The American Missionary Volume 32 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 Excerpt: ...approval." The same paper contains this paragraph, also: " Before the Indian Bureau is transferred from the Interior to the War Department, however, Congress should strive to comprehend the fact that even the War Department can have very little success in managing Indian affairs unless we contrive to attain some settled Indian policy. We have been in the habit of putting the Indians by turns under the immediate care of missionaries and thieves, of Quakers and Catholics, of army officers and contractors. We have made solemn treaties, and broken them. We have moved them to reservations, and then crowded them off whenever they were found to be in the way. We have pauperized them by promising supplies, and starved them by breaking our promises. We have made a pretence of civilizing them, without furnishing them with any code of law, and of educating them, without furnishing them with any Commencement at Hampton Institute. 203 teachers. After supplying them with rifles to fight with, and worrying them into hostilities, we have made war upon them; and when they have proved Bo conspicuously cruel and treacherous as to deserve swift retribution, we have tried moral suasion. No one ever dreamed that the same tribe was to receive the same treatment for two successive years, and no two tribes ever received the same treatment at the same time. What is first needed is a definite and persistent policy of some kind, so that both Indians and white men will be able to form some clear idea of what will probably happen the day after to-morrow. A bad system is better than no system; any system is better than caprice."--A small Indian church was dedicated at Jamestown, Clallam County, Washington Territory, Sunday, May 12th, by Rev. M. Eells. The idea of erecting...