nited States, the agents of
Britain had far less anxiety about the rights of the Indians, than the
injuries which, through their instrumentality, might be inflicted upon
the rising republic. This feeling towards the whites, and especially to
the people of the United States, had a deeper foundation than mere
prejudice or self-interest. Tecumseh was a patriot, and his love of
country made him a statesman and a warrior. He saw his race driven from
their native land, and scattered like withered leaves in an autumnal
blast; he beheld their morals debased, their independence destroyed,
their means of subsistence cut off, new and strange customs introduced,
diseases multiplied, ruin and desolation around and among them; he
looked for the cause of these evils and believed he had found it in the
flood of white immigration which, having surmounted the towering
Alleghenies, was spreading itself over the hunting grounds of Kentucky,
and along the banks of the Scioto, the Miami and the Wabash, whose
waters, from time immemorial, had reflected the smoke of the rude but
populous villages of his ancestors. As a statesman, he studied the
subject, and, having satisfied himself that justice was on the side of
his countrymen, he tasked the powers of his expansive mind, to find a
remedy for the mighty evil which threatened their total extermination.

The original, natural right of the Indians to the occupancy and
possession of their lands, has been recognized by the laws of congress,
and solemnly sanctioned by the highest judicial tribunal of the United
States. On this principle, there is no disagreement between our
government and the Indian nations by whom this country was originally
inhabited.[A]

[Footnote A: 6 Wheaton's Reports, 515.]

In the acquisition of these lands, however, our government has held
that its title was perfect when it had purchased of the tribe in actual
possession. It seems, indeed, to have gone farther and admitted, that a
tribe might acquire lands by conquest which it did not occupy, as in
the case of the Iroquois, and sell the same to us; and, that the title
thus acquired, would be valid. Thus we have recognized the principles
of international law as operative between the Indians and us on this
particular point, while on some others, as in not _allowing_ them to
sell to individuals, and giving them tracts used as hunting grounds by
other tribes beyond the Mississippi, we have treated them as savage
hordes, not