WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1850
157
her services. But her policy is deficient, while men incapable to fill the posts assigned them there are sent among us, and men the most capable are discharged, as if they had committed some offence or some delinquency. If proper men were sent there to fill those stations, we should see a different state of things on the frontiers; for this depends as much on the capability and :fitness of the individuals placed in the Indian department as on all the forces on the frontiers. If you wish to control Indians, you must send men among them who are acquainted with Indian character and capacities, and even with their superstitions too. Whenever you do this, you will bring peace to the frontier; but if all the armies of the United States were sent there, dismounted as infantry, they would be a jest for the Indians, who would dance there in the face of your eighteen-pounders. Will my friend gain anything for the situation of New Mexico and the frontiers, if he drops his line down to El Paso? Nothing. On the contrary, he will extend her frontier, and will render it more exposed than it is now; because it will be lengthened. If you contract her frontiers, it will be no injury to her in that respect; because it will increase her security, and the responsi- bility of giving peace and security to these people will then belong to Texas, and this will be for their advantage. But to talk of gathering the Indians within a territory, and controling them, you might as well talk of controling the crows or the buzzards. An Indian camp may be here tonight, and you might at the hour of repose be in fear of an assault; but at to-morrow's dawn you might find them fifty miles across the prairie, with their wives and children and their whole caravan. Do you expect to pen them up in the country? The country is scarce of timber, and, if it were not, you would get few Indians into your pens. There is but one way to control them, and that is through the medium of their affections. In proportion as they are destitute and in want, they are prone to depredation. You may control Indians by presents, never by arms, while in this wandering condition; and if infantry were to be sent to them, they would be no protec- tion to the people. What advantage my friend expects from the proposition he makes, I know not. He says he does not wish to contract New Mexico. He says if this line begins sixty miles above El Paso, and runs eastwardly to where the hundredth de- gree of longitude cuts the Red River, the expansion of the Terri- tory of New Mexico ·north and east of that will be more than sufficient to remunerate her for her loss south, five fold. So that
Powered by FlippingBook