JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

The fighting end of the American Indian Wars was coming to an end when this pamphlet was published in 1880.  When I opened it I fully expected to see the issue of the “questions” of the American Indian being Indian control, or the “problems” of Indians retaining reservation lands now much in demand by settlers, and so on. As it turns out, this report was a very sympathetic investigation of the problems that the Indians were having. The “Indian Question” was a big one–why were the Indians  being so hideously treated?  

Some of the discussion presented in the pamphlet included section headings like  “unsuitable reservations”, “the way the government robs the Indian”, “evils of the present system”, “Indian children equal to the white in capacity”, “rapid advancement of Indians”, “robbery of property of Indians”, “gross mismanagement and cruel treatment of Indians, “the punishment of murderers of Indians” (which the pamphlet records as “none”), “violation of treaties by the U.S. government”, “inexcusable neglect of Indian Department”, and such.   Pretty impressive.

Here’s the entire document from the Internet Archive–it is well worth at least a browse. 

 https://archive.org/stream/indianquestionr00indigoog#page/n10/mode/2up

Notes

1. LONG, John D. The Indian Question, Report of the Committee appointed by Honorable John D. Long, Governor of Massachusetts. Boston; Frank Wood, 1880.  8vo, 26, 47pp.  Original wrappers, institutional stamp on rear wrapper from the Library of Congress; U.S.  Geological Survey rubber stamp on back of the title page