American Institutions and Their Influence by Alexis de Tocqueville (most popular ebook readers .txt) 📕

But the case of Texas is still more striking: the state of Texas is a part of Mexico, and lies upon the frontier between that country and the United States. In the course of the last few years the Anglo-Americans have penetrated into this province, which is still thinly peopled; they purchase land, they produce the commodities of the country, and supplant the original population. It may easily be foreseen that if Mexico takes no steps to check this change, the province of Texas will very shortly cease to belong to that government.

If the different degrees, comparatively so light, which exist in European civilisation, produce results of such magnitude, the consequences which must ensue from the collision of the most perfect European civilisation with Indian savages may readily be conceived.

] The condition of the Creeks and Cherokees, to which I have already alluded, sufficiently corroborates the truth of this deplorable picture.

The Indians, in the little which they have done, have unquestionably displayed as much natural genius as the peoples of Europe in their most important designs; but nations as well as men require time to learn, whatever may be their intelligence and their zeal. While the savages were engaged in the work of civilisation, the Europeans continued to surround them on every side, and to confine them within narrower limits; the two races gradually met, and they are now in immediate juxtaposition to each other. The Indian is already superior to his barbarous parent, but he is still very far below his white neighbor. With their resources and acquired knowledge, the Europeans soon appropriated to themselves most of the advantages which the natives might have derived from the possession of the soil: they have settled in the country, they have purchased land at a very low rate or have occupied it by force, and the Indians have been ruined by a competition which they had not the means of resisting. They were isolated in their own country, and their race only constituted a colony of troublesome aliens in the midst of a numerous and domineering people.[Footnote: See in the legislative documents (21st congress, No. 89), instances of excesses of every kind committed by the whites upon the territory of the Indians, either in taking possession of a part of their lands, until compelled to retire by the troops of congress, or carrying off their cattle, burning their houses, cutting down their corn, and doing violence to their persons.

It appears, nevertheless, from all these documents, that the claims of the natives are constantly protected by the government from the abuse of force. The Union has a representative agent continually employed to reside among the Indians; and the report of the Cherokee agent, which is among the documents I have referred to, is almost always favorable to the Indians. “The intrusion of whites,” he says, “upon the lands of the Cherokees would cause ruin to the poor, helpless, and inoffensive inhabitants.” And he farther remarks upon the attempt of the state of Georgia to establish a division line for the purpose of limiting the boundaries of the Cherokees, that the line drawn having been made by the whites, and entirely upon exparte

evidence of their several rights, was of no validity whatever.

]

Washington said in one of his messages to congress, “We are more enlightened and powerful than the Indian nations, we are therefore bound in honor to treat them with kindness and even with generosity.” But this virtuous and high-minded policy has not been followed. The rapacity of the settlers is usually backed by the tyranny of the government. Although the Cherokees and the Creeks are established upon the territory which they inhabited before the settlement of the Europeans, and although the Americans have frequently treated with them as with foreign nations, the surrounding states have not consented to acknowledge them as an independent people, and attempts have been made to subject these children of the woods to Anglo-American magistrates, laws, and customs.[Footnote: In 1829 the state of Alabama divided the Creek territory into counties, and subjected the Indian population to the power of European magistrates.

In 1830 the state of Mississippi assimilated the Choctaws and Chickasaws to the white population, and declared that any of them that should take the title of chief would be punished by a fine of 1,000 dollars and 3 year’s imprisonment. When these laws were enforced upon the Choctaws who inhabited that district, the tribes assembled, their chief communicated to them the intentions of the whites, and read to them some of the laws to which it was intended that they should submit; and they unanimously declared that it was better at once to retreat again into the wilds.

] Destitution had driven these unfortunate Indians to civilisation, and oppression now drives them back to their former condition; many of them abandon the soil which they had begun to clear, and return to their savage course of life.

If we consider the tyrannical measures which have been adopted by the legislatures of the southern states, the conduct of their governors, and the decrees of their courts of justice, we shall be convinced that the entire expulsion of the Indians is the final result to which the efforts of their policy are directed.

The Americans of that part of the Union look with jealousy upon the aborigines,[Footnote:

The Georgians, who are so much annoyed by the proximity of the Indians, inhabit a territory which does not at present contain more than seven inhabitants to the square mile. In France there are one hundred and sixty-two inhabitants to the same extent of country.

