THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 737 



were to come and who would eventually occupy their lands to the ex- 

 clusion of the Indians ? 



Mr. Catlin took the sentimental side of the Indian question in the 

 matter of state policy, until the day of his death. No one has had the 

 courage as yet to publicly defend all the acts of the nation against the 

 Indian. It would be a bold act in any person to even attempt it. Mr. 

 Catlin saw but little of the American Indian after 1839. Since that 

 date we have had the most serious and dreadful Indian massacres .; in 

 fact, all of them of note west to the Mississippi and to the Eocky Mount- 

 ains. He could not properly estimate the changed condition terri- 

 torially in 1868, of the country he traveled in 1830 to 1839. The country 

 had grown and developed so rapidly that only personal observation 

 could realize the change. 



Mr. Catlin permitted his sympathy for the Indian to warp his judg- 

 ment. A just example of his constant and sometimes misplaced sym- 

 pathy for the Indian is given on pages 193-5, " Last Bambles." He 

 and fellow-travelers entered a village of Apaches in New Mexico, in 

 1855, on his last tour through America, and shortly afterwards in de- 

 scending from the mountains came upon a party of twenty Apaches 

 who cried out for mercy. He says : 



The little party, about twenty, were all women and children but two, who were 

 old men and rheumatic, and were almost uuable to walk. They stated that their 

 husbands and brothers had been killed by cruel soldiers. He and his comrades, 

 full of sympathy, divided their provisions with the Indians; and with tears in the 

 eyes of himself and companions, after taking an affectionate farewell of the Indians, 

 rode off. He says: * * * I believe all felt as I exclaimed, " Would to God that 

 we could save those poor creatures." The poor old men were in the camp with the 

 women because they were too old to fight. 



The Apaches are the most blood-thirsty, relentless, and murderous 

 Indians in the United States, and in war their women are as cruel as 

 the men. If Mr. Catlin and his friends gave them any amount of pro- 

 visions their warriors fighting the soldiers had some of it before morn- 

 ing.* 



THE INDIAN'S PAST TPwADITION AND LIFE AND ITS CLAIMS, AND WHY 

 PROGRESS WAS NOT ACCEPTABLE. 



The modern horse came with the Spaniard. The canoe was partially 

 abandoned, and the stream dwellers may have thus become plains 

 dwellers. The new means of locomotion — the horse — which, captured 

 wild on the middle plains of (now) Texas, Kansas. Colorado, and Ne- 



*In 1880 the writer of this was on a special mission to Xew Mexico. At the request of the President, 

 he made observations as to the Indian war then raging there between the United States troops and 

 Victoria's hand of Apaches. The soldiers were mostly colored cavalry. The Department was in com- 

 mand of General Edward Hatch. The Indians were constantly supplied with food, to the wonder of 

 the soldiers. It was found that the squaws from different reservations would pack the rations issued 

 to peaceable Indians in the night to Victoria, and thus his commissariat was supplied. The Govern- 

 ment was in this case both feeding and fighting them. 



6744 47 



