INDIAN RESERVATIONS. When the settlers from Europe came to realize that the Indians had human rights, and ought not to be enslaved or exterminated, the rule was generally adopted of confining the tribes to reservations, both for their own protection from unprincipled whites, and for the security of the white popu lation. New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and other States enforced this policy in the colonial period and after inde pendence, and the United States government has carried it out from an early date. South ern tribes east of the Mississippi were removed to the Indian Territory, which since 16 Nov. 1907 has become a part of the State of Okla homa. Designated by solemn pledge of the Na tional government as a permanent home for their race, there some of the tribes achieved a high degree of civilization, gained considerable wealth and merged into American citizenship. They are largely intermarried with whites, and to some extent with negroes, whom they form erly held as slaves. Other tribes, chiefly from
the southwest, were gathered into the Indian Territory, but large Indian reservations, mainly of Sioux, are still maintained in the northwest, and altogether the various tribal reservations in the different States and Territories number 115. The reservations are carefully guarded against intrusion by unscrupulous whites, and provision is made for the intellectual and physi cal welfare of the Indians, and for leading them to adopt civilized methods of self-support, in stead of depending on the chase, which now offers only the most precarious returns, or on government aid, which, however, is not with drawn under any circumstances while an Indian is in need of it. The sale of intoxicating liquor to Indians is severely punished when detected, but the law is frequently evaded. See CHERO