the centre of his breast, and was immediately pierced by a ball at the place indicated. A rope was then attached to his legs, by which the body was dragged some distance, and hung upon a tree, as a warning to other Indian depredators, where it remained for several months, and until eaten up piecemeal by the wolves and vultures."

"January 8, page 46.-This day, as usual, passed through a country interspersed with woodlands and elevated prairies. At a little distance in the woods stood two young men, loading their rifles, to make further trial of their skill in the use of that deadly weapon. Their appearance was sufficiently rustic for every forest or hunting purpose, and their language and conversation smacked strongly of the spirit of border fighting and hatred to the Indians. They had learned, but a few hours before, from a traveller, that Indians had been seen further up the country, (whether friendly or not, they seemed not disposed to inquire,) and hence they were thus preparing for such emergencies (from friendly Indians) as they supposed might likely transpire."

In answer to a suggestion that the Indians mentioned by the traveller might be a company of friendly Indians, and not disposed to do mischief, the young husband, with a mingled frown, sneer, and angry laugh, answered, "Friendly? Yes, they will be friendly enough if they once come within the range of my rifle." This remark was received by the junior members of the family with a laugh of pleasure. "It required but little penetration to discover that our hosts were accustomed to the vicissitudes attendant upon settlers on the borders of the haunts of savages, and that to them, sporting and the killing of Indians were merely synonymous

terms."

TERRITORIAL RIGHTS, ETC., OF TEXAN TRIBES. 233

We are also informed, by the same author, that the Indians were plundered of 25,000 head of buffaloe by General Burleson, in 1840, and, as if forgetting this provocation, he brings down a long list of crimes committed by the Indians, to justify the white man's Christian retaliation.

The territorial rights and claims of the western tribes of Texas are simply those of uninterrupted possession of the soil for upwards of 200 years, a title which the Mexicans have at all times respected, and which the land and colonization laws of Mexico strengthen; while the eastern tribes, namely, Cherokees, Shawnees, Creeks, Kickapoos, and their fugitive tribes, claim the lands they accepted in Texas, on the earnest solicitation of the Mexican government, under the colonization laws of Mexico, and the state of Coahuila and Texas, which give, after the native or western tribes, to foreign or wandering Indians on the frontier, the following portions of land. To every head of a family one sitio, 4428 acres; and to every single male adult a quarter of a league, 1107 acres; therefore, if we estimate the territory claimed by the Indians according to the colonization laws, allowing that the Indian population (80,000) would only give 10,000 heads of non-adult families at one sitio, (4428 acres,) and 5000 single male adults a quarter of a league, or 1107 acres each, their portion of the soil of Texas would be 49,815,000 acres, which would be equal to about 662 acres per head for the native

234 INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS OF THE TEXAN INDIANS.

Indian population, and, after deducting 49,815,000 acres claimed by the Indians from the superficial surface of Texas, which is estimated at 300,000 square miles, or about 192,000,000 of acres, it leaves the white population (which I can prove to be under 60,000) 142,185,000 acres, or 2369 acres per head.

Hence it will be seen that the territory claimed by the Indians does not amount to one-third of their native country, and therefore it cannot be said that the savage wants to monopolize all to himself, to the inconvenience and prejudice of his civilized brethren. The international rights of the Indian nations of Texas are precisely the same as those that England has acknowledged by treaty with the Arabs, and various other wandering nations in Africa and America, viz., that of entering into treaties, offensive and defensive, with foreign powers. And we find, in many cases, that the exercise of this right by the Indians has given to British subjects the right of trading with them, without the interference or concurrence of the power who merely exercises a nominal sovereignty over the territory they inhabit. And, in order to secure these interests to British subjects in Texas, and to advance the cause of humanity, justice, and civilization, I have frequently and publicly proposed the following plan for the protection of the Texan Indians, and which I strongly recommend to the serious consideration of the Aborigines Protection Society, viz., That

her majesty's government be earnestly intreated to send out a commissioner to Mexico, to solicit the Mexican government to enter into a treaty for the establishment on the eastern frontier of Mexico, of a commission to be composed of one commissioner on the part of England, and one on the part of Mexico, for the purpose of protecting the lives and property, and adjusting the claims of the Indian tribes of Texas.

The means proposed to carry the views of this commission into execution will be best understood by detailing its benevolent objects. The primary duties of the commissioners would be to remonstrate with the murderers and enemies of the aborigines; to hear and report their grievances to their respective governments; to watch over the general interests of the Indians; to create and foster a friendly intercourse between the different tribes; to grant the utmost protection to persons who may be desirous to trade with or visit the Indians for the purpose of instructing them in the arts of civilized life; and by a judicious distribution of presents, to draw them into bonds of friendship with their civilized brethren.

If such a course were pursued I have no hesitation in saying, particularly as there is nothing on record to prove that such a plan has failed, that we should, within five years, have the satisfaction of seeing these people settled down into a position that would not admit of their wandering from place to

place; whereas if they are to be left, abandoned, to be hemmed in by the white men on every side, their total extermination will be but the work of a few short hours.

But this plan will be scoffed at by the blind exterminators of the human race, like every other that has been laid down for the civilization of the savage. The exterminators commence by magnifying the dangers of approaching the Indians, the expense attending their civilization, and lastly, by reminding their hearers of the distressing poverty and absolute starvation of our own countrymen. To these unsophisticated political economists I would however observe, that there are very many productive, and consequently highly valuable sections of the globe, and in our own colonies, where the white. man cannot labour in the cultivation of the soil; and wherever this is the case, we find that the greatest exertions (all attended with a corresponding waste of human blood and considerable expenditure) have been made to destroy the natives, whose physical condition is, by nature, adapted to continuous labour, which is fully exhibited in their ordinary exercises, but more particularly in the daily exertions and renewed fatigues of the chase. Were these energies directed to the cultivation of their native soil, they would legitimately and speedily develope its spontaneous resources and artificial capabilities. And by our extending the hand of Christian fellowship to the savage, at the