American Institutions and Their Influence by Alexis de Tocqueville et al

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[212] The truth of what I here advance may be easily proved by
consulting the tabular statement of Indian tribes inhabiting the United
States, and their territories. (Legislative Documents, 20th congress,
No. 117, pp. 90-105.) It is there shown that the tribes of America are
rapidly decreasing, although the Europeans are at a considerable
distance from them.

[213] "The Indians," says Messrs. Clarke and Cass in their report to
congress, p. 15, "are attached to their country by the same feelings
which bind us to ours; and, besides, there are certain superstitious
notions connected with the alienation of what the Great Spirit gave to
their ancestors, which operate strongly upon the tribes who have made
few or no cessions, but which are gradually weakened as our intercourse
with them is extended. 'We will not sell the spot which contains the
bones of our fathers,' is almost always the first answer to a
proposition for a sale."

[214] See in the legislative documents of congress (Doc. 117), the
narrative of what takes place on these occasions. This curious passage
is from the abovementioned report, made to congress by Messrs. Clarke
and Cass, in February, 1829. Mr. Cass is now secretary of war.

"The Indians," says the report, "reach the treaty-ground poor, and
almost naked. Large quantities of goods are taken there by the traders,
and are seen and examined by the Indians. The women and children become
importunate to have their wants supplied, and their influence is soon
exerted to induce a sale. Their improvidence is habitual and
unconquerable. The gratification of his immediate wants and desires is
the ruling passion of an Indian: the expectation of future advantages
seldom produces much effect. The experience of the past is lost, and the
prospects of the future disregarded. It would be utterly hopeless to
demand a cession of land unless the means were at hand of gratifying
their immediate wants; and when their condition and circumstances are
fairly considered, it ought not to surprise us that they are so anxious
to relieve themselves."

[215] On the 19th of May, 1830, Mr. Edward Everett affirmed before the
house of representatives, that the Americans had already acquired by
_treaty_, to the east and west of the Mississippi, 230,000,000 of acres.
In 1808, the Osages gave up 48,000,000 acres for an annual payment of
1,000 dollars. In 1818, the Quapaws yielded up 29,000,000 acres for
4,000 dollars. They reserved for themselves a territory of 1,000,000
acres for a hunting-ground. A solemn oath was taken that it should be
respected: but before long it was invaded like the rest. Mr. Bell, in
his "Report of the Committee on Indian Affairs," February 24th, 1830,
has these words: "To pay an Indian tribe what their ancient
hunting-grounds are worth to them, after the game is fled or destroyed,
as a mode of appropriating wild lands claimed by Indians, has been found
more convenient, and certainly it is more agreeable to the forms of
justice, as well as more merciful, than to assert the possession of them
by the sword. Thus the practice of buying Indian titles is but the
substitute which humanity and expediency have imposed, in place of the
sword, in arriving at the actual enjoyment of property claimed by the
right of discovery, and sanctioned by the natural superiority allowed to
the claims of civilized communities over those of savage tribes. Up to
the present time, so invariable has been the operation of certain
causes, first in diminishing the value of forest lands to the Indians,
and secondly in disposing them to sell readily, that the plan of buying
their right of occupancy has never threatened to retard, in any
perceptible degree, the prosperity of any of the states." (Legislative
documents, 21st congress, No. 227, p. 6.)

[216] This seems, indeed, to be the opinion of almost all the American
statesmen. "Judging of the future by the past," says Mr. Cass, "we
cannot err in anticipating a progressive diminution of their numbers,
and their eventual extinction, unless our border should become
stationary, and they be removed beyond it, or unless some radical change
should take place in the principles of our intercourse with them, which
it is easier to hope for than to expect."

[217] Among other warlike enterprises, there was one of the Wampanoags,
and other confederate tribes, under Metacom in 1675, against the
colonists of New England; the English were also engaged in war in
Virginia in 1622.

[218] See the "Histoire de la Nouvelle France," by Charlevoix, and the
work entitled "Lettres Edifiantes."

