Note 1 — Chapter XV · THE FUTURE OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN.

It was suggested in Congress, not long since, that “a person be employed to collect and arrange the treaties, and other authentic documents, tending to illustrate the history of the relinquishment of land titles by native Indian tribes, and to prepare such means of illustration as may be necessary for a full knowledge of the acquirement of the States of the title to their lands.” To which it was answered: “Let us do no such thing. Let us rather gather up and destroy—commit to the flames all that records the progress of our acquisitions. Leave only to tradition, or forget entirely, the infamy which we acquired with the titles we enjoy—for who can look unmoved upon the parchment that tells how many miles square were bought with a few strings of paltry beads—how the council fires that had burned for ages were put out, and the bands that gathered round them for ages were scattered—their birthrights, their wigwams, and their hunting grounds bartered away for a score of worthless rifles, or a bundle of useless trinkets,—how we first debased, and then defrauded, the children of the forest out of all their hills and valleys, their lakes and rivers, over which are scattered the millions whose representatives are asked to perpetuate the records of wrongs inflicted by their ancestors. Doubtless there was necessity for the wrong—for the extermination of one race, for the increase of another. But there exists no necessity that we should make a parade of the means by which that extermination was effected. They may be forgiven; we may, at least, forget them.”1