Friends Among The Indians PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1910 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXI GIVE THE RED MAN HIS PORTION The Treasury of the United States holds something like thirty-six million dollars in funds belonging to the Indians. The fund, as it stands, might be described as an endowment for the creation of paupers and the perpetuation of the present state of dependence among the people to whose credit it stands. In addition to this fund, the government holds for the Indians a vast amount in landed property, the title to a great deal of which property will pass to the Indian in twenty-five years after he accepts an allotment. The issuance of the patent in fee may be expedited by any Indian who thinks well enough of his heirs to betake himself to the happy hunting-grounds; for in that event, the land may be sold for the benefit of the decedent's family. It is quite impossible to value the land even approximately, but it is worth many millions of dollars. And, resting as he does under the weight of this burden of wealth, getting enough of iMrom time to time to keep the life in his body and prevent him from exerting himself to any great extent on his own behalf, the American Indian is fated to die in a state of unthrift and indigence, a sort of half-starved ward in chancery. It appears to me that it is the duty of the government to make some provision presently for the emancipation of these unhappy victims, to deliver them from the evils that guarantee a future of ungentle paupery, by giving to the Indian his portion and turning him adrift to work out his own salvation. The Indian and his condition is not so important a matter to the majority of the people of the United States as the smashing of the trusts and the reformation of the "system"; but no question that affects the moral and physical salvation of over...