The
motives by which they have been induced to take so deep an interest
in the subject are frankly set forth, and are doubtless of the most
beneficent character. They have, however, failed to remove my decided
conviction that the proposed removal, if it can be accomplished by
proper means, will be alike beneficial to the Indians, to the State
in which the land is situated, and to the more general interest of
the United States upon the subject of Indian affairs.
The removal of the New York Indians is not only important to the tribes
themselves, but to an interesting portion of western New York, and
especially to the growing city of Buffalo, which is surrounded by lands
occupied by the Senecas. To the Indians themselves it presents the only
prospect of preservation. Surrounded as they are by all the influences
which work their destruction, by temptation they can not resist and
artifices they can not counteract, they are rapidly declining, and,
notwithstanding the philanthropic efforts of the Society of Friends,
it is believed that where they are they must soon become extinct; and
to this portion of our country the extraordinary spectacle is presented
of densely populated and highly improved settlements inhabited by
industrious, moral, and respectable citizens, divided by a wilderness
on one side of which is a city of more than 20,000 souls, whose
advantageous position in every other respect and great commercial
prospects would insure its rapid increase in population and wealth
if not retarded by the circumstance of a naturally fertile district
remaining a barren waste in its immediate vicinity.
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