From the Letters of George Catlin  circa 1832-1833

            "The Indians of North America were originally the undisputed owners of the soil, and got their title to their lands from the Great Spirit who created them on it, were once a happy and flourishing people, enjoying all the comforts and luxuries of life which they knew of, and consequently cared for:  were sixteen million in numbers; and sent that number of daily prayers to the Almighty, and thanks for his goodness and protection.  Their country was entered by white men, but a few hundred years since; and thirty million of these are now scuffling for the goods and luxuries of life, over the bones and ashes of twelve million of red men; six millions of whom have fallen victims of the small-pox, and the remainder to the sword, the bayonet and whiskey; all of which means have been visited on them by acquisitive white men; and by white men, also, whose forefathers were welcomed and embraced in the land where the poor Indian met and fed them with "ears of green corn and with pemmican."

           "The reader, then... should forget many theories he has read in the books of Indian barbarities, of wanton butcheries and murders; and divest himself, as far as possible of the deadly prejudices which he has carried from childhood, against this most unfortunate and most abused part of his race of fellow-man."
            "So great and unfortunate are the disparities between savage and civil, in numbers, in weapons, and defences, in enterprise, craft and education, that the former is almost universally the sufferer either in peace or in war; and not less so after his pipe and tomahawk have retired to the grave with him, and his character is left to be entered upon the pages of history, and that justice done to his memory... by his enemy."
 
           "I am fully convinced, from a long familiarity with these people, that the Indian's misfortune has consisted chiefly in our ignorance of their true native character and disposition, which has always caused us to hold them at a distrustful distance, inducing us to look upon them in no other light than that of a hostile foe...."
           "The very use of the word savage, as it is applied in its general sense, I am inclined to believe is an abuse of the word and the people to whom it is applied.  The word, in its true definition, means no more than wild, or wild man; and a wild man may have been endowed by his Maker with all the humane and noble traits that inhabit the heart of a tame man. Our ignorance and dread or fear of these people, therefore, has given a new definition to the adjective; and nearly the whole civilized world apply the word savage, as expressive of the most ferocious, cruel, and murderous character than can be described."
 
           "As evidence of the hospitality of these people, and also of their honesty and honour, there will be found recorded many striking images in the following pages.  And also, as an offset to these, many evidences of the dark and cruel, as well as ignorant and disgusting excesses of american passions, unrestrained by the salutory influences of laws and christianity."
             "I have roamed about during seven or eight years, visiting and associating with some forty-eight Tribes, over two thirds of this Nation, and with some three or four hundred thousand souls under an almost infinite variety of circumstances; and from the very many and decided voluntary acts of their hospitality and kindness, I feel bound to pronouce them, by nature, a kind and hospitable people. I have been welcomed in their country, and treated to the best they could give me, without any charges made for my board; they have often escorted me through their enemies' country at some hazard to their own lives, and aided me in passing mountains and rivers with awkward baggage; and under all of these circumstances of exposure, no Indian ever betrayed me, struck me a blow, or stole from me a shilling's worth of my property.  This is saying a great deal in favor of the virtues of these people when it is borne in mind that there is no law in their land to punish a man for theft, that locks and keys are not known, that no commandments have ever been divulged amongst them; nor can any human retribution fall upon the head of a thief, save the disgrace which attaches as a stigma to his character in the eyes of his people about him."
           "Thus, in all these little communities, in the absence of all systems of jurisprudence, I have beheld peace and happiness and quiet, reigning supreme, for which even kings and emperors might envy them.  I have seen rights and virtue protected, and wrongs redressed.  I have formed warm and enduring attachments to men which I do not wish to forget, who have brought me near to their hearts, and in our final seperation have embraced me in their arms and commended me and my affairs to the keeping of the Great Spirit."
            "For the above reasons, the reader will forgive me for swelling so long on the justness of the claims of these people; and for my occassional expressions of sadness, when my heart bleeds for the fate that awaits the remainder of their unlucky race; which may be outlived by the rocks, by the beasts, and even birds and reptiles of the country they live in;-- set upon by their fellow-man, whose cupidity may fix no bounds to the Indian's earthly calmity, short of the grave."
 

