The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West

by Peter Cozzens

“I do not wonder, and you will not either, that when Indians see their wives and children starving and their last source of supplies cut off, they go to war. And then we are sent out there to kill them. It is an outrage. All tribes tell the same story. They are surrounded on all sides, the game is destroyed or driven away, they are left to starve, and there remains but one thing for them to do—fight while they can. Our treatment of the Indian is an outrage.”

This is a good summary of what was going on in the westward expansion of the white man.

But Congress dithered. Without renewed funding, Indian Bureau authority to feed the Indians would expire on October 1, 1890. Nonetheless, it was late August before Congress passed the Indian Appropriations Act for 1891, too late for supplemental rations and most annuity goods to reach the Indians before winter.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Congress dithered? Say it isn’t so.