this would have been the choice of the whole Indian race if the policy of the Government had permitted it!
“It is not just to consider the natives of this country as a distinct and inferior race because they do not generally imitate us, when we not only remove every consideration that could induce them to do so, but in fact render it impossible. What motive of ambition was there to stimulate them to effort, when they were made to feel that they held their country as tenants at will, liable to be driven off at the pleasure of their oppressors?
“As soon as they were brought to a situation in which necessity prompted them to industry, and induced them to begin to adopt our manners and habits of life, the covetous eye of the white man was fixed on their incipient improvements, and they received the chilling notice that they must look elsewhere for permanent homes.
“At the time our settlements were commencing north-west of the Ohio, the Indians were its acknowledged owners and sovereigns; the Government claimed no right either of occupancy or soil, except as they obtained it by purchase.”
(On the 31st of July, 1793, the United States Commissioners said to the assembled chiefs of the North-western tribes, in a council held at the home of one Captain Elliott, on the Detroit River: “By the express authority of the President of the United States, we acknowledge the property, or right of soil to the great country above described, to be in the Indian nations as long as they desire to occupy it; we claim only the tracts before particularly mentioned, and the right of pre-emption granted by the King, as before explained.”)
“The entire country from Pennsylvania to the Mississippi was admitted to be theirs, and a more delightful, fertile valley cannot be found on the earth. * * *
“Unconscious of the ruinous consequences that were to follow their intimacy with white men, they ceded to the American Government large and valuable portions of the country at nominal prices. Those lands were rapidly settled by Americans, in whose purity and friendship the unsuspecting natives had great confidence; nor did they awake from that delusion till their habits of sobriety and morality had been undermined, and the vices engendered by intemperance and idleness had contaminated every tribe. * * *
“Their subsistence became precarious; their health declined; their self-respect, their dignity of character, and the heroism in-
