Charles Sprague, 1791-1875, was born in Boston, and received his education
in the public schools of that city. For sixteen years he was engaged in
mercantile pursuits, as clerk and partner. In 1820 he became teller in a
bank; and, from 1825, he filled the office of cashier of the Globe Bank
for about forty years. In 1829 be gave his most famous poem, "Curiosity,"
before the Phi Beta Kappa society, in Cambridge. An active man of business
all his days, he has written but little either in prose or poetry, but
that little is excellent in quality, graceful, and pleasing.
The address from which this extract is taken, was delivered before the
citizens of Boston, July 4th, 1825.
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Not many generations ago, where you now sit, encircled with all that
exalts and embellishes civilized life, the rank thistle nodded in the wind
and the wild fox dug his hole unscared. Here lived and loved another race
of beings. Beneath the same sun that rolls over your head, the Indian
hunter pursued the panting deer; gazing on the same moon that smiles for
you, the Indian lover wooed his dusky mate. Here the wigwam blaze beamed
on the tender and helpless, and the council fire glared on the wise and
daring. Now they dipped their noble limbs in your sedgy lakes, and now
they paddled the light canoe along your rocky shores. Here they warred;
the echoing whoop, the bloody grapple, the defying death song, all were
here; and when the tiger strife was over, here curled the smoke of peace.
Here, too, they worshiped; and from many a dark bosom went up a fervent
prayer to the Great Spirit. He had not written his laws for them on tables
of stone, but he had traced them on the tables of their hearts. The poor
child of nature knew not the God of Revelation, but the God of the
universe he acknowledged in everything around. He beheld him in the star
that sank in beauty behind his lonely dwelling; in the sacred orb that
flamed on him from his midday throne; in the flower that snapped in the
morning breeze; in the lofty pine that defied a thousand whirlwinds; in
the timid warbler that never left its native grove; in the fearless eagle,
whose untired pinion was wet in clouds; in the worm that crawled at his
feet; and in his own matchless form, glowing with a spark of that light,
to whose mysterious source he bent in humble though blind adoration.
And all this has passed away. Across the ocean came a pilgrim bark,
bearing the seeds of life and death. The former were sown for you; the
latter sprang up in the path of the simple native. Two hundred years have
changed the character of a great continent, and blotted forever from its
face a whole, peculiar people. Art has usurped the bowers of nature, and
the anointed children of education have been too powerful for the tribes
of the ignorant. Here and there a stricken few remain; but how unlike
their bold, untamable progenitors. The Indian of falcon glance and lion
bearing, the theme of the touching ballad, the hero of the pathetic tale
is gone, and his degraded offspring crawls upon the soil where he walked
in majesty, to remind us how miserable is man when the foot of the
conqueror is on his neck.
As a race they have withered from the land. Their arrows are broken, their
springs are dried up, their cabins are in the dust. Their council fire has
long since gone out on the shore, and their war cry is fast fading to the
untrodden west. Slowly and sadly they climb the distant mountains, and
read their doom in the setting sun. They are shrinking before the mighty
tide which is pressing them away; they must soon hear the roar of the last
wave which will settle over them forever. Ages hence, the inquisitive
white man, as he stands by some growing city, will ponder on the structure
of their disturbed remains, and wonder to what manner of persons they
belonged. They will live only in the songs and chronicles of their
exterminators. Let these be faithful to their rude virtues as men, and pay
due tribute to their unhappy fate as a people.