Many Feathers and Much Paint Don't Make an Indian

Indian Lectures - an educated Indian of the Pequot tribe, by the name of Gos-kuk-wa-na-kon-ni-di-yu, is delivering lectures in Ne York, on the Indian origin and character, and on the wars and treaties made by the red men with this country, the avails of which will go to aid the erection of an Indian academy. The Pequots were once the most powerful tribe of New England, and inhabited Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. They waged several bloody wars with the early settlers of those colonies. 1837 Feb 24, Public Ledger  We have seen an estimate in the Eastern papers, from which it appears, that the business of killing Indians in the South during this last year will cost the US not less than $15,000.000. [What cost $15,000,000. in 1837 would cost $329,841,781.00 in 2017] 1837 Feb 28, The Courier Journal 

INDIANS AND SKUNKS 1881 Feb 18, The New York Times               The Legislation of Colorado has under consideration a bill “for the destruction of Indians and skunks.” This bill was introduced in the House a few weeks since by Representative Coulter, of Clear Creek, and was reported to a special committee, of which Mr Coulter was made Chairman. Subsequently, it was reported back to the House with a recommendation that it should pass. An official copy of the bill, duly stamped with all the marks employed to give authenticity to the document, would have been needed to show that the law makers of Colorado have actually considered this extraordinary proposition. As legislators, even in the free and untrammeled West, are not so confirmed practical jokers as to print and refer bills which are introduced only “for fun,” we must believe that the proposition of the gentle Coulter was made in good faith, and that it has been favorably considered by the Legislature of Colorado. To class Ind

The previous mail informed you that a part of miners had killed thirty Indians on Smith River, near Crescent City. These Indian wars begin nobody knows how; they end with the loss of a few whites, and the extermination of the red-skins.  1855, Feb 12. New York Daily Tribune. 

1972 July 17, The Indianapolis News 

Indian Reservations Seen  As Concentration Camps  1949, Nov 5 The Gazette and Daily Examine feelings of racial superiority in the light of modern science, discover that they are “tribal superstitions” and dismiss them forever, an American Indian urged his Woman’s club audience yesterday.      Charles Eagle Plume, a Blackfoot from Montana, was a persuasive spokesman for a mistreated people.      Reservation Indians are “third-generation concentration camp prisoners,” he declared. The Hope and Navajo death rate is 17 times normal. Only 22 per cent of Indian children are in school, despite the law which will condemn them to lives on the reservations unless they are literate.      Eagle Plume blamed the situation on civilized men still living on the ignorant beliefs handed down from the cave, that the color of skin or the slant of one’s eyes can make one inferior.      His list of contribution to civilization which the Indians worked out “entirely on their own” was an impres

Indian Says Reservation Like Concentration Camps 1949, Jan 13 The Canyon News  Denver - A former Indian reservation superintendent has charged that there is only a "slight" difference between US reservations and Russian concentration camps.      Robert Yellowtail, a Montana Crow Indian, told the National Congress of American Indians that residents of both are imprisoned and strictly controlled.      "We (Indians) are forgotten in a land of plenty," he said. "We are prisoners in the land of our birth."      Yellowtail said that the Government's Indian Bureau supposedly was created to "free the Red Man," but has spent more than $1 billion since 1903 to keep Indians on reservations. 1949, Jan 13 The Canyon News  Charges Indian Genocide on Way Collier Says Congress Encouraging Slow Extermination of Race                                                                   1949, Sep 29   The Ada Weekly News  New York, Sept 24

According to many sources - and I can remember being told this as a kid - General Philip Sheridan supposedly coined the phase:  " The only good Indian is a dead Indian ." The reason I remember this is because our rival football team was the Sheridan Generals, named after Sheridan, who grew up in Somerset, Ohio.. which is not far from my own hometown. (There's a big statue of him in the center of town.) Even his Wikipedia page (I know... not the best source, but I'm using it as an example) says:  Comanche Chief Tosawi reputedly told Sheridan in 1869, "Me, Tosawi; me good Injun," to which Sheridan supposedly replied, "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead." Sheridan denied he had ever made the statement.  I found an earlier reference to this expression, from July, 1866, that says: Utah Items - The Salt Lake Vedette says: "We hear many rumors concerning threatening Indian troubles in the southern and south eastern portion of t