believed that Indians could never be civilized if they lived in close proximity to whites, because the degrading influences, especially the sale to Indians of strong drink, which resulted from such proximity, would more than offset all that preachers, teachers, and others could do for them.
The practical carrying out of the removal policy caused great distress among the Indians, as may be supposed, and it likewise produced a mighty wave of sympathy for the red men. The newspapers recited their sufferings, and quoted the pathetic speeches of Indian chiefs, forced to leave "the land of their fathers, where the Indian fires were going out." Missionaries followed, without hesitation, to the strange lands where "new fires were lighting in the West," and soon a considerable number of devoted men were at work among the tribes living between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains. Some were labouring among peoples they had known east of the river; some sought out new fields on the Missouri, the Kansas, the Platte, and other streams, where they preached, taught the Indian children to read, and often induced the natives to till the soil and live in permanent houses, instead of wandering about in pursuit of game. Sometimes the government employed the missionaries as teachers or Indian agents, and often assisted them by providing a blacksmith to make tools and farming implements.
The Indian delegation to St. Louis. Since these things were going on in many places throughout the
