io8 The Winning of the West 



the white ruffian, the peaceful Indian as well as the 

 painted marauder, should be plunged into the strug- 

 gle to suffer the punishment that should only have 

 fallen on their evil-minded fellows. 



Looking back, it is easy to say that much of the 

 wrong-doing could have been prevented; but if we 

 examine the facts to find out the truth, not to estab- 

 lish a theory, we are bound to admit that the strug- 

 gle was really one that could not possibly have been 

 avoided. The sentimental historians speak as if the 

 blame had been all ours, and the wrong all done to 

 our foes, and as if it would have been possible by 

 any exercise of wisdom to reconcile claims that were 

 in their very essence conflicting; but their utter- 

 ances are as shallow as they are untruthful. 21 Un- 

 less we were willing that the whole continent west 

 of the Alleghanies should remain an unpeopled 

 waste, the hunting-ground of savages, war was in- 

 evitable; and even had we been willing, and had we 

 refrained from encroaching on the Indians' lands, 

 the war would have come nevertheless, for then the 

 Indians themselves would have encroached on ours. 

 Undoubtedly we have wronged many tribes; but 

 equally undoubtedly our first definite knowledge of 

 many others has been derived from their unpro- 

 voked outrages upon our people. The Chippewas, 

 Ottawas, and Pottawatomies furnished hundreds of 

 young warriors to the parties that devastated our 

 frontiers generations before we in any way en- 

 croached upon or wronged them. 



21 See Appendix A. 



