Indian-loving George Catlin

This is a very interesting quote from George Catlin. Catlin was able to visit the Indians very shortly after contact with the white man. They were still in their strength and their culture was strong. I highly recommend his books as well as his paintings.

I have had some unfriendly denunciations by the press, and by these critics I have been reproachfully designated the "Indian-loving Catlin." What of this? What have I to answer? Have I any apology to make for loving the Indians ? The Indians have always loved me, and why should I not love the Indians ?

I love the people who have always made me welcome to the best they had.

I love a people who are honest without laws, who have no jails and no poorhouses.

I love a people who keep the commandments without ever having read them or heard them preached from the pulpit.

I love a people who never swear, who never take the name of God in vain.

I love a people " who love their neighbours as they love themselves."

I love a people who worship God without a Bible, for I believe that God loves them also.

I love the people whose religion is all the same, and who are free from religious animosities.

I love the people who have never raised a hand against me, or stolen my property, where there was no law to punish for either.

I love the people who have never fought a battle with white man, except on their own ground.

I love and don't fear mankind where God has made and left them, for there they are children.

I love a people who live and keep what is their own without locks and keys.

I love all people who do the best they can. And oh, how I love a people who don't live for the love of money

It has been sneeringly said that I have " spoken too well of the Indians " (better to speak too well of them than not to speak well enough) — "that I have flattered them" (better to flatter them than to caricature them ; there have been enough to do this). If I have overdone their character, they have had in me one friend at least; and I will not shrink from the sin and responsibility of it.

I was luckily born in time to see these people in their native dignity, and beauty, and independence, and to be a living witness to the cruelties with which they have been treated, worse than dogs; and now to be treated worse than wolves! And in my former publications I have predicted just what is now taking place — that in their thrown, and hunted down, and starved condition, the future " gallopers " across the plains and Rocky Mountains, would see here and there the scattered, and starving, and begging, and haggard remnants of these once proud and handsome people — represent +them, in their entailed misery and wretchedness, as "the Sioux," "the Cheyennes," " the Osages" etc., and me, of course, as a liar.

From the very first settlement on the Atlantic coast there has been a continual series of Indian wars. In every war the whites have been victorious, and every war has ended in "Surrender of Indian Territory." Every battle which the whites have lost has been a "massacre" and every battle by the Indians lost, a "glorious victory!" And yet, to their immortal honour, be it history with its inferences (for it is truth), they never fought a battle with civilized men excepting on their own ground ! What are the inferences from
this, and to whose eternal shame stands the balance in the books ?

I have said that I was lucky enough to have been born at the right time to have seen these people in their native dignity and elegance ; and thanks to Him in whose hands the destinies of all men are that my life has been spared to visit most of the tribes in every latitude of the American continent, and my hand enabled to delineate their personal looks and their modes, to be seen and to be criticized after the people and myself shall have passed away.


Rambles Among The Indians 
by George Catlin