92 LIFE IN THE PAR WEST. 



the effects of the poisonous "fire -water," they disappear 

 from the earth like " snow before the sun." Although 

 aware of the destruction it entails upon them, the poor 

 wretches have not moral courage to shun the fatal allure- 

 ment it holds out to them of wild excitement and a tem- 

 porary oblivion of their many sufferings and privations. 

 With such palpable effects, it appears only likely that the 

 illegal trade is connived at by those whose policy it has 

 ever been, gradually, but surely, to exterminate the In- 

 dians, and by any means to extinguish their title to the 

 few lands they now own on the outskirts of civilisation. 

 Certain it is that large quantities of liquor find their way 

 annually into the Indian country, and as certain are the 

 fatal results of the pernicious system, and that the Ameri- 

 can Government takes no steps to prevent it. There are 

 some tribes who have as yet withstood the great temp- 

 tation, and have resolutely refused to permit liquor to 

 be brought into their villages. The marked difference 

 between the improved condition of these, and the moral 

 and physical abasement of those which give \vay to the 

 fatal passion for drinking, sufficiently proves the pernicious 

 effects of the liquor- trade on the unfortunate and abused 

 aborigines ; and it is matter of regret that no philanthro- 

 pist has sprung up in the United States to do battle for 

 the rights of the Red men, and call attention to the wrongs 

 they endure at the hands of their supplanters in the lands 

 of their fathers. 



Robbed of their homes and hunting-grounds, and driven 

 by the encroachments of the whites to distant regions, 

 which hardly support existence, the Indians, day by day, 

 gradually decrease before the accumulating evils of body 

 and soul, which their civilised persecutors entail upon 

 them. With every man's hand against them, they drag 

 on to their final destiny; and the day is not far distant 

 when the American Indian will exist only in the tradi- 

 tions of his pale-faced conquerors. 



The Indians trading at this time on the Platte were 

 mostly of the Sioux nation, including the tribes of Burnt- 

 woods, Yanka-taus, Pian- Kashas, Assinaboins, Oglallahs, 



