other
circumstances, he would instantly have resented and punished. But they
well knew how they were robbed; and when did a wrong of that, or any
sort, pass muster upon the Indian's roll of vengeance? Every fraud
against an Indian, every lie told him, every broken promise, every
worthless article sold to him at the Agency, was more than a set-off to
any act of kindness shown to him by the settlers. Add to these local
crimes, the great error of the Government in unduly withholding the
Indian payment for their lands--and you have the Indian's _casus belli_,
the grounds, or some of them, on which he justified himself to his own
bloody and remorseless conscience, for his inhuman deeds! For the Indian
beeps a conscience, such as it is; but of a truth, better no conscience
than an Indian's conscience! It is like an appeal to hell, one's appeal
to this! all the accursed passions imprisoned there coming up from their
limbos, their eyes glaring with the malice of ineradicable hate, and
bloodshot with murder, to support the conscience, and strengthen its
resolution for an unspeakable vengeance.

But, after all, this poor devil is really to be pitied for his ignorance
and brutality, and as really to be killed without mercy. He is in the
way of civilization, and must go to the wall. I find that Nature herself
is utterly pitiless; that she cares neither for white nor red, nor for
any other color or person, but, like a horrible, crashing car of
Juggernaut, she rolls steadily forward, astride the inevitable
machinery, crushing all who oppose her.

But this digression is no apology, in the matter of its argument, for
the Indian Agents, who must have been aware, long before the outbreak
took place, that their frauds were fast culminating in the Indian mind,
and that every fresh wrong they did to them was only bringing nearer by
a step the indiscriminate massacre of the settlers.

There were other causes, however, besides these, to enrage and madden
them, which must not be lost sight of. Our Government had prohibited
their sanguinary wars upon the Chippewas, and they regarded this as an
act of wanton tyranny. They were bred in the faith that war is the true
condition of an Indian man, and that peace was made for women and
children. War was the only outlet for their power, the only field in
which they could distinguish themselves and win immortal renown. All the
great kingdoms of knowledge and literature were shut against them as
with