FRIENDSHIP.
Those who believe that no faith is to be placed in the friendship of
an Indian are egregiously mistaken, and know very little of the true
character of those men of nature. They are, it is true, revengeful to
their enemies, to those who wilfully do them an injury, who insult,
abuse, or treat them with contempt. It may be said, indeed, that the
passion of revenge is so strong in them that it knows no bounds. This
does not, however, proceed from a bad or malicious disposition, but
from the violence of natural feelings unchecked by social institutions,
and unsubdued by the force of revealed religion. The tender and
generous passions operate no less powerfully on them than those of
an opposite character, and they are as warm and sincere in their
friendship, as vindictive in their enmities. Nay, I will venture to
assert that there are those among them who on an emergency would lay
down their lives for a friend: I could fill many pages with examples
of Indian friendship and fidelity, not only to each other, but to men
of other nations and of a different colour than themselves. How often,
when wars were impending between them and the whites, have they not
forewarned those among our frontier settlers whom they thought well
disposed towards them, that dangerous times were at hand, and advised
them to provide for their own safety, regardless of the jealousy which
such conduct might excite among their own people? How often did they
not even guard and escort them through the most dangerous places until
they had reached a secure spot? How often did they not find means to
keep an enemy from striking a stroke, as they call it, that is to say
from proceeding to the sudden indiscriminate murder of the frontier
whites, until their friends or those whom they considered as such were
out of all danger?
These facts are all familiar to every one who has lived among Indians
or in their neighbourhood, and I believe it will be difficult to find
a single case in which they betrayed a real friend or abandoned him in
the hour of danger, when it was in their power to extricate or relieve
him. The word “Friend” to the ear of an Indian does not convey the
same vague and almost indefinite meaning that it does with us; it is
not a mere complimentary or social expression, but implies a resolute
determination to stand by the person so distinguished on all occasions,
and a threat to those who might attempt to molest him; the mere looking
at two persons who are known or declared friends, is sufficient to
deter any one from offering insult to either. When an Indian believes
that he has reason to suspect a man of evil designs against his friend,
he has only to say emphatically: “This is _my friend_, and if any one
tries to hurt him, I will do to him _what is in my mind_.” It is as
much as to say that he will stand in his defence at the hazard of his
own life. This language is well understood by the Indians, who know
that they would have to combat with a spirited warrior, were they to
attempt any thing against his friend. By this means much bloodshed is
prevented; for it is sufficiently known that an Indian never proffers
his friendship in vain. Many white men, and myself among others,
have experienced the benefit of their powerful as well as generous
protection.
When in the spring of the year 1774, a war broke out between the
Virginians and the Shawanese and Mingoes, on account of murders
committed by the former on the latter people, and the exasperated
friends of those who had suffered had determined to kill every white
man in their country, the Shawano chief _Silverheels_,[216] taking
another Indian with him, undertook out of friendship to escort several
white traders from thence to Albany,[217] a distance of near two
hundred miles; well knowing at the time that he was running the risk
of his own life, from exasperated Indians and vagabond whites, if he
should meet with such on the road, as he did in fact on his return. I
have already said how he was rewarded for this noble act of friendship
and self-devotion.
In the year 1779, the noted Girty with his murdering party of Mingoes,
nine in number, fell in with the Missionary Zeisberger, on the path
leading from Goschacking to Gnadenhütten; their design was to take that
worthy man prisoner; and if they could not seize him alive, to murder
him and take his scalp to Detroit. They were on the point of laying
hold of him, when two young spirited Delawares providentially entered
the path at that critical moment and in an instant presented themselves
to defend the good Missionary at the risk of their lives. Their
determined conduct had the desired success, and his life was saved. His
deliverers afterwards declared that they had no other motive for thus
exposing themselves for his sake than that he was a friend to their
nation, and was considered by them as a good man.
But why should I speak of others when I have myself so often
experienced the benefits of Indian protection and friendship. Let me
be permitted to corroborate my assertions on this subject by my own
personal testimony.
In the year 1777, while the Revolutionary war was raging, and several
Indian tribes had enlisted on the British side, and were spreading
murder and devastation along our unprotected frontier, I rather rashly
determined to take a journey into the country on a visit to my friends.
