"Who brought these Indians to their present condition? ... Who enervated their bodies and degraded their minds by the contamination of the vices of the white man?"
On Repealing the Act of 1819, for the Civilization of the Indians, &c.
Washington DC: (n.p.), 1842
A report by James Cooper, Chairman of the Committee of Indian Affairs in the House of Representatives, opposing the proposed bill to repeal the Civilization Fund. The fund was established to teach trades to members of peaceful tribes. Much of the funding went to Christian missionary groups, which attempted to convert Native Americans while educating them. The act proved a controversial expenditure of taxpayer money until it was finally repealed in 1873. This report argues that for each dollar of federal investment has been matched by private groups and provides a table indicating the trades taught to members of various tribes (blacksmithing being the most common). Appended to the report is an impassioned plea by the Secretary of War, J. C. Spenser, who notes that the annual appropriation of $10,000 per year for the program paled in comparison to the millions of dollars earned by white Americans on the lands that once belonged to the Indians.
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Spenser wrote: "Who brought these Indians to their present condition? Who deprived them of the means of pursuing that mode of life to which they were fitted, and in which they were happy? Who enervated their bodies and degraded their minds by the contamination of the vices of the white man? And does not a fearful obligation rest upon us to mitigate, if we cannot arrest, the evils which our rapacious domination has so profusely dealt to them? In the dark history of our connection with the aborigines, who does not dwell with delight on the page that records the instance of a returning sense of justice, which appropriated, from the millions upon millions that have flowed from the lands we wrested from them, the poor pittance of an annuity of ten thousand dollars, to save them from utter degredation and wretchedness."
19 pages. Two gatherings, loosely stitched together, as issued. Not disbound, and uncommon thus. (Rep. No. 854. 27th Congress, 2d. Session) Very good, with edges untrimmed.
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