THE RED INDIANS IN THE UNION AND IN CANADA.

A LONG and melancholy history of wrong ended last month. 23. The Rod Indians of the Black Hills country finally sur- rendered their lands, their independence, and their dream of resistance to the white men. Five or six tribes, including at least two warrior clans, the Sioux and the Arapahoes, were, as our readers may remember, settled by the United States Government in the Black Hills country in Wyoming, as their reserved lands. They were to have them " for ever," and live on them as they liked, if only they would live in peace. It was discovered, however, that the Black Hills country was a most valuable mineral region, the white men came thronging up, disputes of course arose, and the Indians, irritated to madness by eneroachments and by the incessant frauds of the Indian Agents, frauds which were proved by official inquiry, declared war. They were defeated, and were ordered to surrender their Reservations, without the compen- sation of £20,000 which they claim, and to remove to new territories on the Missouri, They objected, and sent up their Chiefs to Washington, and in the latter part of September President Hayes granted them aSolemn audience of two days. They all said the same thing, more or less pathe- tically. " Red Cloud," a well-known and formidable chief, did not want to go to the Missouri, because " there was too much whisky there," and because " the river freezes in winter, and we can't get our supplies." "If I come there, I will come to nothing at all,"—meaning, apparently, that he and his tribe would gradually disappear. Another chief followed, and another, all objecting to removal, until 46 Spotted Tail," head chief of all the Sioux, offered on behalf of his people to become civilised, if only they might remain in the Black Hills:— "I know one thing. It is this. When a white man owns land, he builds a fence around it, and it is his so long as he doesn't sell it. That is the way white men live. But your people don't ask questions. You take our lands from us. Before the white men came to us, we had a good time in taking care of our property, but now, as I told you, we can't do it. Your people make roads and drive away the game, and thus make us poor and starve. A land was given to us by the Great Spirit, who said we could live there, but the white people are trying to push us out of the country, and where we can do nothing. You live here. The Groat Spirit gave you the land ; you stay here, with all your people. That is the way all nations ought to live. When they have a piece of land, they ought to hold on to it as their own. My great Father, I can't read or write, but should like to bring my children up like the white people. The country I live in is mine,—I love it."

"Swift Bear " endorsed this speech every word, and every other chief, except the leader of the Arapahoes, who asked the Pre- sident " to have pity on us, for we were a great people, and we are dying out," made in different ways the same offer, asking, with childish simplicity of detail, for means with which to com- mence the life of the white men. They wanted cattle with short horns, waggons, tools, Catholic priests, and churches, so that they might know how to bring up their children. The Govern- ment, however, had decided that they must quit the Black Hills, not only because they are valuable, but because they are defensible ; and the President told them that the white men were a multitude which, if they remained savage, "would sweep over them like a great flood of water," and that they must go to the Missouri, settle down, and establish farms and separate homes.

The Chiefs, many of whom were quite wild, and had been

thunderstruck by the sight of the great cities and the multi- tude of white men, conferred over the reply for two days, and then submitted, signifying the utterness of their submission by a complete change of clothing. They all appeared before the

President in white men's clothes, and made requests which the reporter of the interview thinks evidences of their rapacity, but which were evidently requests for the things the absence of which divided them from the white men. " Spotted Tail" said t--

"You told us that your nation increases. We want to increase too, in property and in numbers. You said you wished us to live like white men, and so we are here to-day dressed in white men's clothes. What- ever you say to us shall bo known to my children, my grandchildren, and my grandchildren's children. You told me you would give me a great many things, including waggons and cattle, and a big school- house. I want the kind of cattle the whites have, and we want to raise cows. We don't want animals with long horns, but short ones. I want everything in writing before I go home, so that there may be no mistake. We want English teachers ; those now among us only teach to read. and write the Sioux language. We want to have Catholic priests, those who wear black dresses, to teach us. We should like to have a taw and a grist-mill, and agricultural implements and seeds. Llook round and find you have plenty of stores. We have only one store, and when we pay our money there we have nothing to show for it. We want five or six stores, because then we could buy oheapor at *us, than we could at another. Some of those before you have never been in civilisation before. They had no idea what the whites were before they came here. Look at me and the men before you. I am very well dressed, and so are they. They want $40 apiece to buy things for their women and children, and they would like to have a trunk apiece to carry their clothing in. As the weather is getting to be a little cold, wo should like to have an overcoat apiece. We see you wearing overcoats, and we should like to have them."

The President made what promises he could, saying he would recommend their requests to Congress, and the Chiefs de. parted, to move next spring to the Missouri, there to find that their supplies have been duly voted, but have passed through eo many greedy bands that scarcely any reach the poor Indians, who, pressed by hunger, will move into still more remote sections, there to die slowly out of whisky aad despair. It is a cruel history, though we know well that apologies can be offered for the American Government.

