A Letter addressed to President iLay'es. 57 



rest gj under. It is a hard-hearted and cruel dictum. It consigns every man 

 who begins to faint and needs a little help to despair and death. It is the 

 heathen custom modified, which got rid of aged parents with the least trouble — 

 polished into the cool Platonic disposal of helpless poverty, by allowing it to 

 perish as soon as possible. This notion is popular in certain influential circles, 

 and is reflected by '.he public press. If it should finally prevail, there would 

 remain but little hope for not only the aborigines, but also for the depressed 

 and exposed classes of any other race. The retributions that have fallen upon 

 royal tyrants shall descend again upon republican society when it rules in the 

 interests of property and commerce, regardless of the actual producers and 

 laborers. 



Public opinion on the management of the Indians needs rectifying. .Success 

 and especially the means often used to gain it, have a tendency to harden the 

 heart. Scientific speculations about the origin of the human race, and cognate 

 topics, are sensibly coloring the views of many, and rebuilding the old barriers 

 between races which commerce and Christianity were breaking down. Greed 

 lusts after the Indian's lands, and pretexts are found for dispossessing him. 

 The army is called upon to suppress outbreaks thereby created, and demands the 

 oversight in the peace which it is required to restore by war. Politicians are 

 ready to advocate any side which is likely to become popular. But I have 

 great faith in the final verdict of the American people, when once informed of 

 the facts in their just relations. And I do not, therefore, despair of the cause 

 I am advocating. Let us bestow a glance upon a few of the facts. 



The treatment which the Native Races have received from Europeans, dis- 

 plays a melancholy history of cruelty and cupidity. The Spaniards coveted 

 the rich lands and the richer mines of the natives of the southern sections of 

 this Continent, and to obtain them no cruelty was too barbarous. The only 

 check to their extermination was the religious zeal of the Catholic missionaries. 

 "Americans" followed on the northern track; and the history of their progress 

 IS written in blood and flame, before which the Native Tribes have almost 

 disappeared. Further north, the British and Russian fur-hunters have pursued 

 a less inhuman policy, and employed the natives to track and trap the fur-bear, 

 ing animals, on land and sea. Their lives were spared ; l)ut greed sought them 

 in as deadly and more cruel forms by the introduction of poisonous intoxicants, 

 and the vices and diseases of a cast-oft civilization. These combined influences 

 have carried off" vast numbers of the native population on the islands and along 

 the shores of the northern section of the Continent. The statement of these 

 fact.'^ will bear a far deeper coloring. Let it be considered in the light of our 

 modern advantages and our increasing sense of responsibility to promote the 

 welfare of our fellow creatures. My plan for Alaska will thus gain a more 

 candid hearing, and a fairer judgment at the bar of conscience and in the do- 

 main of liberal sentiment. 



That any portion of the humau race is incapable of improvement rests upon 

 hypothesis alone, which authentic history dispels. It is, however, frequently 

 urged that there are barbarous races that are irreclaimable. First. Because 



