n, the president who was a former Indian fighter, got what he wantedthe power to take away Indian lands east of the Mississippi River by giving the Indians western lands in exchange. The various skirmishes, court battles, and presidential orders that followed the removal continued through Whitmans teenage years into early adulthood. By this time, Whitman knew an America where Indians were promised to have western lands forever, and an America that was already hungry to take back the lands it had just given up (57).Whitmans association with the American Indian is a deep one which has never been fully investigated. He had a lifelong fascination with Indians that was not uncommon for a writer living during his time. He even expressed his love for a large print of Osceola, the Seminole chief, given to him by the famous artist, Catlin (Allen 522). The Indians, Whitman knew, had been abused and treated unfairly, but he also subscribed to the idea of progress and social evolution and believed that it was inevitable and ultimately valuable that America extends from sea to sea (Folsom 57). His attitudes toward the Indians were contradictory, but characteristically Americana mix of disdain and admiration.Whitman was aware that American Indians needed to be a part of the song of himself, but he also realized that the celebration of Americas progressive expansion undermined an easy celebration of the natives. In any case, we have seen that he set out to assure that his song absorbed the Indians. What eventually comes through in Whitmans Leaves of Grass is a sense of honor betrayed and a gesture toward correcting a mistake by offering a line to the Indians bravery. To give the Indians a line in the song of America seemed to be Whitmans continual motivation to absorb them into the American song before they vanished forever (70-77). It was through this poem that Whitman was dismissed from his position as clerk with the Indian Bureau (Bloom 1...
