Читать книгу A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner. U.S. Interpreter at the Saut de Ste. Marie онлайн

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It is manifest that plans of government adopted and enforced to subserve the purposes of the fur traders, will be framed with the design of keeping the Indians in a state of efficiency as hunters, and must thus in the end be directly opposed to all efforts to give them those settled habits that attachment to the soil, and that efficient industry, which must constitute the first step in their advance towards civilization. Such are the climate and soil of a great part of the country northward of the great lakes, as to render it extremely improbable that any other than a rude race of hunters will ever be found there; and for them, it would probably be in vain to hope for a milder government than such a kind of despotism as can be swayed by a company of traders. But within the country belonging to the United States are many rude tribes distributed at intervals through boundless forests, or along smiling and fertile plains, where it would seem that industry and civilization might be introduced. Here it is not probable that the fur trade can ever become a protected and exclusive monopoly; and since, while conducted as it is, and as it must continue to be, it is the most prolific sources of evil to the Indians, it may be allowed us, to look forward to the time when many among the remnants of the native tribes shall escape from its influence by becoming independent of the means of subsistence it offers them.