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The Indians of North America...were once a happy and flourishing people...were sixteen millions in numbers....The country was entered by white men...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 to the small-pox, and the remainder to the sword, the bayonet, and whiskey.... Of the two million remaining alive at this time, about 1,400,000 are already the miserable living victims and dupes of white man's cupidity, degraded, discouraged, and lost in the bewildering maze that is produced by the use of whiskey and its concomitant vices; and the remaining number are yet unaroused and unenticed from their wild haunts or their primitive modes, by the dread or love of white man and his allurements.
Source: George Catlin, North American Indians (New York: 1841), I, 6-7. |
