XXVIUI ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR 
and controlling governmental dealings with Indian tribes. They 
were adjudged to be dependent domestic nations. 
Under this theory a system of Indian affairs grew up, the 
history*of which, notwithstanding mistakes and innumerable 
personal wrongs, yet demonstrates the justice inherent in the 
public sentiment of the nation from its organization to the 
present time. 
The difficulties subsisting in the adjustment of rights be- 
tween savage and civilized peoples are multiform and complex. 
Ofttimes the virtues of one condition are the crimes of the: 
other; happiness is misery; justice, injustice. Thus, when the 
civilized man would do the best, he gave the most offense. 
Under such circumstances it was impossible for wisdom and 
_ justice combined to avert conflict. 
One chapter in the history of Indian affairs in America is a 
doleful tale of petty but costly and cruel wars; but there are 
other chapters more pleasant to contemplate. 
The attempts to educate the Indians and teach them the 
ways of civilization have been many; much labor has been 
given, much treasure expended. While to a large extent all 
of these efforts have disappointed their enthusiastic promoters, 
yet good has been done, but rather by the personal labors of 
missionaries, teachers, and frontiersmen associating with In- 
dians in their own land than by institutions organized and 
supported by wealth and benevolence not immediately in con- 
tact with savagery. 
The great boon to the savage tribes of this country, unrec- 
ognized by themselves, and, to a large extent, unrecognized 
by civilized men, has been the presence of civilization, which, 
under the laws of acculturation, has irresistibly improved their 
culture by substituting new and civilized for old and savage 
arts, new for old customs—in short, transforming savage into 
civilized life. These unpremeditated civilizing influences have 
had a marked effect. The great body of the Indians of North 
America have passed through stages of culture in the last 
hundred years achieved by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors only 
by the slow course of events through a thousand years. 
The Indians of the continent have not greatly diminished 
