But the instant they are forced to maintain a peaceful and inoffensive
demeanor towards the tribes along the Mexican border, and find that
every violation of their rights is followed by the avenging arm of our
government, the result must be, that, reduced to a wretchedness and want
which they can ill brook, and feeling the certainty of punishment for
every attempt to ameliorate their condition in the only way they as yet
comprehend, they will abandon their unfruitful territory and remove to
the neighborhood of the Mexican lands, and there carry on a vigorous
predatory warfare indiscriminately upon the Mexicans and our own people
trading or travelling in that quarter.
"The Indians of the prairies are almost innumerable. Their superior
horsemanship, which in my opinion, far exceeds that of any other people
on the face of the earth, their daring bravery, their cunning and skill
in the warfare of the wilderness, and the astonishing rapidity and
secrecy with which they are accustomed to move in their martial
expeditions, will always render them most dangerous and vexatious
neighbors, when their necessities or their discontents may drive them to
hostility with our frontiers. Their mode and principles of warfare will
always protect them from final and irretrievable defeat, and secure
their families from participating in any blow, however severe, which our
retribution might deal out to them.
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