DBQ

We are compelled to meet with him [the Native American], in his native village, on the are path, and when raiding upon our frontier settlements and lines of travel, the Indian forfeits his claim to the appellation of the 'noble red man.' We see him as he is, an, so far as all knowledge goes, as he ever has been, a savage in every sense of the word; not worse, perhaps, than his wither brother would be similarly born and bred, but one whose cruel and ferocious nature far exceeds that of any wild beast of the desert.

The Indian is a creature possessing the human form but divested of all other attributes of humanity, and whose traits of character, habits, modes of life, disposition, and savage customs disqualify him from the exercise of all rights and privileges, even those pertaining to life itself....their a race incapable of being judged by the rules or laws applicable to any other known race of men; one between which and civilization there seems to have existed from time immemorial determined and unceasing warfare- a hostility so deep-seated and inbred with the Indian character that in the exceptional instances where the modes and habits of civilization have been reluctantly adopted, it has been at the sacrifice of power and influence as a tribe and the more serious loss of health, vigor, and courage as individuals..."

Stage station at various points along the route had been attacked and burned, and the inmates driven off or murdered. All travel across the Plains was suspended, and an Indian war with all its barbarities had been forced upon the people of the frontier...Near by I discovered the bodies of the three station keepers, so mangled and burned as to be scarcely recognizable as human beings. The Indians had evidently tortured them before putting an end to their suffering. They were scalped and horribly disfigured...

I. I concluded that this must be war, and therefore deemed it my duty to take the first opportunity which presented to resent these hostilities and outrages, and did so by destroying their villages."

II As a punishment for the bad faith practiced by the Cheyennes and Sioux who occupied the Indian village at this place, and as a chastisement for murders and depredations committed since the arrival of the command at this point, by the people of these tribes, the village recently occupied by them which is now in our hands, will be utterly destroyed.

It would not be an exaggeration to place the number of sick people on the reservation at two thousand. Many deaths occurred which might have even obviated had there been a proper supply of anti-malarial remedies at hand... Hundreds applying for treatment have been refused medicine...

If it is "an appeal to men's better nature" to remove them by force from a healthful Northern climate, which they love and thrive in, to a malarial Southern one, where they are struck down by chills and fever-refuse them medicine which can combat chills and fever, and finally starve them- then, indeed, might be said to have been most forcible appeals made to the 'better natures' of these Northern Cheyennes...They were unanimous in declaring that they would rather die than go back to the Indian Territory. This was nothing more, in fact, than saying that they would rather die by bullets than chills and fever and starvation...

The Cheyennes were pursued and slain for venturing to leave the very reservation, which, it appears they have no legal right to it. Are there any words to fitly characterize such treatment as this from a great, powerful, rich nation, to a handful of helpless people?

" The great difficulty with the Indian problem is not with the Indian, but with the Government and people of the United States. Instead of a liberal and far-sighted policy looking to the education and civilization and possible citizenship of the Indian tribes, we have suffered these people to remain as savages, for whose future we have had no adequate care, and to the consideration of whose present state the Government has only been moved when pressed by some present danger....

We have shut them up on reservation often notoriously unfit for them... The Government... had given him [the Indian] no status in the courts except criminal, had been sadly derelict in its duty toward him, the only solution of the Indian problem involves the entire change of these people a savage to a civilized life..."

The white man, who possesses this whole vast country from sea to sea, who roams over it at pleasure, and lives where he likes, cannot know the cramp we feel in this little spot, with the undying remembrance of the fact, which you know as well as we, that every foot of what you proudly call America, not very long ago belonged to the red man...

The Sioux had, in fact, plenty of energy and initiative-otherwise they could not have survived under the hard conditions of primitive life. Theirs was an incessant, and-to-hand struggle against hunger and cold, wild beasts, and lurking enemies... We exterminated the buffalo which originally furnished them with livelihood, confined them to a limited ranged of the least desirable part of the territory and doled out just enough monotonous food and shabby clothing to keep them alive...

As communities they have been practically without money and so unable to buy the product of on anther's labor... The limited number of salaried positions open to Indians in government employ was no real solution...

The Sioux naturally tended to huddle in groups along the creek and river bottoms, where shade, water, and some fuel might be had, rather than to 'scatter out' on the open prairie, as required under the 'land in severalty' system... the Sioux could never be excepted to support themselves on the ' bad lands' they were allotted.