Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/650

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
630
THE INDIANS UNDER CIVILIZATION.

is and does; but they have loathed it, despised it, rejected it, and given their whole power and sway to forbid and crush it. Now may not this native greatness, this leadership of men, manifest itself in a few gifted with genius, nobly endowed, patriots in spirit, yet born or self-trained to a conviction that civilization is for man a state preferable to that of savagery? The elevation, if not the security from extinction, of the race of red men depends upon its furnishing masters and guides from its stock. A race that cannot itself contribute its redeemers will never be redeemed.