WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1854
520
When you undertake to tame wild horses, do you turn them from you and drive them into the desert, or do you take care of them and treat them with humanity? These Indians are not inferior, intellectually, to white men. John Ridge was not inferior in point of genius to John Randolph. His father, in point of native intellect, was not inferior to any man. Look at their social condi- tion, in the nations to which I have alluded. Look at the Chicka- saws who remain in the State of Mississippi. Even among white men, with all their prejudices against the Indians, with their transcendent genius and accomplishments, they have been elected to the Legislature. Whenever they have had an opportunity, they have shown that they are not inferior to white men, either in sense or capability. But the honorable Senator from Iowa [Mr. Dodge] character- izes the remarks which I made in reference to the Indians as arising from a feeling of "sickly sentimentality." Sir, it is a sickly sentimentality that was implanted in me when I was young, and it has grown up with me. The Indian has a sense of justice, truth, and honor, that should find a responsive chord in every heart. If the Indians on the frontier are barbarous, or if they are cannibals and eat each other, who are to blame for it? They are robbed of the means of sustenance; and with hundreds and thou- sands of them starving on the frontier, hunger may prompt to such acts to prevent their perishing. We shall never become can- nibals in connection with the Indians, but we do worse than that. We rob them, first of their native dignity and character; we rob them next of what the Government appropriates for them. If we do not do it in this hall, men are invested with power and author- ity, who, officiating as agents or traders, rob them of everything which is designed for them. No less than one hundred millions of dollars, I learn from statistics, since the adoption of this Govern- ment, have been appropriated by Congress for purposes of justice and benevolence toward the Indians; but I am satisfied that they have never realized fifteen millions beneficially. They are too remote from the seat of government for their real condition to be understood here; and if the Government intends liberality or justice toward them, it is often diverted from the intended object and consumed by speculators. I am a friend of the Indian, upon the principle that I am a friend to justice. We are not bound to make them promises; but if a promise be made to an Indian, it ought to be regarded as sacredly as if it were made to a white man. If we treat them as tribes,
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