Captain White Eyes, the Indian hero, whose character I have already
described,[218] resided at that time at the distance of seventeen
miles from the place where I lived. Hearing of my determination, he
immediately hurried up to me, with his friend Captain Wingenund (whom
I shall presently have occasion further to mention), and some of his
young men, for the purpose of escorting me to Pittsburg, saying,
“that he would not suffer me to go, while the Sandusky warriors were
out on war excursions, without a proper escort and _himself_ at my
side.” He insisted on accompanying me and we set out together. One
day, as we were proceeding along, our spies discovered a suspicious
track. White Eyes, who was riding before me, enquired whether I
felt afraid? I answered that while he was with me, I entertained no
fear. On this he immediately replied, “You are right; for until I
am laid prostrate at your feet, no one shall hurt you.” “And even
not then,” added Wingenund, who was riding behind me; “before this
happens, I must be also overcome, and lay by the side of our friend
_Koguethagechton_.”[219] I believed them, and I believe at this day
that these great men were sincere, and that if they had been put to the
test, they would have shewn it, as did another Indian friend by whom my
life was saved in the spring of the year 1781. From behind a log in the
bushes where he was concealed, he espied a hostile Indian at the very
moment he was levelling his piece at me. Quick as lightning he jumped
between us, and exposed his person to the musket shot just about to be
fired, when fortunately the aggressor desisted, from fear of hitting
the Indian whose body thus effectually protected me, at the imminent
risk of his own life. Captain White Eyes, in the year 1774, saved in
the same manner the life of David Duncan, the peace-messenger, whom he
was escorting. He rushed, regardless of his own life, up to an inimical
Shawanese, who was aiming at our ambassador from behind a bush, and
forced him to desist.
I could enumerate many other similar acts, but I think I have shewn
enough for my purpose. Mr. Zeisberger fully agreed with me in the
opinion, that it is impossible to deny to the Indians the praise of
firm attachment and sincere friendship. It is not meant to say, that
all will carry that feeling to the same pitch of heroism; but it is
certain that there are many among them, whose strong attachments and
a manly pride will induce to risk their lives in the defence of their
friends. And, indeed, there is no Indian, who would not blush at being
reproached that after boasting that a particular person was his friend,
he had acted the coward when his friendship was put to the test, and
had shrunk from venturing his own life, when there was even a chance of
saving that of the man whom he professed to love.
It is not true, as some have supposed, that an Indian’s friendship
must be purchased by presents, and that it lasts only so long as gifts
continue to be lavished upon them. Their attachments, on the contrary,
are perfectly disinterested. I admit that they receive with pleasure a
present from a friend’s hand. They consider presents as marks of the
giver’s good disposition towards them. They cannot, in their opinion,
proceed from an enemy, and he who befriends them, they think must love
them. Obligations to them are not burdensome, they love to acknowledge
them, and whatever may be their faults, ingratitude is not among the
number.
Indeed, the friendship of an Indian is easily acquired, provided it is
sought in good faith. But whoever chooses to obtain it must be sure to
treat them on a footing of perfect equality. They are very jealous of
the whites, who they think affect to consider themselves as beings of a
superior nature and too often treat them with rude undeserved contempt.
This they seldom forgive, while on the other hand, they feel flattered
when a white man does not disdain to treat them as children of the same
Creator. Both reason and humanity concur in teaching us this conduct,
but I am sorry to say that reason and humanity are in such cases too
little attended to. I hope I may be permitted to expatiate a little
on this subject; perhaps it may be beneficial to some white persons
hereafter.
The Indians are, as I have already observed before,[220] excellent
physiognomists. If they are accosted by or engaged in business with a
number of whites, though they may not understand the language that is
spoken, they will pretty accurately distinguish by the countenance,
those who despise their colour from those who are under the influence
of a more generous feeling, and in this they are seldom mistaken.
They fix their eyes on the whole party round, and read as it were in
the souls of the individuals who compose it. They mark those whom
they consider as their friends, and those whom they think to be their
enemies, and are sure to remember them ever after. But what must those
expect, if a war or some other circumstance should put them into the
power of the Indians, who, relying on their supposed ignorance of
our idiom, do not scruple even in their presence to apply to them the
epithets of _dogs_, _black d--ls_, and the like? Will not these poor
people be in some degree justifiable in considering those persons as
decidedly hostile to their race? Such cases have unfortunately too
frequently happened, and the savages have been blamed for treating as
enemies those who had so cruelly wounded their most delicate feelings!