[219] "In all the tribes," says Volney, in his "Tableau des Etats Unis,"
p. 423, "there still exists a generation of old warriors, who cannot
forbear, when they see their countrymen using the hoe, from exclaiming
against the degradation of ancient manners, and asserting that the
savages owe their decline to these innovations: adding, that they have
only to return to their primitive habits, in order to recover their
power and their glory."

[220] The following description occurs in an official document: "Until a
young man has been engaged with an enemy, and has performed some acts of
valor, he gains no consideration, but is regarded nearly as a woman. In
their great war-dances all the warriors in succession strike the post,
as it is called, and recount their exploits. On these occasions their
auditory consists of the kinsmen, friends, and comrades of the narrator.
The profound impression which his discourse produces on them is
manifested by the silent attention it receives, and by the loud shouts
which hail its termination. The young man who finds himself at such a
meeting without anything to recount, is very unhappy; and instances have
sometimes occurred of young warriors whose passions had been thus
inflamed, quitting the war-dance suddenly, and going off alone to seek
for trophies which they might exhibit, and adventures which they might
be allowed to relate."

[221] These nations are now swallowed up in the states of Georgia,
Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi. There were formerly in the south
four great nations (remnants of which still exist), the Choctaws, the
Chickasaws, the Creeks, and the Cherokees. The remnants of these four
nations amounted, in 1830, to about 75,000 individuals. It is computed
that there are now remaining in the territory occupied or claimed by the
Anglo-American Union about 300,000 Indians. (See proceedings of the
Indian board in the city of New York.) The official documents supplied
to congress make the number amount to 313,130. The reader who is curious
to know the names and numerical strength of all the tribes which inhabit
the Anglo-American territory, should consult the documents I refer to.
(Legislative Documents, 28th congress, No. 117, pp. 90-105.)

[222] I brought back with me to France, one or two copies of this
singular publication.

[223] See in the report of the committee on Indian affairs, 21st
congress, No. 227, p. 23, the reasons for the multiplication of Indians
of mixed blood among the Cherokees. The principal cause dates from the
war of independence. Many Anglo-Americans of Georgia, having taken the
side of England, were obliged to retreat among the Indians where they
married.

[224] Unhappily the mixed race has been less numerous and less
influential in North America than in any other country. The American
continent was peopled by two great nations of Europe, the French and the
English. The former were not slow in connecting themselves with the
daughters of the natives; but there was an unfortunate affinity between
the Indian character and their own: instead of giving the tastes and
habits of civilized life to the savages, the French too often grew
passionately fond of the state of wild freedom they found them in. They
became the most dangerous of the inhabitants of the desert, and won the
friendship of the Indian by exaggerating his vices and his virtues. M.
de Senonville, the governor of Canada, wrote thus to Louis XIV., in
1685: "It has long been believed that in order to civilize the savages
we ought to draw them nearer to us, but there is every reason to suppose
we have been mistaken. Those which have been brought into contact with
us have not become French, and the French who have lived among them are
changed into savages, affecting to live and dress like them." (History
of New France, by Charlevoix, vol. ii., p. 345.) The Englishman, on the
contrary, continuing obstinately attached to the customs and the most
insignificant habits of his forefathers, has remained in the midst of
the American solitudes just what he was in the bosom of European cities;
he would not allow of any communication with savages whom he despised,
and avoided with care the union of his race with theirs. Thus, while the
French exercised no salutary influence over the Indians, the English
have always remained alien from them.

[225] There is in the adventurous life of the hunter a certain
irresistible charm which seizes the heart of man, and carries him away
in spite of reason and experience. This is plainly shown by the memoirs
of Tanner. Tanner is a European who was carried away at the age of six
by the Indians, and has remained thirty years with them in the woods.
Nothing can be conceived more appalling than the miseries which he
describes. He tells us of tribes without a chief, families without a
nation to call their own, men in a state of isolation, wrecks of
powerful tribes wandering at random amid the ice and snow and desolate
solitudes of Canada. Hunger and cold pursue them; every day their life
is in jeopardy. Among these men manners have lost their empire,
traditions are without power. They become more and more savage. Tanner
shared in all these miseries; he was aware of his European origin; he
was not kept away from the whites by force; on the contrary, he came
every year to trade with them, entered their dwellings, and saw their
enjoyments; he knew that whenever he chose to return to civilized life,
he was perfectly able to do so--and he remained thirty years in the
deserts. When he came to civilized society, he declared that the rude
existence which he described had a secret charm for him which he was
unable to define: he returned to it again and again: at length he
abandoned it with poignant regret; and when he was at length fixed among
the whites, several of his children refused to share his tranquil and
easy situation. I saw Tanner myself at the lower end of Lake Superior;
he seemed to be more like a savage than a civilized being. His book is
written without either taste or order; but he gives, even unconsciously,
a lively picture of the prejudices, the passions, vices, and, above all,
of the destitution in which he lived.

