PEACE MESSENGERS.
While the American Indians remained in the free and undisturbed
possession of the land which God gave to them, and even for a long time
after the Europeans had settled themselves in their territory, there
was no people upon earth who paid a more religious respect than they
did to the sacred character of the ambassadors, or (as they call them)
_Messengers of peace_. It is too well known that since about the middle
of the last century a great change has taken place, the cause of which,
I am sorry to say, the Indians lay entirely to our charge.
The inviolability of the person of an ambassador is one of those
sacred fundamental principles of the law of nature which the Almighty
Creator has imprinted upon the heart of every living man. History
teaches us that the most barbarous and savage nations have at all times
admitted and carried it into practice. It is a lamentable truth that
all the violations of it that stand upon record, are to be ascribed to
civilised man or to his contagious example.
It is certain that among our Indians the person of an ambassador was
formerly held most sacred and inviolable. All the nations and tribes
were agreed upon this point, that a messenger, though sent by the most
hostile people, was entitled not only to respect but to protection. To
have, I will not say murdered, but knowingly ill treated a person of
this description, was with them an unpardonable crime. War parties were
always instructed, if they should find a messenger on his way from one
nation to another, not only to give him protection but hospitality,
and see him safely conducted to the people to whom he was sent.
In the same manner, when a messenger was sent to them by a nation with
whom they were at war or at variance, though they might be ever so much
exasperated against them, and even though they had firmly determined
_not to listen_, that is to say, not to consent to their propositions,
whatever they might be, still they would grant their protection to the
man of peace, and tell him in their expressive language “that they had
taken him under their wings, or placed him under their arm pits, where
he was perfectly safe.” It was with them a point of religious belief,
that pacific messengers were under the special protection of the Great
Spirit, that it was unlawful to molest them, and that the nation which
should be guilty of so enormous a crime would surely be punished by
being unsuccessful in war, and perhaps, by suffering a total defeat.
Therefore, frequent instances happened of such messengers being
sent back with the most threatening messages, such as, that it was
determined to wage a war of blood and destruction, and that no quarter
would be given, yet the ambassadors themselves did not meet with the
least insult or disrespect; they were protected during all the time
that they remained in the hostile country, and were safely conducted
to their own nation, or at least, so far on their way as to be out of
danger from the enemy’s warriors, leaving them a sufficient time to
reach their houses, before a fresh stroke was made, to give notice
that the truce was at an end or that the war was begun. I have heard
of messengers being sent back with a message to this effect: “I return
to your bosom, safe and unmolested, the messengers you sent me. The
answer to the speech they brought me from you, you will learn from my
young warriors, who are gone to _see_ you.” The nature of the _visit_
thus announced may be easily guessed at. The message was in fact a
declaration of war, with a fair notice that an invasion of the enemy’s
country was immediately to take place.
Such were the principles, such was the manly conduct of the Indians
in former times. How different it is at present I need not say. We
yet remember the unhappy fate of Messrs. _Trueman_, _Freeman_, and
_Hardin_. These three respectable American gentlemen, were in the year
1792, sent to the Indians with flags of truce and peace proposals, and
were all wantonly murdered.[179] To whom is this horrid state of things
to be attributed? I will not pretend to judge, but let us hear what the
Indians say.
The principal reasons which they assign as having brought about this
great change, are comprised under the following general heads.
I. That the white people have intermeddled with their national
concerns, by dictating to one nation how they should treat another, and
even how they should speak and what they should say to them, and by
this means have entirely destroyed their national independence. That
they have even encouraged and supported one Indian nation in not only
affecting but actually exercising dominion and supremacy over all the
others.
II. That the whites have treated the Indians as a contemptible race and
paid no regard themselves to the sacred character of messengers, but
murdered them as well as their chiefs in numerous instances without
distinction. That they even polluted what among them is esteemed most
holy and inviolable, their _council fires_, extinguishing them (as they
express themselves) with streams of the best blood of their nation, in
violation of their professions and most solemn promises! That their
whole conduct in short has appeared as if they would say to them: “We
do not care for you; we despise you--all we want is your lands, and
those we will have.”
Nor are they at a loss when called upon to specify the particular
injuries of which they complain. Amidst a long list of similar
grievances, I shall select a few of the most prominent.
1. The protection given against them to the Iroquois, encouraging that
nation to insult them, to treat them as women made such by conquest,
and to exercise a tyrannical superiority over them.
2. The murder of the Conestogo Indians, at the very place where a
_council fire_ was burning at the time; where treaties had been held
with them in early times, and where even a treaty had been concluded
in 1762, the year preceding the murder; and that too in the country of
their brother _Miquon_, in the _Quaker_ country, in Pennsylvania.
3. The horrid murder committed between the years 1776 and 1779, on the
great and much valued Shawano chief _Cornstalk_, at Kanhawa, where it
was known that he was on a friendly and interesting errand.[180]
4. The firing upon and severely wounding a noted Shawano in the year
1774, while on his return from Pittsburgh, to which place he had,
out of friendship and humanity, conducted several white traders and
protected them against an enraged body of Indians, on whose relations
the white people had committed most horrid murders.
5. The attacking the peaceable encampment of the Delaware chiefs on the
island at Pittsburgh, where one _Messenger_ and several others were
murdered.
6. The murder of the Christian Indians on Muskingum, by Williamson’s
party, together with the chief from _Achsinning_, (the standing stone,)
although the persons thus murdered were known to be friends to the
whites.
The Indians relate many more outrages committed on _messengers_,
_visiters_, and other _friendly_ Indians, of which I shall spare the
painful recital to my readers. From this series of unjust and cruel
acts, the Indian nations, have at last come to the conclusion that the
Americans are in their hearts inimical to them, and that when they send
them messengers of peace, they only mean to lull them into a fancied
security, that they may the easier fall upon and destroy them. It was
in consequence of this conviction that the three respectable gentlemen
whom I have already mentioned, met with their unhappy fate.