of this astounding riddle? This, and none other. England gathers her Indian tribes, like ordinary citizens, within the girth of her usual laws. If injured, they complain, like other men, to a justice of the peace, not to a camp captain. If offenders, they are arraigned before such a justice, or some superior court. Complaint, indictment, evidence, trial, sentence, are all after the old Saxon pattern. With us martial law, or no law at all, is their portion; no civil rights, no right to property that a white man is bound to respect. Of course quarrel, war, expense, oppression, robbery, resistance, like begetting like, and degradation of the Indian even to the level of the frontiersman

who would plunder him, have been the result of such a method. If such a result were singular, if our case stood alone, we should receive the pitiless curses of mankind. But the same result has almost always followed the contact of the civilized and the savage man.

General Grant’s recommendation of a policy which would acknowledge the Indian as a citizen, is the first step in our Indian history which gives us any claim to be considered a Christian people. The hostility it has met shows the fearful demoralization of our press and political parties. Statesmanship, good sense and justice, even from a chief magistrate can hardly obtain a hearing when they relate to such long-time victims of popular hate and pillage as our Indian tribes. Some few men in times past have tried to stem this hideous current of national indifference and injustice. Some men do now try. Prominent among these is the author of this volume. Thirty years of practical experience in dealing with Indians while he represented the Government in different offices; long and familiar acquaintance with their genius, moods, habits and capabilities, enable and entitle him to testify in this case. That, having suffered, at the hands of Indians, all that man can suffer and still live, he should yet lift up a voice, snatched almost miraculously from the grave, to claim for them, nevertheless, the treatment of men, of citizens, is a marvellous instance of fidelity to conviction against every temptation and injury. Bearing all over his person the scars of nearly fatal wounds received from Indians, he still advocates Grant’s policy. Familiar with the Indian tribes, and personally acquainted with their chiefs, with the old and young, men and women, their sports and faith, their history and aspirations, their education and capacity, their songs, amusements, legends, business, loves and hates, his descriptions lack no element of a faithful portrait; while his lightest illustrations have always beneath the surface a meaning which cannot fail to arrest the attention of the American people, and enable them to understand this national problem. Never before have we had just such a witness on the stand. Brilliant and graphic in description, and exceedingly happy in his choice of topics, he gives us pages startling and interesting as a novel. While his appeals stir the heart like a clarion, he still keeps cautiously to sober fact; and every statement, the most seemingly incredible, is based on more than sufficient evidence. I commend this book to the public—study it not only as accurate and striking in its pictures of Indian life, but as profoundly interesting to every student of human nature,—the picture of a race fast fading away and melting into white men’s ways. His contribution to the solution of one of the most puzzling problems of American statesmanship is invaluable. Destined no doubt to provoke bitter criticism, I feel sure his views and statements will bear the amplest investigation. His volume will contribute largely to vindicate the President’s policy, and to enable, while it disposes, the American people to understand and do justice to our native tribes.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.