HOME AGAIN. 267 



To explain the unconquerable aversion that has always 

 existed between the white man and the Indian on the 

 North American continent, needs the description of 

 many aggressions and revenges that each has inflicted 

 on the most susceptible feelings of the other. The white 

 man has colonized the land of the savage by suffrance, 

 and then by reason of the necessity of his position, kept 

 them by force. By superior foresight he has bought their 

 peltry at trivial prices. He has imported infectious dis- 

 eases, has corrupted with alcoholic drinks, has cut down 

 preserves of game, has amassed wealth, and power, and 

 space, while his simpler-minded neighbor has been stunted 

 under his shadow. All this happens even when the rela- 

 tions of the two races are amicable, and treaties are 

 observed with fidelity, and the aborigine knows that, as 

 the white man prospers he must decrease that the white 

 man's life is the red man's death. But the outward peace 

 in a little while disappears. Some settlers' cattle have dis- 

 appeared from the woods, and the Indian is charged with 

 the theft ; the charge is probably true. Some brave, in 

 visiting the settlement, has been intoxicated, and killed 

 or maimed a white man, who has insulted him. The law 

 claims a compensation. The law is made by the white 

 man, who regards the Indian with contempt and dislike, 

 and the compensation is graded by his judgment, and not 

 by the meagre wealth of the Indian. Retaliation follows 

 the distraining ; a foray avenges the retaliation ; then a 

 burning village and the scalpmg-knife brightens the 

 night, and brings on a campaign that for years converts 