Many white men have been thus put to death, who had brought their
fate on themselves by their own imprudence. On the other hand, the
Indians have not failed to mark those who at the time reprobated such
indecent behaviour and reproached their companions for using such
improper language. In the midst of war these benevolent Christians have
been treated as friends, when, perhaps, they had forgotten the humane
conduct to which they were indebted for this kind usage.
Their reasoning in such cases is simple, but to them always conclusive.
They merely apply their constant maxim, which I believe I have already
noticed, that “good can never proceed from evil or evil from good, and
that good and evil, like heterogeneous substances, can never combine
or coalesce together.” How far this maxim is founded in a profound
knowledge of human nature, it is not my business to determine; what is
certain is that they adhere to it in almost every occasion. If a person
treats them ill, they ascribe it invariably to his bad heart; it is the
bad spirit within him that operates; he is, therefore, a bad man. If on
the contrary one shews them kindness, they say he is prompted so to act
by “the good spirit within him,” and that he has a _good heart_; for
if he had not, he would not do good. It is impossible to draw them out
of this circle of reasoning, and to persuade them that the friendship
shewn to them may be dissembled and proceed from motives of interest;
so convinced are they of the truth of their general principle, “that
good cannot proceed from an evil source.”
The conduct of the Europeans towards them, particularly within the last
fifty or sixty years, has, however, sufficiently convinced them that
men may dissemble, and that kind speeches and even acts of apparent
friendship do not always proceed from friendly motives, but that the
bad spirit will sometimes lurk under the appearance of the good.
Hence, when they speak of the whites in general, they do not scruple to
designate them as a false, deceitful race; but it is nevertheless true
that with individuals, they frequently forget this general impression,
and revert to their own honest principle; and if a white man only
behaves to them with common humanity, it is still easy to get access to
their simple hearts. Such are those brutes, those savages, from whom,
according to some men, no faith is to be expected, and with whom no
faith is to be kept; such are those _barbarous_ nations, as they are
called, whom God, nevertheless, made the lawful owners and masters of
this beautiful country; but who, at no very remote time, will probably
live, partially live, only in its history.
My object in this chapter is to prove that those men are susceptible
of the noblest and finest feelings of genuine friendship. It is not
enough that by a long residence among them, I have acquired the most
complete conviction of this truth; facts and not opinions, I know,
are expected from me. Perhaps I might rest satisfied with the proofs
that I have already given, but I have only shewn the strength and have
yet to display the _constancy_ of their attachments; and although in
the story which I am going to relate, a friend was forced to see his
friend perish miserably without having it in his power to save him from
the most terrible death that vengeance and cruelty could inflict, we
shall not be the less astonished to see him persevere in his friendly
sentiments, under circumstances of all others the most calculated,
(particularly to an Indian) not only to have entirely extinguished, but
converted those sentiments into feelings of hatred and revenge.
I am sorry to be so often obliged to revert to the circumstance of the
cruel murder of the Christian Indians on the Sandusky[221] river[222]
in the year 1782, by a gang of banditti, under the command of one
Williamson. Not satisfied with this horrid outrage, the same band not
long afterwards marched to Sandusky,[223] where it seems they had
been informed that the remainder of that unfortunate congregation
had fled, in order to perpetrate upon them the same indiscriminate
murder. But Providence had so ordered it that they had before left
that place, where they had found that they could not remain in safety,
their ministers having been taken from them and carried to Detroit by
order of the British government, so that they had been left entirely
unprotected. The murderers, on their arrival, were much disappointed
in finding nothing but empty huts. They then shaped their course
towards the hostile Indian villages, where being, contrary to their
expectations, furiously attacked, Williamson and his band took the
advantage of a dark night and ran off, and the whole party escaped,
except one Colonel Crawford and another, who being taken by the
Indians were carried in triumph to their village, where the former was
condemned to death by torture, and the punishment was inflicted with
all the cruelty that rage could invent. The latter was demanded by the
Shawanese and sent to them for punishment.
While preparations were making for the execution of this dreadful
sentence, the unfortunate Crawford recollected that the Delaware chief
Wingenund,[224] of whom I have spoken in the beginning of this chapter,
had been his friend in happier times; he had several times entertained
him at his house, and shewed him those marks of attention which are so
grateful to the poor despised Indians. A ray of hope darted through
his soul, and he requested that Wingenund, who lived at some distance
from the village, might be sent for. His request was granted, and a
messenger was despatched for the chief, who, reluctantly, indeed, but
without hesitation, obeyed the summons, and immediately came to the
fatal spot.
