applied to the benefit of its true owners, they would not and could
not have been so ignorant and degraded a race as they now are; only
forty-four of whom, out of four or five hundred, can write their
names. From what I have been able to learn from the public prints and
other sources, the amount annually derived to the American people,
from Indian lands is not far from six millions, a tax of which they
have almost the sole benefit. In the mean while, we daily see the
Indian driven farther and farther by inhuman legislation and wars,
and all to enrich a people who call themselves Christians, and are
governed by laws derived from the moral and pious puritans. I say
that, from the year of our Lord 1656, to the present day, the conduct
of the whites toward the Indians has been one continued system of
robbery.

I suppose many of my readers have heard of the late robbery at
Barnegat, and are ready to say, that the like has never been known in
this country, and seldom in any other. Now, though two-thirds of the
inhabitants, not excluding their magistrates, have been proved to
be thieves, I ask, was their conduct worse, or even so bad as that
constantly practised by the American people toward the Indians? I say
no; and what makes the robbery of my wronged race more grievous is,
that it is sanctioned by legal enactments. Why is it more iniquitous
to plunder a stranded ship than to rob, and perhaps murder, an Indian
tribe? It is my private opinion that King Solomon was not far wrong
when he said, "Bring up a child in the way he should go, and when
he is old he will not depart from it." He might have said with equal
propriety, "in the way he should _not_ go." I am sorry that the
puritans knew no better than to bring up their children to hate and
oppress Indians. I must own, however, that the children are growing
something better than their fathers were, and I wish that the children