William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 1

[296] alien he had no place in the system, and the country spewed him forth, a waif and stray, whom any man might chase and kill. For him there was no law, no court, no judge. In every other part of the United States a Negro was protected in his freedom; but the Indian country is a separate commonwealth, in which the White man's law has no effect. A Redskin has his rules; and while the Black men linger on his soil they must submit, even though the Redskin's rule should be enforced with poisoned arrow, pony-hoof, and salted fire.

The Creeks and Cherokees have borrowed some of the forms of civilised communities. They have assemblies, more or less comic; they have schools and justice-rooms, more or less comic. Some of the chiefs are hankering after private property in land. A few seem not unwilling that their boys should learn the English alphabet and the Christian Catechism. But none of these good things are open to the liberated slave, who still remains on Indian territory. A Negro casts no vote. He may not send his child to school, or ask a hearing in the justice-room. He never owns a rood of soil. When kicked from the Indian lodge, as an in--296