This great and good man was not only one of the bravest and most
celebrated warriors, but one of the most amiable men of the Delaware
nation. To a firm undaunted mind, he joined humanity, kindness and
universal benevolence; the excellent qualities of his heart had
obtained for him the name of _Wingenund_, which in the Lenape language
signifies _the well beloved_. He had kept away from the tragical scene
about to be acted, to mourn in silence and solitude over the fate
of his guilty friend, which he well knew it was not in his power to
prevent. He was now called upon to act a painful as well as difficult
part; the eyes of his enraged countrymen were fixed upon him; he
was an Indian and a Delaware; he was a leader of that nation, whose
defenceless members had been so cruelly murdered without distinction of
age or sex, and whose innocent blood called aloud for the most signal
revenge. Could he take the part of a chief of the base murderers? Could
he forget altogether the feelings of ancient fellowship and give way
exclusively to those of the Indian and the patriot? Fully sensible that
in the situation in which he was placed the latter must, in appearance,
at least, predominate, he summoned to his aid the firmness and dignity
of an Indian warrior, approached Colonel Crawford and waited in silence
for the communications he had to make. The following dialogue now took
place between them.
CRAWF. Do you recollect me, Wingenund?
WINGEN. I believe I do; are you not Colonel Crawford?
CRAWF. I am. How do you do? I am glad to see you, Captain.
WINGEN. (embarrassed) So! yes, indeed.
CRAWF. Do you recollect the friendship that always existed between us,
and that we were always glad to see each other?
WINGEN. I recollect all this. I remember that we have drunk many a bowl
of punch together. I remember also other acts of kindness that you have
done me.
CRAWF. Then I hope the same friendship still subsists between us.
WINGEN. It would, of course, be the same, were you in your proper place
and not here.
CRAWF. And why not here, Captain? I hope you would not desert a friend
in time of need. Now is the time for you to exert yourself in my
behalf, as I should do for you, were you in my place.
WINGEN. Colonel Crawford! you have placed yourself in a situation
which puts it out of my power and that of others of your friends to do
anything for you.
CRAWF. How so, Captain Wingenund?
WINGEN. By joining yourself to that execrable man, Williamson and his
party; the man who, but the other day, murdered such a number of the
Moravian Indians, knowing them to be friends; knowing that he ran no
risk in murdering a people who would not fight, and whose only business
was praying.
CRAWF. Wingenund, I assure you, that had I been with him at the time,
this would not have happened; not I alone but all your friends and all
good men, wherever they are, reprobate acts of this kind.
WINGEN. That may be; yet these friends, these good men did not prevent
him from going out again, to kill the remainder of those inoffensive,
yet _foolish_ Moravian Indians! I say _foolish_, because they believed
the whites in preference to us. We had often told them that they would
be one day so treated by those people who called themselves their
friends! We told them that there was no faith to be placed in what the
white men said; that their fair promises were only intended to allure
us, that they might the more easily kill us, as they have done many
Indians before they killed these Moravians.
CRAWF. I am sorry to hear you speak thus; as to Williamson’s going out
again, when it was known that he was determined on it, I went out with
him to prevent him from committing fresh murders.
WINGEN. This, Colonel, the Indians would not believe, were even I to
tell them so.
CRAWF. And why would they not believe it?
WINGEN. Because it would have been out of your power to prevent his
doing what he pleased.
CRAWF. Out of my power! Have any Moravian Indians been killed or hurt
since we came out?
WINGEN. None; but you went first to their town, and finding it empty
and deserted you turned on the path towards us? If you had been in
search of warriors only, you would not have gone thither. Our spies
watched you closely. They saw you while you were embodying yourselves
on the other side of the Ohio; they saw you cross that river; they saw
where you encamped at night; they saw you turn off from the path to the
deserted Moravian town; they knew you were going out of your way; your
steps were constantly watched, and you were suffered quietly to proceed
until you reached the spot where you were attacked.
CRAWF. What do they intend to do with me? Can you tell me?
WINGEN. I tell you with grief, Colonel. As Williamson and his whole
cowardly host, ran off in the night at the whistling of our warrior’s
balls, being satisfied that now he had no Moravians to deal with, but
men who could fight, and with such he did not wish to have anything
to do; I say, as he escaped, and they have taken you, they will take
revenge on you in his stead.
