criptive right to its sole occupation, and they
did their best to keep actual settlers out. In some cases, to avoid
difficulty, their nominal claims were bought up; generally, and rightly,
they were disregarded. Yet they certainly had as good a right to the
Little Missouri country as the Sioux have to most of the land on their
present reservations. In fact, the mere statement of the case is
sufficient to show the absurdity of asserting that the land really
belonged to the Indians. The different tribes have always been utterly
unable to define their own boundaries. Thus the Delawares and Wyandots,
in 1785, though entirely separate nations, claimed and, in a certain
sense, occupied almost exactly the same territory.

Moreover, it was wholly impossible for our policy to be always
consistent. Nowadays we undoubtedly ought to break up the great Indian
reservations, disregard the tribal governments, allot the land in
severally (with, however, only a limited power of alienation), and
treat the Indians as we do other citizens, with certain exceptions,
for their sakes as well as ours. But this policy, which it would be
wise to follow now, would have been wholly impracticable a century
since. Our central government was then too weak either effectively to
control its own members or adequately to punish aggressions made upon
them; and even if it had been strong, it would probably have proved
impossible to keep entire order over such a vast, sparsely-peopled
frontier, with such turbulent elements on both sides. The Indians
could not be treated as individuals at that time. There was no
possible alternative, therefore, to treating their tribes as nations,
exactly as the French and English had done before us. Our difficulties
were partly inherited from these, our predecessors, were partly caused
by our own misdeeds, but were mainly the inevitable result of the
conditions under which the problem had to be solved; no human wisdom
or virtue could have worked out a peaceable solution. As a nation, our
Indian policy is to be blamed, because of the weakness it displayed,
because of its shortsightedness, and its occasional leaning to the
policy of the sentimental humanitarians; and we have often promised
what was impossible to perform; but there has been little wilful
wrong-doing. Our government almost always tried to act fairly by the
tribes; the governmental agents (some of whom have been dishonest, and
others foolish, but who, as a class,