TREATMENT OF INDIANS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 3, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 22.

TREATMENT OF INDIANS.

THIS is what Rev. E. Ryerson Young, Jr., says of the treatment of the Indians in Canada:

"The great Fur-trading Company often make the boast that they never sold liquor to the Indians; but the missionaries illumined their treacherous schemes, and revealed many ways of darkness that were horrible to be known.

"O, no, the liquor was not 'sold' or 'bartered,' but it was 'presented' and 'given' in curious ways! The fine hunter with his splendid pack of furs would come in, his naturally keen sense of bargaining all alert, and his body in healthy condition after the chase. This strength of body and alertness of eye are not pleasing to the trader, but with all the suavity of a tempter, he 'treats' his hunter to a cup of rum, and plies him with more and more, till the glistening eye is drowsy, the natural sense abated. Bargaining begins and ends very quickly. The poor Indian gets very little for his valuable furs, and then with his purchases he stumbles to his wig-wam, abuses his wife, and falls into a heavy slumber, of which he will have to have a good many ere the effects of the poisonous fire-water are at all, if ever, eradicated from his body. It is a wonder to missionaries that the Indians, when they have recovered from their debauch, and comprehended their treatment, have not

scalped more traders than they have. There are records of a few of these scoundrels reaping a just harvest of their sowing. But in many, only too many, cases the innocent ones in the wigwams suffer the blows, while the traders get the fur, and the stupid Indians only clamor for more fire-water."