er peoples--the negroes; the inhabitants of Mexico, Peru and
the West Indies; the Hindus and the Chinese--made slaves or servants.
The Indian for generations held out stolidly against the efforts of
missionaries, farmers and manufacturers alike to convert him into a
worker.

The Indian could not understand the ideas of "purchase," "sale" and
"cash payment" that constitute essential features of the white man's
economy. To him strength of limb, courage, endurance, sobriety and
personal dignity and reserve were infinitely superior to any of the
commercial virtues which the white men possessed.

This attitude of the Indian toward European standards of civilization;
his indifference to material possessions; his unwillingness to part with
the land; and his refusal to work, made it impossible to "assimilate"
him, as other peoples were assimilated, into colonial society. The
individual Indian would not demean himself by becoming a cog in the
white man's machine. He preferred to live and die in the open air of his
native hills and plains.

The Indian was an intense individualist--trained in a school of
experience where initiative and personal qualities were the tests of
survival. He placed the soles of his moccasined feet firmly against his
native earth, cast his eyes around him and above him and melted
harmoniously into his native landscape.

Missionaries and teachers labored in vain--once an Indian, always an
Indian. The white settlers pushed on across mountain ranges and through
valleys. Generations came and went without any marked progress in
bringing the white men and the red men together. When the Indian, in the
mission or in the government school did become "civilized," he gave over
his old life altogether and accepted the white man's codes and
standards. The two methods of life were too far apart to make
amalgamation possible.

3. _Getting the Land_

The white man must have land! Population was growing. The territory
along the frontier seemed rich and alluring.

Everywhere, the Indian was in possession, and everywhere he considered
the sale of land in the light of parting with a birth-right. He was
friendly at first, but he had no sympathy with the standards of white
civilization.

For such a situation there was only one possible solution. Under the
plea that "necessity knows no law" the white man took up the task of
eliminating the Indian, with the least friction, and in the most
effective manner possible.