[226] The destructive influence of highly civilized nations upon others
which are less so, has been exemplified by the Europeans themselves.
About a century ago the French founded the town of Vincennes upon the
Wabash, in the middle of the desert; and they lived there in great
plenty, until the arrival of the American settlers, who first ruined the
previous inhabitants by their competition, and afterward purchased their
lands at a very low rate. At the time when M. de Volney, from whom I
borrow these details, passed through Vincennes, the number of the French
was reduced to a hundred individuals, most of whom were about to pass
over to Louisiana or to Canada. These French settlers were worthy
people, but idle and uninstructed: they had contracted many of the
habits of the savages. The Americans, who were perhaps their inferiors
in a moral point of view, were immeasurably superior to them in
intelligence: they were industrious, well-informed, rich, and accustomed
to govern their own community.

I myself saw in Canada, where the intellectual difference between the
two races is less striking, that the English are the masters of commerce
and manufacture in the Canadian country, that they spread on all sides,
and confine the French within limits which scarcely suffice to contain
them. In like manner, in Louisiana, almost all activity in commerce and
manufacture centres in the hands of the Anglo-Americans.

But the case of Texas is still more striking: the state of Texas is a
part of Mexico, and lies upon the frontier between that country and the
United States. In the course of the last few years the Anglo-Americans
have penetrated into this province, which is still thinly peopled; they
purchase land, they produce the commodities of the country, and supplant
the original population. It may easily be foreseen that if Mexico takes
no steps to check this change, the province of Texas will very shortly
cease to belong to that government.

If the different degrees, comparatively so light, which exist in
European civilisation, produce results of such magnitude, the
consequences which must ensue from the collision of the most perfect
European civilisation with Indian savages may readily be conceived.

[227] See in the legislative documents (21st congress, No. 89),
instances of excesses of every kind committed by the whites upon the
territory of the Indians, either in taking possession of a part of their
lands, until compelled to retire by the troops of congress, or carrying
off their cattle, burning their houses, cutting down their corn, and
doing violence to their persons.

It appears, nevertheless, from all these documents, that the claims of
the natives are constantly protected by the government from the abuse of
force. The Union has a representative agent continually employed to
reside among the Indians; and the report of the Cherokee agent, which is
among the documents I have referred to, is almost always favorable to
the Indians. "The intrusion of whites," he says, "upon the lands of the
Cherokees would cause ruin to the poor, helpless, and inoffensive
inhabitants." And he farther remarks upon the attempt of the state of
Georgia to establish a division line for the purpose of limiting the
boundaries of the Cherokees, that the line drawn having been made by the
whites, and entirely upon _exparte_ evidence of their several rights,
was of no validity whatever.

[228] In 1829 the state of Alabama divided the Creek territory into
counties, and subjected the Indian population to the power of European
magistrates.

In 1830 the state of Mississippi assimilated the Choctaws and Chickasaws
to the white population, and declared that any of them that should take
the title of chief would be punished by a fine of 1,000 dollars and 3
year's imprisonment. When these laws were enforced upon the Choctaws who
inhabited that district, the tribes assembled, their chief communicated
to them the intentions of the whites, and read to them some of the laws
to which it was intended that they should submit; and they unanimously
declared that it was better at once to retreat again into the wilds.

[229] The Georgians, who are so much annoyed by the proximity of the
Indians, inhabit a territory which does not at present contain more than
seven inhabitants to the square mile. In France there are one hundred
and sixty-two inhabitants to the same extent of country.

