Note 210 — XV. CARE OF THE INDIAN.

MEMORIAL LETTER.^[211]

ACCOMPANYING THE INDIAN PETITION OF 1881.

To the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress Assembled:

The men and women of this nation herewith present their second petition to your Honorable Body for the faithful fulfillment of treaties and other guarantees given by our government to the different tribes of Indians within our borders. Your petitioners do not suggest any political policy to be pursued, leaving such matters to wise statesmanship. They come with but one thought, conviction, prayer. The thought recognizes the moral obligation of nations, as of individuals, to keep compacts. The conviction is that recognized moral obligation should result in the fulfillment of such obligation. The prayer is for such fulfillment as being ever, we believe, the highest political wisdom, the truest national safety.

An objection has been made by some to treaty-keeping with Indians, on the ground that the Indian tribes among us were never “nations,” and that, therefore, so-called “treaties” with them were never real treaties. Your petitioners, with deep feeling recall the fact that our government has for a hundred years recognized these tribes as “nations,” in its hundreds of compacts with them calling the latter “treaties,” and has, by Acts of Congress, bound itself faithfully to observe all such made in the past, though deciding to make no new treaties with Indians. Your petitioners, therefore, pray, for the sake of national honor, which demands honest dealing with all men, that the terms “nation” and “treaty” may be kept to the heart as they have hitherto been made and explained to the ear.

Again it has been urged that the law of eminent domain nullifies these treaties, and requires our government to take legal jurisdiction of Indian lands, to divide the same in severalty, and to open the remainder for white settlement. Your petitioners are deeply impressed that for any government to apply the law of eminent domain to the property of others than its own citizens, is to necessitate, if there be resistance, a war of conquest,—a measure wholly opposed to the fundamental principles of this government,—and that Indians, with few exceptions, are not citizens of the United States, but are under their own legislative and executive authority, as in the Indian Territory, and this by the terms of our sales of territory to them, and their titles to the same.

Your petitioners therefore present their memorial to your honorable body, feeling that the plea for treaty-keeping is a protest against any enactment of Congress which would extend legal jurisdiction over territory not under the control of this government, and which would do this, as for example the Oklahoma Bill proposes, contrary to explicit treaty stipulations.

Finally, your petitioners would express the earnest conviction that the nation, which has spent five hundred millions of dollars on Indian wars growing out of the violation of treaties, can best afford to make it to the interest of the Indian tribes among us voluntarily to become citizens of the United States, and not by the coercion of Acts of our Congress.

Our petition of last year was from fifteen States; that of the present year represents every State of the Union and several of the Territories; and has many more than double the number of last year’s signatures. The work of circulating the petition, and accompanying pamphlets, has been done by few persons, and chiefly by Christian women already busy in benevolent work; yet the roll contains the names of people of all occupations and in all ranks of society; of great business firms and manufacturers; of distinguished men and officials; of judges, governors, and ambassadors to foreign courts; of authors and editors; of the faculties and students of not a few of our most noted collegiate and theological institutions, and of literary and art associations. Besides all these, the roll includes the signatures of women’s mission boards, Christian associations, and other benevolent societies; the names of pastors and bishops of the churches; also the records of the indorsement of a rising vote from various church-meetings of different denominations; of meetings held specially to consider the Indian question; of minister’s unions in different towns and cities, and of various other bodies. All these and many other evidences reveal the fact that the moral sentiment of those classes who largely make and control public opinion already requires governmental faithfulness to our Indian treaties. For this your petitioners most earnestly and respectfully pray.

Amelia S. Quinton.

Secretary of Indian Treaty-Keeping Committee.