These Indians received their lands on condition of remaining peaceable as tribes, and they did not remain peaceable as tribes ; but on the contrary, rebelled as tribes, massacred Americans, and slaughtered American troops ; and to leave them without punishment would have been to bring on them the danger of extermination by the border Volunteers. Still, they had received great provocation, they had offered to live as white men, they would have surrendered their arms, and it would have been more merciful to leave them one last chance of retaining their lands. The experiment was not utterly hopeless. Not only has one tribe in the Union—the Cherokees—become civilised to the extent even of claiming and receiving the vote, but the very same Sioux have, on Canadian territory, shown themselves capable of be- coming quiet and useful citizens. On the conclusion of his tour through the Canadian Dominion, Lord Dufferin made, on the 20th of September, a speech to the citizens of Winnipeg, which seems to have driven them frantic with delight. It was a speech describing the marvellous extent and fertility of the Dominion, and while strangely eloquent was deformed by a touch of " high falutin'," which may have been necessary with that audience, but which jars slightly upon the cold

English taste. There was, however, one passage in it of which Englishmen will be prouder than Canadians ; and it bears so directly on our subject, and is so little likely to be seen by many of our readers, that we give it in extenso :— " For instance, unless great care is taken, we shall find, as wo move westwards, that the exigencies of civilisation may clash injuriously

with the prejudices and traditional habits of our Indian fellow-subjects. As long as Canada was in the woods the Indian problem was com- paratively easy, the progress of settlement was slow enough to give' ample time and opportunity for arriving at an amicable and mutually convenient arrangement with each tribe with whom we successively came into contact; but once out upon the plains, colonisation will advance with far more rapid and ungovernable strides, and it can- not fail eventually to interfere with the by no means inexhaustible supply of buffalo upon which so many of the Indian tribes aro now de- pendent. Against this contingency it will be our most urgent and imperative duty to take timely precautions, by enabling the red man, not by any undue pressure, or hasty or ill-considered interference, but

by precept, example, and suasion, by gifts of cattle, and other en-

couragements, to exchange the precarious life of a hunter for that of a pastoral and eventually that of an agricultural people. Happily in no part of her Majesty's Dominions are tho relations existing between the

white settler and the original natives and masters of the land so well understood or so generously and humanely interpreted as in Canada, and as a consequence, instead of being a cause of anxiety and disturb- ance, the Indian tribes of the Dominion are regarded as a valuable adjunct to our strength and industry. Wherever I have gone in the

Province, and since I have been here I have travelled nearly a thensand miles within your borders, I have found the Indians upon their several reserves, protermitting a few petty grievances of a local character they

thought themselves justified in preferring, contented and satisfied' upon the most friendly terms with their white neighbours, and implicitly con- fiding in the good-faith and paternal solicitude of the Government. In some districts I have learnt with pleasure that the Sioux, wha some years since entered our territory under snob sinister circumstances.,—I do not, of course, refer to the recent visit of Sitting Bull and his

people, who, however, I believe, are remaining perfectly quiet—are sot only peaceable and well behaved, but have turned into useful and hard- working labourers and harvestmen, while in the more distant settle- ments, the less domesticated bands of natives, whether as hunters, voyageurs, guides, or purveyors of our furs and game, prove • an i appreciably advantageous element in the economical structure of the colony."

said the Governor-General, was Much of this good-feeling, due to the exertions of the half-breeds, who interpreted between savagery and civilisation, and though the Hudson's Bay Company ; "but these fortunate influences amongst the causes which, are con- ducing to produce and preserve this fortunate result, the place of honour must be adjudged to that honourable and generous policy which has been pursued by successive Governments: of Canada towards the Indian, and which at this moment is being superintended and carried out with so much tact, discretion, and ability by your present Lieutenant-Governor, under which the extinction of the Indian title upon liberal termshas invari- ably been recognised as a necessary preliminary to the occupa- tion of a single square yard of native territory." It 806131$ a simple matter to compensate the tribes for the territory they yield, and it is one far easier for the Union than the Dominion, yet the refusal or neglect to perform this act of justice has cost the United States a dozen Indian wars, and as the Indian. is

slowly defeating the Spaniard in the South, may cost them terrible calamities in the future.We do not suppose the Indian will linger for ever as an Indian oven in Canada, nor.is it desirable that he should ; but he will die out fairly, the tribes being absorbed family by family into the more civilised and more energetic race. In our long history of contact with the darker races, almost the only episode upon which we can study with unbroken pleasure is that of which the one Governor-General whom a plebiscite would make President of his Colony looks back with such eloquent pride.