearer in our lives, and freer to meet the glances
of our sons and grandsons, if in our generation we do justice and show
mercy to a race which has been impoverished that we might be made rich.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] From "The North American Review," April, 1873.

[B] The writer does not intend to say that the citizens of the border
States are always just or reasonable in their disposition towards the
Indians. It cannot be denied, that, in the exasperation of conflict,
they often commit atrocities rivalling those of the savages; that,
moreover, under the smart of wrong, they are very often indiscriminating
in their revenge, and do cruel injustice to peaceful bands; and that,
with the recklessness characteristic of border talk, they indulge to a
vast extent in denunciations of horrible sound. To this is added, that
in such communities are found more than the usual number of persons of a
natural malignity of disposition, often refugees from criminal justice,
who delight in committing outrages upon the exposed and helpless members
of an inferior race. The opinion which the writer has given above is
entirely consistent with the present admissions. The animosities felt
and expressed are not towards the Indians as Indians, but arise out of
the sense of injuries suffered, and the apprehension of further
suffering. Were the Indians once rendered, by the extension and
strengthening of our settlements, powerless for harm, the easy
tolerance, the rough good-nature, and the quick condonement of wrong,
which characterize pioneer communities, would speedily reconcile the
whites to their presence, and establish relations not wholly unworthy of
both parties.

[C] The relations of the Arickarees--or, as they are commonly called,
even in official reports, the 'Rees--to the government, form one of the
most instructive chapters of Indian history. In 1838 the agent for the
Upper Missouri Indian agency, in his annual report to the Department of
Indian Affairs, used the following language in respect to thi