The attention of Congress is particularly invited to that part of the
report of the Secretary of War which concerns the existing system of our
relations with the Indian tribes. At the establishment of the Federal
Government under the present Constitution of the United States the
principle was adopted of considering them as foreign and independent
powers and also as proprietors of lands. They were, moreover, considered
as savages, whom it was our policy and our duty to use our influence in
converting to Christianity and in bringing within the pale of
civilization.
As independent powers, we negotiated with them by treaties; as
proprietors, we purchased of them all the lands which we could prevail
upon them to sell; as brethren of the human race, rude and ignorant, we
endeavored to bring them to the knowledge of religion and of letters.
The ultimate design was to incorporate in our own institutions that
portion of them which could be converted to the state of civilization.
In the practice of European States, before our Revolution, they had been
considered _as children_ to be governed; as tenants at discretion, to be
dispossessed as occasion might require; as hunters to be indemnified by
trifling concessions for removal from the grounds from which their game
was extirpated.
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