[230] In 1818 congress appointed commissioners to visit the Arkansas
territory accompanied by a deputation of Creeks, Choctaws, and
Chickasaws. This expedition was commanded by Messrs. Kennerly, M'Coy,
Wash Hood, and John Bell. See the different reports of the
commissioners, and their journal, in the documents of congress, No. 87
house of representatives.

[231] The fifth article of the treaty made with the Creeks in August,
1790, is in the following words: "The United States solemnly guaranty to
the Creek nation all their land within the limits of the United States."

The seventh article of the treaty concluded in 1791 with the Cherokees
says: "The United States solemnly guaranty to the Cherokee nation all
their lands not hereby ceded." The following article declared that if
any citizen of the United States or other settler not of the Indian
race, should establish himself upon the territory of the Cherokees, the
United States would withdraw their protection from that individual, and
give him up to be punished as the Cherokee nation should think fit.

[232] This does not prevent them from promising in the most solemn
manner to do so. See the letter of the president addressed to the Creek
Indians, 23d March, 1829. ("Proceedings of the Indian Board, in the City
of New York," p. 5.) "Beyond the great river Mississippi, where a part
of your nation has gone, your father has provided a country large enough
for all of you, and he advises you to remove to it. There your white
brothers will not trouble you; they will have no claim to the land, and
you can live upon it, you and all your children, as long as the grass
grows or the water runs, in peace and plenty. _It will be yours for
ever_."

The secretary of war, in a letter written to the Cherokees, April 18th,
1829 (see the same work, page 6), declares to them that they cannot
expect to retain possession of the land, at the time occupied by them,
but gives them the most positive assurance of uninterrupted peace if
they would remove beyond the Mississippi: as if the power which could
not grant them protection then, would be able to afford it them
hereafter!

[233] To obtain a correct idea of the policy pursued by the several
states and the Union with respect to the Indians, it is necessary to
consult, 1st, "The laws of the colonial and state governments relating
to the Indian inhabitants." (See the legislative documents, 21st
congress, No. 319.) 2d, "The laws of the Union on the same subject, and
especially that of March 20th, 1802." (See Story's Laws of the United
States.) 3d, "The report of Mr. Cass, secretary of war, relative to
Indian affairs, November 29th, 1823".

[234] December 18th, 1829.

[235] The honor of this result is, however, by no means due to the
Spaniards. If the Indian tribes had not been tillers of the ground at
the time of the arrival of the Europeans, they would unquestionably have
been destroyed in South as well as in North America.

[236] See among other documents, the report made by Mr. Bell in the name
of the committee on Indian affairs, Feb. 24th, 1830, in which it is most
logically established and most learnedly proved, that "the fundamental
principle, that the Indians had no right by virtue of their ancient
possession either of will or sovereignty, has never been abandoned
either expressly or by implication."

In perusing this report, which is evidently drawn up by an able hand,
one is astonished at the facility with which the author gets rid of all
arguments founded upon reason and natural right, which he designates as
abstract and theoretical principles. The more I contemplate the
difference between civilized and uncivilized man with regard to the
principles of justice, the more I observe that the former contests the
justice of those rights, which the latter simply violates.

[237] It is well known that several of the most distinguished authors of
antiquity, and among them Æsop and Terence, were or had been slaves.
Slaves were not always taken from barbarous nations, and the chances of
war reduced highly civilized men to servitude.

[238] To induce the whites to abandon the opinion they have conceived of
the moral and intellectual inferiority of their former slaves, the
negroes must change; but as long as this opinion subsists, to change is
impossible.

[239] See Beverley's History of Virginia. See also in Jefferson's
Memoirs some curious details concerning the introduction of negroes into
Virginia, and the first act which prohibited the importation of them in
1778.

[240] The number of slaves was less considerable in the north, but the
advantages resulting from slavery were not more contested there than in
the south. In 1740, the legislature of the state of New York declared
that the direct importation of slaves ought to be encouraged as much as
possible, and smuggling severely punished, in order not to discourage
the fair trader. (Kent's Commentaries, vol. ii., p. 206.) Curious
researches, by Belknap, upon slavery in New England, are to be found in
the Historical Collections of Massachusetts, vol. iv., p. 193. It
appears that negroes were introduced there in 1630, but that the
legislation and manners of the people were opposed to slavery from the
first; see also, in the same work, the manner in which public opinion,
and afterward the laws, finally put an end to slavery.

