| OF THE INDIAN MIND. 257
exists, imposes upon us a special obligation to be
just toward them, and to protect them in the en-
joyment of all their rights, instead of giving us
any authority to tyrannize over them or oppress
them in any way. We may rightfully recognize
and act upon our superiority to them in the social
arrangements which we make, but we are bound in
doing so to consider them as under our protection,
and to guard their rights and provide for their
welfare and happiness faithfully, honestly, and
with feelings of sincere good will.
MENTAL AND PHYSICAL CONSTITUTION OF THE AMERICAN
ABORIGINES.
The American Aborigines have been generally
considered by mankind as a stern, taciturn, im-
movable, unfeeling, and yet shrewd and cunning;
people. Some travelers, like the celebrated Catlin,
among others, who spent a great deal of time
among the western tribes, maintain that the degree
in which they possess these qualities has been ex-
aggerated. Catlin found the Indians at their
own homes, in the villages which they had built on
the banks of the Missouri and upon the western
prairies, as jovial, as talkative, and as full of life
and animation as other men. But the prevailing
testimony, especially in respect to those tribes that
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