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A Century of Dishonor / A Sketch of the United States Government's Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes cover

A Century of Dishonor / A Sketch of the United States Government's Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes

Chapter 25: X. PRICES PAID BY WHITE MEN FOR SCALPS.
By Helen Hunt Jackson
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History - American

About This Book

A documentary account of the United States' relations with indigenous tribes, drawing on official reports, treaties, testimonies, and court records to reveal recurring patterns of broken promises, legal ambiguity, displacement, and violent incidents. The narrative presents case studies of multiple tribes and specific outrages, traces administrative and congressional failures, and compiles appendices of laws, reports, and eyewitness material. The work emphasizes evidence of systemic injustice and administrative mismanagement and urges moral and practical reforms to secure rights, fulfill obligations, and ameliorate the material and legal suffering documented throughout the text.

X.
 
PRICES PAID BY WHITE MEN FOR SCALPS.

"In the wars between France and England and their colonies, their Indian allies were entitled to a premium for every scalp of an enemy. In the war preceding 1703 the Government of Massachusetts gave twelve pounds for every Indian scalp. In 1722 it was augmented to one hundred pounds—a sum sufficient to purchase a considerable extent of American land. On the 25th of February, 1745, an act was passed by the American colonial legislature, entitled 'An Act for giving a reward for scalps.'"—Sketches of the History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians, by James Buchanan, 1824.

"There was a constant rivalry between the Governments of Great Britain, France, and the United States as to which of them should secure the services of the barbarians to scalp their white enemies, while each in turn was the loudest to denounce the shocking barbarities of such tribes as they failed to secure in their own service; and the civilized world, aghast at these horrid recitals, ignores the fact that nearly every important massacre in the history of North America was organized and directed by agents of some one of these Governments."—Gale, Upper Mississippi.