Green Mountain Freeman

Communism of Indian Tribes.

The communism of the Indians demands notice in this review. The right of the individual to the proceeds of his labor is one of his God-given rights, of which no government should deprive him, unless in those great national emergencies when every individual interest must be sacrificed to preserve the life of the nation.

And the experience of six thousand years has shown that the indolence of mankind can only be overcome, and the individual and the family aroused to that steady industry which is the condition of civilization, by the steady pressure of necessity. "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread." "If any man will not work, neither shall he eat."

This is the Divine law, the heaven-ordained Indian policy; and we have not bettered the matter by our attempted amendments.

Indeed, with all other races we have ceased to attempt any Improvement on God's plan of human government. We recognize the duty of every Irishman, and Dutchman, and Chinaman, and American, to work; if he will not work, we either send him to the workhouse or let him starve. The Indian is the only man for whom we provide the means of living in idleness. It would be hard to show what right he has to this immunity from labor. But it would not be hard to show that between pensions to the Indians, and salaries to the agents, and pay of the soldiers and officers, and transportation of supplies, and the value of the reservations of public lands, it costs the nation more to keep these Indians in idleness than it would to bring all the arable lands of California into cultivation.

But the expense is not the worst feature of this policy. It actually prevents and discourages everything like individual effort, and by paying an equal amount of tribute to each man without regard to conduct, it places the lazy, drunken Indian on a level with his industrious squaw, and with the energetic hunter and fisher, who is moreover compelled by the custom of the tribe to share the proceeds of his industry with the idle loafer. Thus, the communism of the Indian tribes is worse than the communism of Paris. It is indeed the French communism in its inevitable result. Yet men who would shudder at the proposal to introduce the European communism into America, are actually voting, yearly, millions of dollars for the support of this feature of the Red Republic among the Indians. But if communism be good for them, why not allow other nationalities to reap its benefits? Why not lay off the valley of the Hudson as an Irish reservation, and vote some millions for whiskey and blankets to keep those gentlemen from going out on the war-path with free shillalabs? Why not make a reservation of the great valley of the Mississippi for the Germans, and vote a few millions for lager beer and tobacco to keep them in good humor? Why not have a big talk with the Chinese, and locate them in the Santa Clara Valley, voting them a few millions for the purpose of providing them with stale fish and opium at the national expense?

It may be answered, that these people get on very well when thrown upon their own resources and compelled to devote their own individual energies by necessity, but that the Indians will perish unless patronized and pensioned.

But the proper reply to this is, the Indian is a man also. The laws of political economy are as truly the laws of God as the laws of chemistry or the Ten Commandments. Nothing but failure can result from any attempt to supersede or improve upon the laws of God. The utter and shameful failure of our attempt to subsidize and support by our national authority the Indian tribal system of combined communism, indolence, polygamy, and slavery, ought long ago to have convinced us of its folly. The civilized world frowns reproach upon England's attempt to sustain in Turkey a government which shields some of these abominations; but the worst vices of the Turks are civilized compared with those of the Indian tribal governments which are permitted to exist within the cordon of our armies. It is a strange spectacle—a sovereign nation tolerating rival sovereignties on its soil—a republic supporting military aristocracies—an industrious people pensioning communism and laziness; and a Christian, chivalrous people tolerating polygamy, female slavery, and the vilest abuse of woman!

The results are what we see before us. The miserable Indians themselves are rapidly sinking under their uncontrolled vices, and are fast perishing by drunkenness, disease, and mutual wars.

But they are not yet so far reduced as to be unable to perceive that; in some way, the more civilized race is their enemy. Captain Jack's father and his warriors fell by white treachery in a peace talk. There have not been wanting white savages capable of robbing the Indians of their poor rags, and furs, and blankets and even of their souls, by bartering to them the fire liquor. Maddened into a wild-beast like fury, they are almost yearly breaking out on the war-path, and slaughtering all whom they meet, devastating the frontier settlements, and as in the melancholy case before us, with the cunning of the serpent Smitting the bravest and the best of our people. It is time that this terrible process of blundering and slaughtering should cease.

It is disgraceful to Americanism that it should have continued so long. The American people are now aroused to an intelligent consideration of our Indian policy, and will command the abandonment of those erroneous principles which have too long guided our relations with that people, and a return to that first principle of republican government, the equality of all men before the law.—Overland Monthly for September.