            "There are abundant proofs recorded in the history of this coutry to shew that this very numerous and respectable part of the human family, which occupied the different parts of North America at the time of its first settlement by the Anglo-Americans, (not counting the California Territory) contained more than sixteen million, who have been reduced by six million due to disease since that time, and undoubtedly in consequnce to that settlement, now to something less than two million....  As they stand at this day, there may be four or five hundred thousand in their original state; and a million and one-half that may be said to be semi-civilized, contending with the sophistry of white men, amongst who they are timidly and unsuccessfully endeavoring to hold up their heads, and aping their modes; whilst they are swallowing their poisons, and yielding their lands and their lives, to the superior tact and cunning of their mercilous cajolers."

            "These traders, in addition to the terror they carry at the muzzles of their guns, as well as by whiskey and the small-pox, are continually arming tribe after tribe with firearms; who are able thereby, to bring their unsuspecting enemies into unequal combats, where they are slain by the thousands, and who have no way to heal the awful wound but by arming themselves in return, and reeking their vengence on their defenseless enemies. In this wholesale way, and by whiskey and disease, tribe after tribe sink their heads and lose their better, proudest half, before the next wave of civilization flows on to see or learn anything definite about them.

           "In the Indian communities, where there is no law of the land or custom denominating it a vice to drink whiskey, and to get drunk; and where the poor Indian meets whiskey tendered to him by white men, to whom he has come to consider wiser than himself, by nature of superior wealth, weapons and numbers, and to whom he naturally looks for example; he thinks it no harm to drink to excess, and will lie drunk as long as he can raise the means to pay for it.  He becomes a beggar for whiskey, and begs until he disgusts the honest pioneer who becomes his neighbor; and then, and not before, gets the name of the "poor, degraded, naked, and drunken Indian...."
           "This system of whiskey and (fur) trade, and the small-pox, have been the great and wholesale destroyers of these people, from the Atlantic Coast to where they are now found.  And no one but God knows where the voracity of the former will stop, short of the acquisition of everything that is desireable to money-making man in the Indian's country."
 
          "I have found these people kind, honorable and endowed with every feeling of parental, filial, and conjugal affection that is met in our communities. I have found them moral and religious: and I am bound to give them credit for their zeal in their modes of worship.  I fearlessly assert to the world, (and I defy contradiction), that the North American Indian is everywhere, in his native state, a highly moral and religious being, endowed by his Maker, with an intuitive knowledge of some great Author of his being and the Universe....  The most striking fact amongst the North American Indians is that of their worshipping the Great Spirit instead of a plurality of gods, as ancient pagans and heathens did---they appeal to the Great Spirit and know of no mediator, either personal or symbolical.  I am bound to say that I never saw any other people of any colour, who spend so much of their lives in humbling themselves before, and worshipping, the Great Spirit."
          In Washington Irving's "Adventures in the Far West", there is this description of the Indians.  "They were friendly in their dispositions, and honest to the most scrupulous degree in their intercourse with the white men. Simply to call these people religious, would convey but a faint idea of the deep hue of their piety and devotion which pervades the whole of their conduct.  Their honesty is immaculate; as is their purity of purpose, and their observance of the rites of their religion are most uniform and remarkable.  They are certainly more like a nation of Saints, than a horde of savages."
           "By nature they are decent and modest, unassuming and inoffensive, and all history proves them to have been found friendly and hospitable on the first approach of white people to their villiages on all parts of the American Continent.  I am proud to add my testimony to that of...Columbus (who) wrote, "I swear that there is not a better people in the world than these: more affectionate, affable, or mild.  They love their neighbors as themselves, and they always speak smilingly."
 
          "For the Christian, there is enough, I am sure, in the character, condition and history of these unfortunate people to engage his sympathies,
             For the Nation, there is an unrequited account of sin and injustice that sooner or later will call for national retribution,
       and For the American citizens, who live, everywhere proud of their growing wealth and their luxuries, over the bones of these poor fellows, who have surrendered their hunting grounds and their lives to the enjoyment of their cruel dispossessors, there is a lingering terror to appear and stand with guilt's shivering conviction, amidst the myriad ranks of accusing spirits that are sure to rise in their own fields at the final day of resurrection!