[Illustration: 9234]
N the year of 1798, one of the missionaries to the Indians of the
north-west was on his way from the Tuscarora settlement to the Senecas.
Journeying in pious meditation through the forest, a majestic Indian
darted from its recess, and arrested his progress. His hair was somewhat
changed with age, and his face marked with the deep furrows of time; but
his eye expressed all the fiery vivacity of youthful passion, and his
step was that of a warrior in the vigor of manhood.
“White man of the ocean, * whither wanderest thou?” said the Indian.
* The Indians at first imagined that the white men
originally sprang from the sea, and that they invaded their
country because they had none of their own. They sometimes
called them in their songs, “The froth, or white foam of the
ocean and this name is often applied contemptuously by the
savages of the north-west.
“I am travelling,” replied the meek disciple of peace, “towards the
dwellings of thy brethren, to teach them the knowledge of the only true
God, and to lead them to peace and happiness.”
“To peace and happiness!” exclaimed the tall chief, while his eye
flashed fire--“Behold the blessings that follow the footsteps of the
white man! Wherever he comes, the nations of the woodlands fade from
the eye, like the mists of the morning. Once over the wide forest of
the surrounding world our people roamed in peace and freedom; nor ever
dreamed of greater happiness than to hunt the beaver, the bear, and the
wild deer. From the furthest extremity of the great deep came the
white man, armed with thunder and lightning, and weapons still more
pernicious. In war he hunted us like wild beasts; in peace, he destroyed
us by deadly liquors, or yet more deadly frauds. Yet a few moons had
passed away, and whole nations of invincible warriors, and of hunters,
that fearless swept the forest and the mountain, perish, vainly
opposing their triumphant invaders, or quietly dwindled into slaves and
drunkards--and their names withered from the earth. Retire, dangerous
man! Leave us all we yet have left--our savage virtues, and our gods;
and do not, in the vain attempt to cultivate a rude and barren soil,
pluck up the few thrifty plants of native growth that have survived the
fostering cares of the people, and weathered the stormy career of their
pernicious friendship.” The tall chief darted into the wood, and the
good missionary pursued his way with pious resolution.
He preached the only true divinity, and placed before the eyes of the
wondering savages the beauty of holiness, &c.
*****
The awe-struck Indians, roused by these accumulated motives--many
of them adopted the precepts of the missionary, as far as they could
comprehend them; and, in the course of eighteen months, their devotion
became rational, regular, and apparently permanent.
All at once, however, the little church, in which the good man was wont
to pen his fold, became deserted. No votary came, as usual, to listen,
with decent reverence, to the pure doctrines which they were accustomed
to hear; and only a few solitary idlers were seen, of a Sunday morning,
lounging about, and casting a wistful yet fearful look at their little
peaceful and now silent mansion.
The missionary sought them out, inquired into the cause of this
mysterious desertion, and told them of the bitterness of hereafter to
those who, having once known, abandoned the religion of the only true
God. The poor Indians shook their heads, and informed him that the Great
Spirit was angry at their apostacy, and had sent a Prophet from the
summit of the Alleghany mountains, to warn them against the admission of
new doctrines; that there was to be a great meeting of the the old men
soon, and the Prophet would there deliver to the people the message with
which he was entrusted. The zealous missionary determined to be present,
and to confront the imposter, who was known by the appellation of
the Prophet of the Alleghany. He obtained permission to appear at the
council, and to reply to the Prophet. The 12th of June, 1802, was fixed
for determining whether the belief of their forefathers or that of the
white men was the true religion.
The council-house not being large enough to contain so great an
assemblage of people, they met in a valley west of Seneca Lake. This
valley was then embowered under lofty trees. On almost every side it
is surrounded With high rugged hills, and through it meanders a small
river.
It was a scene to call forth every energy of the human heart. On a
smooth level, near the bank of a slow stream, under the shade of a
large elm, sat the chief men of the tribes, Around the circle which they
formed, was gathered a crowd of wondering savages, with eager looks,
seeming to demand the true God at the hands of their wise men. In the
middle of the circle sat the aged and travel-worn missionary. A few gray
hairs wandered over his brow; his hands were crossed on his bosom; and,
as he cast his hope-beaming eye to heaven, he seemed to be calling with
pious fervor upon the God of Truth, to vindicate his own eternal word by
the mouth of his servant.
For more than half an hour there was silence in the valley, save the
whispering of the trees in the south wind, and the indistinct murmuring
of the river. Then all at once, a sound of astonishment ran through the
crowd, and the Prophet of the Alleghany was seen descending one of the
high hills. With furious and frenzied step he entered the circle, and,
waving his hands in token of silence, the missionary saw, with wonder,
the same tall chief, who, four years before, had crossed him in the
Tuscarora forest. The same panther-skin hung over his shoulder; the same
tomahawk quivered in his hand; and the same fiery and malignant spirit
burned in his eye. He addressed the awe-struck Indians, and the valley
rung with his iron-voice.
“Red Men of the Woods! Hear what the Great Spirit says of his children
who have forsaken him!
