l scale; to become fisherman,
lumberman, herdsman, menial, beggar, or thief, according to aptitude or
accident, or the wants of the community at large. True it is that the
modes adopted, in fact, in dealing with particular tribes, have
generally been due to chance or to the caprices of administration; true,
also, that the experiments which have been made do not reflect much
credit on the sagacity of the superior race to which have been intrusted
the destinies of the red man: but there has been a vast amount of
good-nature and benevolent intention exhibited; the experiments have
been in many directions, and have covered a large field; and while the
results, in the manifest want of adaptation of means to ends, and of
operations to material, cannot be deemed wholly conclusive of the
philosophy of the situation, yet very much can be learned from them that
bears upon the questions of the present day. As has been stated, the
issues of the experiments tried have been of every kind. To assertions
that the Indian cannot be civilized, can be opposed instances of Indian
communities which have attained a very considerable degree of
advancement in all the arts of life. To the more cautious assertion,
that, while the tribes which subsist chiefly on a vegetable diet are
susceptible of being tamed and improved, the meat-eating Indians, the
buffalo and antelope hunters, are hopelessly intractable and savage, can
be opposed instances of such tribes which, in an astonishingly short
time, have been influenced to abandon the chase, to undertake
agricultural pursuits, to labor with zeal and patience, to wear white
man's clothes, send their children to school, attend church on Sunday,
and choose their officers by ballot. To the assertion that the Indian,
however seemingly reclaimed, and for a time regenerated, still retains
his savage propensities and animal appetites, and will sooner or later
relapse into barbarism, can be opposed instances of slow and steady
growth in self-respect and self-control, extending over two generations,
without an indication of the tendencies alleged. To assertions that the
Indian cannot resist either physical or moral corruption by contact with
the whites, that he inevitably becomes subject to the baser elements of
civilized communities, that every form of infectious or contagious
disease becomes doubly fatal to him, and that he learns all the vices
but none of the virtues of society, can be opposed instances of tr