The American Indian in the United States Period: 1850-1914
9781465666352
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The American Indian may be regarded from two wide and divergent points of view; that of the scientist, and that of the humanitarian. Under the former should be grouped all study of the Indian, past and present, falling under the general science of anthropology, and its various divisions and sub-divisions. This includes the study of the Indian as a primitive man belonging to the Red Race, and different from all other races on the face of the earth. This view comprises archaeology, physical anthropology, ethnology, folklore, religion, etc. The second, under the general title of humanitarianism, includes all progress, education, missionary endeavor, and that which may be summed up under the title Civilization, or as the modernists have it, “Social Service.” After much thought, it occurs to me that we must view the Indian from these two and quite opposed angles—the scientific, the philanthropic. The average man or woman is not interested in the Indian from the point of view of the scientist. This is quite natural. But, persons of intelligence are interested in the Indian as a strange and peculiar individual. He appeals to their imagination. The public has had presented to it during past years, great numbers of books, pamphlets and articles all dealing with the Indian, and most of them regard him from what is known as “the popular point of view.” Having read, or glanced through scores of these, it is my firm conviction that, after all, we have not properly understood the Indian. The scientists have made him the subject of technical study, beginning with the generalities of two centuries ago and continuing down to the minutest of detail of modern investigations. Through our records of wars, and our sensational articles, we have been given the impression that his days were spent in fighting, and his nights in war dances. To the scientist he has appeared, not as a man, but as a bit of life to be dissected and preserved; or a specimen duly catalogued, described, and placed in an exhibition case. To the average man or woman, influenced by sensational books, and degrading wild-west shows, and that modern invention, the motion picture, he presents a figure as unreal as it is inhuman. The Indian of today, with few exceptions, having lost his aboriginal characteristics, the faith of his fathers and his whole life changed, is indeed, a fit subject for the educator, the philanthropist, and the social reformer. Would one desire to understand this very peculiar race of red men, one should begin his study by observing the Indian of today. And his observation should cover the character, activities and condition of this Indian of modern times. He should regard him not merely through the cold, unsympathetic eyes of the scientist, who looks for survival of savage or primitive customs, but in a larger and broader sense. To begin with, everyone should realize that the survivors of the American race are more in need today of protection and help than of scientific study. From a purely scientific point of view, the Indian has been pretty thoroughly studied the past fifty years. This statement of mine does not necessarily imply that there should be no technical study of the American Indian in these present days. But as between the work of the scientist and that of the humanitarian the Indian is vastly more in need of the latter than of the former. In the belief that our studies of the American Indian have so progressed that one may now consider the race in its entirety, I have set myself the rather ambitious task of preparing a number of volumes treating of the American Indian of the present and past. After much deliberation it has occurred to me that the Indian of today should be first considered—hence this volume. At the outset, we find that generally speaking the Indian throughout the United States although maintaining much of his original speech, and in places some of his aboriginal characteristics, yet, as a whole, he is in the transition period.