] they are aware that these tribes have not yet lost the traditions of savage life, and before civilisation has permanently fixed them to the soil, it is intended to force them to recede by reducing them to despair. The Creeks and Cherokees, oppressed by the several states, have appealed to the central government, which is by no means insensible to their misfortunes, and is sincerely desirous of saving the remnant of the natives, and of maintaining them in the free possession of that territory which the Union is pledged to respect.[Footnote: In 1818 congress appointed commissioners to visit the Arkansas territory accompanied by a deputation of Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. This expedition was commanded by Messrs. Kennerly, M’Coy, Wash Hood, and John Bell. See the different reports of the commissioners, and their journal, in the documents of congress, No. 87 house of representatives.

] But the several states oppose so formidable a resistance to the execution of this design, that the government is obliged to consent to the extirpation of a few barbarous tribes in order not to endanger the safety of the American Union.

But the federal government, which is not able to protect the Indians, would fain mitigate the hardships of their lot; and, with this intention, proposals have been made to transport them into more remote regions at the public cost.

Between the 33d and 37th degrees of north latitude, a vast tract of country lies, which has taken the name of Arkansas, from the principal river that waters its extent. It is bounded on the one side by the confines of Mexico, on the other by the Mississippi.

Numberless streams cross it in every direction; the climate is mild, and the soil productive, but it is only inhabited by a few wandering hordes of savages. The government of the Union wishes to transport the broken remnants of the indigenous population of the south, to the portion of this country which is nearest to Mexico, and at a great distance from the American settlements.

We were assured, toward the end of the year 1831, that 10,000

Indians had already gone to the shores of the Arkansas; and fresh detachments were constantly following them; but congress has been unable to excite a unanimous determination in those whom it is disposed to protect. Some, indeed, are willing to quit the seat of oppression, but the most enlightened members of the community refuse to abandon their recent dwellings and the springing crops; they are of opinion that the work of civilisation, once interrupted, will never be resumed; they fear that those domestic habits which have been so recently contracted, may be irrecoverably lost in the midst of a country which is still barbarous, and where nothing is prepared for the subsistence of an agricultural people; they know that their entrance into those wilds will be opposed by inimical hordes, and that they have lost the energy of barbarians, without acquiring the resources of civilisation to resist their attacks. Moreover the Indians readily discover that the settlement which is proposed to them is merely a temporary expedient. Who can assure them that they will at length be allowed to dwell in peace in their new retreat? The United States pledge themselves to the observance of the obligation; but the territory which they at present occupy was formerly secured to them by the most solemn oaths of Anglo-American faith.[Footnote:

The fifth article of the treaty made with the Creeks in August, 1790, is in the following words: “The United States solemnly guaranty to the Creek nation all their land within the limits of the United States.”

The seventh article of the treaty concluded in 1791 with the Cherokees says: “The United States solemnly guaranty to the Cherokee nation all their lands not hereby ceded.” The following article declared that if any citizen of the United States or other settler not of the Indian race, should establish himself upon the territory of the Cherokees, the United States would withdraw their protection from that individual, and give him up to be punished as the Cherokee nation should think fit.

] The American government does not indeed rob them of their lands, but it allows perpetual incursions to be made on them. In a few years the same white population which now flocks around them, will track them to the solitudes of the Arkansas, they will then be exposed to the same evils without the same remedies; and as the limits of the earth will at last fail them, their only refuge is the grave.

The Union treats the Indians with less cupidity and rigor than the policy of the several states, but the two governments are alike destitute of good faith. The states extend what they are pleased to term the benefits of their laws to the Indians, with a belief that the tribes will recede rather than submit; and the central government, which promises a permanent refuge to these unhappy beings, is well aware of its inability to secure it to them.[Footnote:

This does not prevent them from promising in the most solemn manner to do so. See the letter of the president addressed to the Creek Indians, 23d March, 1829. (“Proceedings of the Indian Board, in the City of New York,” p. 5.) “Beyond the great river Mississippi, where a part of your nation has gone, your father has provided a country large enough for all of you, and he advises you to remove to it. There your white brothers will not trouble you; they will have no claim to the land, and you can live upon it, you and all your children, as long as the grass grows or the water runs, in peace and plenty. It will be yours for ever.”

The secretary of war, in a letter written to the Cherokees, April 18th, 1829 (see the same work, page 6), declares to them that they cannot expect to retain possession of the land, at the time occupied by them, but gives them the most positive assurance of uninterrupted peace if they would remove beyond the Mississippi: as if the power which could not grant them protection then, would be