Excerpt from The North American Review, Vol. 133

N o intelligent man will today for a moment entertain the belief that there is still a nook or corner of this country that has the least agricultural or mineral value in it, beyond the reach of progressive civilization. Districts which seemed to be remote wildernesses but a few years ago have been or are now being penetrated by railroads: Montana, Washington Territory, Idaho, and New Mexico are now more easily accessible than Ohio and Indiana were at the beginning of this century, and the same process which resulted in crowding the Indians out of these States has begun and is rapidly going on in those Territories. The settler and miner. Are beginning, or at least threatening, to invade every Indian reservation that offers any attraction, and it is a well-known fact that the frontiersman almost always looks upon Indian lands as the most valuable in the neighborhood, simply because the Indian occupies them and the white man is excluded from them. From the articles in the newspapers of those remote Territories, it would sometimes appear as if, in the midst of millions of untouched acres, the white people were deprived of the necessary elbow-room as long as there is an Indian in the country. At any rate, the settlers and miners want to seize upon the most valuable tracts first, and they are always inclined to look for them among the lands of the Indians. The fact that wild Indians - and here it is proper to say that when in this discussion Indians are spoken of as wild, and their habits of life as savage, these terms are not used in their extreme sense, but as simply meaning uncivilized, there being of course among them, in that respect, a difference of degrees hold immense tracts of country which, possessed by them, are of no advantage to anybody, while, as is said, thousands upon thousands of white people stand ready to cultivate them and to make them contribute to the national wealth, is always aptto make an impression upon minds not accustomed to nice dis crimination. It is needless to say that the rights of the In. Dians are a matter of very small consideration in the eyes of those who covet their possessions. The average frontiers man looks upon the Indian simply as a nuisance that is in his way. There are certainly men among them of humane prin ciples, but also many whom it would be difficult to convince that it is a crime to kill an Indian, or that to rob an Indian of his lands is not a meritorious act. This pressure grows in volume and intensity as the population increases, until finally, in some way or another, one Indian reservation after another falls into the hands of white settlers. Formerly, when this was accom plished, the Indians so dispossessed were removed to other vacant places farther westward. Now this expedient is no longer open. The western country is rapidly filling up. A steady stream of immigration is following the railroad lines and then spreading to the right and left. The vacant places still existing are either worthless or will soon be exposed to the same inva sion. The plains are being occupied by cattle-raisers, the fertile valleys and bottom-lands by agriculturists, the mountains by miners. What is to become of the Indians?

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