532 INDIAN LAND CESSIONS IN THE UNITED STATES [eth.axn. 18 



humanity demands, and a wise policy requires, that the rights of the conquered to 

 property should remain unimparied; that the new subjects should be governed as 

 equitably as the old, and that confidence in their security should gradually banish 

 the painful sense of being separated from their ancient connections, aud united by 

 fori e to strangers. 



When the conquest is complete, and the conquered inhabitants can be blended 

 Tvith the conquerors, or safely governed as a distinct people, public opinion, which 

 not even the conqueror can disregard, imposes these restraints upon him; and he 

 can not neglect them without injury to his fame aud hazard to his power. 



But the tribes of Indians inhabiting this country were fierce savages, whose occu- 

 pation was war, and whose subsistence was drawn chiedy from the forest. To leave 

 them in possession of their country was to leave the country a wilderness; to gov- 

 ern them as a distinct people was impossible, because they were as brave and as 

 high spirited as they were fierce, and were ready to repel by arms every attempt on 

 their independence. 



What was tlie inevitable consequence of this state of things? The Europeans 

 were under the necessity either of abandoning the country, aud relinquishing their 

 pompous claims to it, or of enforcing those claims by the sword, and by the adoption 

 of principles adapted to the condition of a people with whom it was impossible to 

 mis, and who could not be governed as a distinct society, or of remaining in their 

 neighborhood and exposing themselves and their families to tlie perpetual hazard of 

 being massacred. 



Frequent and bloody wars, in which the whites were not always the aggressors, 

 unavoidably ensued. European policy, numbers and skill, prevailed. As the white 

 population advanced, that of the Indians necessarily receded. The country in the 

 immediate neighliorhood of agriculturists became tinfit for them. The game fled 

 into thicker and more unbroken forests, and the Indians followed. The soil, to which 

 the crown originally claimed title, being no longer occupied by its ancient inhabit- 

 ants, was parceled out according to the will of the sovereign power, and taken 

 possession of by i)er8ons who claimed immediately from the crown, or mediately, 

 through its grantees or deputies. 



That law which regulates, and ought to regulate in general, the relations between 

 the conqueror and conquered, was incapable of application to a peojiie under such 

 circumstances. The resort to some new and different rule, better adapted to the 

 actual state of things, was unavoidable. Every rule which can be suggested will be 

 found to be attended with great difficulty. 



However extravagant the pretension of converting the discovery of an inhabited 

 country into conquest may appear, if the principle has been asserted in the first 

 instance, and afterwards sustained; if a country has been acquired and held under 

 it; if the property of the great mass of the community originates iu it, it becomes 

 the law of the land, and can not be questioned. So, too, with respect to the con- 

 comitant principle, that the Indian inhabitants are to be considered merely as occu- 

 pants, to be protected, indeed, while in peace, in the possession of their lands, but 

 to be deemed incapable of transferring the absolute title to others. However this 

 restriction may be opposed to natural right, and to the usages of civilized nations, 

 yet, if it be indispensable to that system under which the country has been settled, 

 and be adapted to the actual condition of the two people, it may, perhaps, be sup- 

 ported by reason, and certainly can not be rejected by courts of justice. . . 



It has never been contended that the Indian title amounted to nothing. Their 

 right of possession has never been i|uestioned. The claim of government extends 

 to the complete ultimate title, charged with this right of possession, aud to the 

 exclusive power of acquiring that right. The object of the crown was to settle the 

 sea-coast of America; and when a jjortion of it was settled, without violating 

 the rights of others, by persons professing their loyalty, and soliciting the royal 

 sanction of an act, the consequences of which were ascertained to be beneficial, it 

 would have been as unwise as ungracious to expel them from their habitations 