“Through the wide regions that were once the inheritance of my
people--and for ages they roved as free as the wild winds--resounds the
axe of the white man. The paths of your forefathers are polluted by the
their steps, and your hunting-grounds are every day wrested from you by
their arts. Once on the shores of the mighty ocean, your fathers were
wont to enjoy all the luxuriant delights of the deep. Now, you are
exiles in swamps, or on barren hills; and these wretched possessions you
enjoy by the precarious tenure of the white man’s will. The shrill
cry of revelry or war, no more is heard on the majestic shores of the
Hudson, or the sweet banks of the silver Mohawk. There where the Indian
lived and died, free as the air he breathed, and chased the panther
and the deer from morning until evening--even there the Christian slave
cultivates the soil in undisturbed possession; and as he whistles behind
the plough, turns up the sacred remains of your buried ancestors. Have
you not heard at evening, and sometimes in the dead of night, those
mournful and melodious sounds that steal through the deep valleys, or
along the mountain sides,’ like the song of echo? These are the wailings
of those spirits whose bones have been turned up by the sacrilegious
labors of the white men, and left to the mercy of the rain and the
tempest. They call upon you to avenge them--they adjure you, by motives
that rouse the hearts of the brave, to wake from your long sleep,
and, by returning to these invaders of the grave the long arrears
of vengeance, restore again the tired and wandering spirits to their
blissful paradise far beyond the blue hills. *
* The answering voices heard from the caves and hollows,
which the Latins call echo, the Indians suppose to be the
wailings of souls wandering through these places.
“These are the blessings you owe to the Christians. They have driven
your fathers from their ancient inheritance--they have destroyed them
with the sword and poisonous liquors--they have dug up their bones, and
left them to blanch in the wind, and now they aim at completing your
wrongs, and insuring your destruction, by cheating you into the belief
of that divinity, whose very precepts they plead in justification of all
the miseries they have heaped upon your race.
“Hear me, O deluded people, for the last time!--If you persist in
deserting my altars--if still you are determined to listen with fatal
credulity to the strange pernicious doctrines of these Christian
usurpers--if you are unalterably devoted to your new gods and new
customs--if you will be the friend of the white man, and the follower
of his God--my wrath shall follow. I will dart my arrows of forked
lightning among your towns, and send the warring tempests of winter
to devour you. Ye shall become bloated with intemperance; your numbers
shall dwindle away, until but a few wretched slaves survive; and these
shall be driven deeper and deeper into the wild--there to associate
with the dastard beasts of the forest, who once fled before the mighty
hunters of your tribe. The spirits of your fathers shall curse you, from
the shores of that happy island in the great lake, where they enjoy an
everlasting season of hunting, and chase the wild deer with dogs swifter
than the wind. Lastly, I swear by the lightning, the thunder, and the
tempest, that, in the space of sixty moons, of all the Senecas, not one
of yourselves shall remain on the face of the earth.”
The Prophet ended his message--which was delivered with the wild
eloquence of real or fancied inspiration, and, all at once, the crowd
seemed to be agitated with a savage sentiment of indignation against the
good missionary. One of the fiercest broke through the circle of old men
to despatch him, but was restrained by their authority.
When this sudden feeling had somewhat subsided, the mild apostle
obtained permission to speak, in behalf of Him who had sent him. Never
have I seen a more touching, pathetic figure, than this good man. He
seemed past sixty; his figure tall and bending, his face mild, pale, and
highly intellectual, and over his forehead, which yet displayed its blue
veins, were scattered at solitary distances, a few gray hairs. Though
his voice was clear, and his action vigorous, yet there was that in his
looks, which seemed to say his pilgrimage was soon to close for ever.
With pious fervor he described to his audience the glory, power, and
beneficence of the Creator of the whole universe. He told them of the
pure delights of the Christian heaven, and of the never-ending tortures
of those who rejected the precepts of the Gospel.
And, when he had concluded this part of the subject, he proceeded to
place before his now attentive auditors, the advantages of civilization,
learning, science, and a regular system of laws and morality. He
contrasted the wild Indian, roaming the desert in savage independence,
now revelling in the blood of enemies, and in his turn, the victim of
their insatiable vengeance, with the peaceful citizen, enjoying all the
comforts of cultivated life in this happy land; and only bounded in his
indulgences by those salutary restraints, which contribute as well
to his own happiness as to that of society at large. He described
the husbandman, enjoying, in the bosom of his family, a peaceful
independence, undisturbed by apprehensions of midnight surprise,
plunder, and assassination; and he finished by a solemn appeal to
heaven, that his sole motive for coming among them was the love ot his
Creator and of his creatures.
As the benevolent missionary closed his appeal, Red Jacket, a Seneca
chief of great authority, and the most eloquent of all his nation, rose
and enforced the exhortations of the venerable preacher. He repeated his
leading arguments, and--with an eloquence truly astonishing in one like
him--pleaded the cause of religion and humanity. The ancient council
then deliberated for the space of nearly two hours; after which
the oldest man arose, and solemnly pronounced the result of their
conference--“That the Christian God was more wise, more just, more
beneficent and powerful, than the Great Spirit, and that the missionary
who had delivered his precepts, ought to be cherished as their best
benefactor--their guide to future happiness.” When this decision was
pronounced by the venerable old man, and acquiesced in by the people,
the rage of the Prophet of the Alleghany became terrible. He started
from the ground, seized his tomahawk, and denouncing the speedy
vengeance of the Great Spirit upon their whole recreant race, darted
from the circle with wild impetuosity, and disappeared in the shadows of
the forest.
[Illustration: 0247]