William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 1

A “new policy” has just been adopted by President Grant towards the Red men, with a view to their more speedy settlement and conversion. This policy is founded on Franciscan experience, but adapted to the principles of a secular state, and the existing order of things. In future, the Indians are to be received and marked .as “wards.” Driven by bayonets into nooks and corners, they are now placed under the guidance of certain sects, who feed and teach them, and under the inspection of certain captains, who watch and shoot them, should they be caught roaming across the paper lines. The teachers, anxious to please the sects and “justify the ways of God,” have created an ideal Indian country, smiling with imaginary ranches, gardens, schools, and churches. Every Indian reservation has a school fund on paper, and in some settlements there are actual sheds called schools. The captains tell another tale. These captains have no theories to support. When a white ranch has been violated, as at Snake River, or a white family scalped, as at Smoky Hill, they have to chase and fight the savages. Illusions find no place in a frontier post. Now, it is the short and simple truth to say that-so far as my experience