CRAWF. And is there no possibility of preventing this? Can you devise
no way to get me off? You shall, my friend, be well rewarded if you are
instrumental in saving my life.
WINGEN. Had Williamson been taken with you, I and some friends, by
making use of what you have told me, might perhaps, have succeeded to
save you, but as the matter now stands, no man would dare to interfere
in your behalf. The king of England himself, were he to come to this
spot, with all his wealth and treasures could not effect this purpose.
The blood of the innocent Moravians, more than half of them women and
children, cruelly and wantonly murdered calls aloud for _revenge_. The
relatives of the slain, who are among us, cry out and stand ready for
_revenge_. The nation to which they belonged will have _revenge_. The
Shawanese, our grandchildren, have asked for your fellow-prisoner; on
him they will take _revenge_. All the nations connected with us cry out
_Revenge! revenge!_ The Moravians whom you went to destroy having fled,
instead of avenging their brethren, the offence is become national, and
the nation itself is bound to take REVENGE!
CRAWF. Then it seems my fate is decided, and I must prepare to meet
death in its worst form?
WINGEN. Yes, Colonel!--I am sorry for it; but cannot do anything for
you. Had you attended to the Indian principle, that as good and evil
cannot dwell together in the same heart, so a good man ought not to go
into evil company; you would not be in this lamentable situation. You
see now, when it is too late, after Williamson has deserted you, what a
bad man he must be! Nothing now remains for you but to meet your fate
like a brave man. Farewell, Colonel Crawford! they are coming;[225] I
will retire to a solitary spot.
I have been assured by respectable Indians that at the close of this
conversation, which was related to me by Wingenund himself as well as
by others, both he and Crawford burst into a flood of tears; they then
took an affectionate leave of each other, and the chief immediately
_hid himself in the bushes_, as the Indians express it, or in his own
language, retired to a solitary spot. He never, afterwards, spoke
of the fate of his unfortunate friend without strong emotions of
grief, which I have several times witnessed. Once, it was the first
time that he came into Detroit after Crawford’s sufferings, I heard
him censured in his own presence by some gentlemen who were standing
together for not having saved the life of so valuable a man, who was
also his particular friend, as he had often told them. He listened
calmly to their censure, and first turning to me, said in his own
language: “These men talk like fools,” then turning to them, he
replied in English: “If king George himself, if your king had been
on the spot with all his ships laden with goods and treasures, he
could not have ransomed my friend, nor saved his life from the rage
of a _justly_ exasperated multitude.” He made no further allusion to
the act that had been the cause of Crawford’s death, and it was easy
to perceive that on this melancholy subject, grief was the feeling
that predominated in his mind. He felt much hurt, however, at this
unjust accusation, from men who, perhaps, he might think, would have
acted very differently in his place. For, let us consider in what a
situation he found himself, at that trying and critical moment. He
was a Delaware Indian, and a highly distinguished character among his
nation. The offence was national, and of the most atrocious kind, as it
was wanton and altogether unprovoked. He might have been expected to
partake with all the rest of his countrymen in the strong desire which
they felt for _revenge_. He had been Crawford’s friend, it is true,
and various acts of sociability and friendship had been interchanged
between them. But, no doubt, at that time, he believed him, at least,
not to be an enemy to his nation and colour, and if he was an enemy,
he might have expected him to be, like himself, a fair, open, generous
foe. But when he finds him enlisted with those who are waging a war of
extermination against the Indian race, murdering in cold blood, and
without distinction of age or sex, even those who had united their fate
to that of the whites, and had said to the Christians: “Your people
shall be _our_ people, and your God _our_ God,”[226] was there not
enough here to make him disbelieve all the former professions of such
a man, and to turn his abused friendship into the most violent enmity
and the bitterest rage? Instead of this we see him persevering to the
last in his attachment to a person who, to say the least, had ceased to
be deserving of it; we see him in the face of his enraged countrymen
avow that friendship, careless of the jealousy that he might excite; we
see him not only abstain from participating in the national revenge,
but deserting his post, as it were, seek a solitary spot to bewail
the death of him, whom, in spite of all, he still loved, and felt not
ashamed to call his _friend_.
It is impossible for friendship to be put to a severer test, and the
example of Wingenund proves how deep a root this sentiment can take
in the mind of an Indian, when even such circumstances as those under
which the chief found himself, fail to extinguish it.