Globalization of the United States, 1789-1861

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Schoolcraft, Henry R. Travels in the Central Portions of the Mississippi Valley: Comprising Observations on its Mineral Geography, Internal Resources, and Aboriginal Population. New-York: Collins and Hannay; J. and J. Harper, Printers, 1825.

Henry R. Schoolcraft. Travels in the Central Portions of the Mississippi Valley: Comprising Observations on its Mineral Geography, Internal Resources, and Aboriginal Population. New-York: Collins and Hannay; J. and J. Harper, Printers, 1825. pp. 372-373.

Schoolcraft investigated the Native American inhabitants and the economic potential of the northern Mississippi Valley, while refuting British criticism of American land negotiations.

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The result of this treaty was hardly announced in our public journals, before it was published in England, with some severe animadversions. “The United States,” observed the editor of the London Times, “have driven another bargain, and a hard bargain it is, with the miserable Indians. For thirty-five thousand dollars in merchandise, a little more than five thousand pounds in money, as valued by those who furnished it, and an annuity of less than two thousand pounds per annum, Governor Cass, whose diplomatic talents appear on this occasion to have been highly applauded by his countrymen, has prevailed upon the helpless aborigines to surrender five millions of fertile acres, to the westward of the lakes, and equal in surface to about one-fourth of Ireland. Verily, Governor Cass may be said to understand his business.”

This long-enduring prejudice and habitual propensity to vilify our country and our institutions, seems to be confined to no particular political sect in Great Britain, nor to exempt from its operation any particular measure which, by the power of association, is calculated to call up our original sin of thinking, and acting, and judging for ourselves. With a power to expel the Indians from a territory, which, during all our wars with Great Britain they have only occupied as a convenient avenue to make inroads upon our frontiers, we draw them into amicable treaty on the restoration of peace, and pay them what they acknowledge an ample equivalent for their title. We introduce into all our treaties provisions for bettering their condition, and enlightening and improving their minds. We furnish them blacksmiths and teachers, implements of husbandry and stock. We pay them large annuities; we pass laws to protect them from the cupidity of traders; and we employ agents to reside among them, to ensure the punctual payment of these annuities, and the faithful observance of these laws; and to attend to their numerous wants, and complaints, and distresses. If it be asked what amount of moneys we pay them, what laws we have enacted to protect their territorial rights and to preserve their morals, let our statute books furnish the reply. If it be asked what injuries we have redressed, what distresses we have relieved, let the monthly, and quarterly, and annual returns of our Indian, and of our subsistence department be examined. And yet, because we have not done all that an enlightened, virtuous, humane, and opulent nation could, might, or, perhaps, ought to do, all this is to pass as nothing, or, if we would believe the vituperative prints of England, to be put down to the score of ingratitude, neglect, and national depravity.

Our English neighbours, in the Canadas, manage these matters in a different way. When they covet a piece of Indian territory, they boldly take possession of it, in the name of the king. There is no consulting with the chiefs and head men of the tribe, no long and expensive treaty, no recognition of their title to the soil which is so unceremoniously taken away, and no annuities paid out with punctilious formality. The thing is cut short “by his majesty’s command.” This single line has cancelled more Indian title in America, than the government of the United States ever have, or probably ever will purchase, with all their accumulated and accumulating wants and means. But let us, for a moment, cast our eyes upon Hindostan, and behold the unholy wars, the murders, and abominations which, like a burning sirocco, have swept away the native institutions of that devoted country, and drenched it with the blood of its simple, unoffending inhabitants. It is truly becoming, in those who have despoiled the rich inheritance of about ninety millions of Hindoos, to reproach us for paying a few scattered bands of hunters for portions of territory which they do not want, cannot improve, and are willing to part with.