[241] Not only is slavery prohibited in Ohio, but no free negroes are
allowed to enter the territory of that state, or to hold property in it.
See the statutes of Ohio.

[242] The activity of Ohio is not confined to individuals, but the
undertakings of the state are surprisingly great: a canal has been
established between Lake Erie and the Ohio, by means of which the valley
of the Mississippi communicates with the river of the north, and the
European commodities with arrive at New York, may be forwarded by water
to New Orleans across five hundred leagues of continent.

[243] The exact numbers given by the census of 1830 were: Kentucky,
588,844; Ohio, 937,679. [In 1840 the census gave, Kentucky 779,828; Ohio
1,519,467.]

[244] Independently of these causes which, wherever free workmen abound,
render their labor more productive and more economical than that of
slaves, another cause may be pointed out which is peculiar to the United
States: the sugar-cane has hitherto been cultivated with success only
upon the banks of the Mississippi, near the mouth of that river in the
gulf of Mexico. In Louisiana the cultivation of the sugar-cane is
exceedingly lucrative; nowhere does a laborer earn so much by his work:
and, as there is always a certain relation between the cost of
production and the value of the produce, the price of slaves is very
high in Louisiana. But Louisiana is one of the confederate states, and
slaves may be carried thither from all parts of the Union; the price
given for slaves in New Orleans consequently raises the value of slaves
in all the other markets. The consequence of this is, that in the
countries where the land is less productive, the cost of slave labor is
still very considerable, which gives an additional advantage to the
competition of free labor.

[245] A peculiar reason contributes to detach the two last-mentioned
states from the cause of slavery. The former wealth of this part of the
Union was principally derived from the cultivation of tobacco. This
cultivation is specially carried on by slaves; but within the last few
years the market-price of tobacco has diminished, while the value of the
slaves remains the same. Thus the ratio between the cost of production
and the value of the produce is changed. The natives of Maryland and
Virginia are therefore more disposed than they were thirty years ago, to
give up slave labor in the cultivation of tobacco, or to give up slavery
and tobacco at the same time.

[246] The states in which slavery is abolished usually do what they can
to render their territory disagreeable to the negroes as a place of
residence; and as a kind of emulation exists between the different
states in this respect, the unhappy blacks can only choose the least of
the evils which beset them.

[247] There is a very great difference between the mortality of the
blacks and of the whites in the states in which slavery is abolished;
from 1820 to 1831 only one out of forty-two individuals of the white
population died in Philadelphia; but one negro out of twenty-one
individuals of the black population died in the same space of time. The
mortality is by no means so great among the negroes who are still
slaves. (See Emmerson's Medical Statistics, p. 28.)

[248] This is true of the spots in which rice is cultivated;
rice-grounds, which are unwholesome in all countries, are particularly
dangerous in those regions which are exposed to the beams of a tropical
sun. Europeans would not find it easy to cultivate the soil in that part
of the New World if it must necessarily be made to produce rice: but may
they not subsist without rice-grounds?

[249] These states are nearer to the equator than Italy and Spain, but
the temperature of the continent of America is very much lower than that
of Europe.

[250] The Spanish government formerly caused a certain number of
peasants from the Azores to be transported into a district of Louisiana
called Attakapas, by way of experiment. These settlers still cultivate
the soil without the assistance of slaves, but their industry is so
languid as scarcely to supply their most necessary wants.

[251] We find it asserted in an American work, entitled, "Letters on the
Colonization Society," by Mr. Carey, 1833, that "for the last forty
years the black race has increased more rapidly than the white race in
the state of South Carolina; and that if we take the average population
of the five states of the south into which slaves were first introduced,
viz., Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia,
we shall find that from 1790 to 1830, the whites have augmented in the
proportion of 80 to 100, and the blacks in that of 112 to 100."