These efforts, at detached points, to improve the race must, we are
inclined to believe, eventually fail. Two races so diverse in mind and
habits cannot prosper together permanently; but the hope is that
temporary good may be done. An Indian who is converted and dies in the
faith, is essentially "a brand plucked out of the fire," and no man can
undertake to estimate the moral value of the act. A child who is taught
to read and write is armed with two requisites for entering civilized
life. But the want of general efficient efforts, unobstructed by local
laws and deleterious influences, cannot but, in a few years, convince
the Boards that the colonization of the tribes West is the best, if not
the only hope of prosperity to the race _as a race_.
_9th_. Lieut. E. S. Sibley, U.S.A., sets out to pay the Grand River
Indians. I commissioned Charles H. Oakes, Esq., to witness the pay
rolls. Mr. Conner returns the same day from attending the payments of
the Swan Creek and Black River bands. He reports the Indians on the
American side of the lines not disposed to engage in the present unhappy
contest in the Canadas.
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