Post by tamara on Apr 10, 2007 22:36:10 GMT -5
the following is taken from Project Canterbury and speaks about the conditions at Santee. It would be important to read the entire document, but I am posting the part I felt most impacted by.
Tamara
This state of things now stares good men in the face. It is high time, surely, for effort of another kind. The Government and the Church call upon them to stand up as champions of what is right. If ever the warning of the wise man be in season, it is now. "If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou gayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not He that pondereth the heart consider it? and He that keepeth thy soul, doth not He know it? and shall not He render to every man according to his works?"
Discussions of the probable future of the Indians, are beside the question, and dangerous because they drown the call of present duty. Suppose these people to be designed by Providence to be hewers of wood and drawers pf water. Our duty is to fit them for that lot. Suppose that they are to be merged in our more numerous race. Our duty is to fit them for that absorption by intermarriage, and so arrest the present vicious intermingling. Suppose that they are to die out. Our duty is to prepare them for their departure. Our duty is the plainer, because the treatment which will fit these people for any one of these lots will fit them for either of the others.
But I have heard it said that practical men have come to the conclusion that Indians should be EXTERMINATED. What if some one should make this reply? If they are to be exterminated, now is the golden opportunity. Nature has laid the Santee Indians low with small-pox. Let the advocates of extermination come to her help. Their task is easy. Whole tribes of Indians have perished from small-pox in the past. Parched with fever, its victims have crawled to the river brink to slake their thirst, and, too weak to make their way back again, have died there, until the river's bank has been lined, for miles, with row upon row of ghastly corpses. With a little timely help given to nature's work among the Santees, such a scene may be beheld again. There are thirty or forty Santee scouts just on their way back towards their homes, from service with a military expedition sent out to protect a rail-road survey from molestation from their savage brethren. Brave, gallant fellows they are, some of them communicants of our Church, who have won the commendation of their officers. A telegram has been sent that they ought not to return. Let some advocate of extermination telegraph them just the contrary. They are panting to see their wives and children, and will be glad of an excuse. Indians have children, black-eyed and merry as larks. Let the gentle members of the Sisterhood of Extermination wrap them up and sing them to sleep in infected blankets stripped from their dying mothers. Let them gather together the cast-off clothing and bedding of the sick, and send it off among the upper tribes. The winter is coming on. Many are shivering for want of clothing. The advocates of extermination may easily scatter these infected garments and the fatal plague with them wherever they will. Here, then, is work for the advocates of extermination. I call for volunteers.
Manifestly, the cry for extermination is but a grim joke--perforce, perhaps, resorted to by intensely practical men to startle our too great enthusiasm into common-sense. Rightly conducted and presented, Missions to the Indians will commend themselves to all. Real advocates of extermination, there are none.
Respectfully submitted,
WILLIAM H. HARE, Missionary Bishop of Niobrara.
September 30, 1873.
anglicanhistory.org/indigenous/hare1873.html
Tamara
This state of things now stares good men in the face. It is high time, surely, for effort of another kind. The Government and the Church call upon them to stand up as champions of what is right. If ever the warning of the wise man be in season, it is now. "If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou gayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not He that pondereth the heart consider it? and He that keepeth thy soul, doth not He know it? and shall not He render to every man according to his works?"
Discussions of the probable future of the Indians, are beside the question, and dangerous because they drown the call of present duty. Suppose these people to be designed by Providence to be hewers of wood and drawers pf water. Our duty is to fit them for that lot. Suppose that they are to be merged in our more numerous race. Our duty is to fit them for that absorption by intermarriage, and so arrest the present vicious intermingling. Suppose that they are to die out. Our duty is to prepare them for their departure. Our duty is the plainer, because the treatment which will fit these people for any one of these lots will fit them for either of the others.
But I have heard it said that practical men have come to the conclusion that Indians should be EXTERMINATED. What if some one should make this reply? If they are to be exterminated, now is the golden opportunity. Nature has laid the Santee Indians low with small-pox. Let the advocates of extermination come to her help. Their task is easy. Whole tribes of Indians have perished from small-pox in the past. Parched with fever, its victims have crawled to the river brink to slake their thirst, and, too weak to make their way back again, have died there, until the river's bank has been lined, for miles, with row upon row of ghastly corpses. With a little timely help given to nature's work among the Santees, such a scene may be beheld again. There are thirty or forty Santee scouts just on their way back towards their homes, from service with a military expedition sent out to protect a rail-road survey from molestation from their savage brethren. Brave, gallant fellows they are, some of them communicants of our Church, who have won the commendation of their officers. A telegram has been sent that they ought not to return. Let some advocate of extermination telegraph them just the contrary. They are panting to see their wives and children, and will be glad of an excuse. Indians have children, black-eyed and merry as larks. Let the gentle members of the Sisterhood of Extermination wrap them up and sing them to sleep in infected blankets stripped from their dying mothers. Let them gather together the cast-off clothing and bedding of the sick, and send it off among the upper tribes. The winter is coming on. Many are shivering for want of clothing. The advocates of extermination may easily scatter these infected garments and the fatal plague with them wherever they will. Here, then, is work for the advocates of extermination. I call for volunteers.
Manifestly, the cry for extermination is but a grim joke--perforce, perhaps, resorted to by intensely practical men to startle our too great enthusiasm into common-sense. Rightly conducted and presented, Missions to the Indians will commend themselves to all. Real advocates of extermination, there are none.
Respectfully submitted,
WILLIAM H. HARE, Missionary Bishop of Niobrara.
September 30, 1873.
anglicanhistory.org/indigenous/hare1873.html