The Author leaves his Collection in the Louvre, and arrives with
the Indians in Bruxelles--Indians at the soirée of the American
Minister in Bruxelles--Author's reception by the King in the
Palace--Small-pox among the Indians--Indians unable to visit
the Palace--Exhibition closes--Seven sick with small-pox--Death
of one of them--His will--A second dies--His will--The rest
recover--Faithful attentions of Daniel--The Author accompanies
them to Antwerp, and pays their expenses to London on a
steamer--Death of the War-chief in London--His will--The
Author raises money by subscription and sends to them--Letter
from the survivors, in England, to the Author--Drawings by
the War-chief--The Author stopped in the streets of London
and invited to see the skeleton of the War-chief!--His
indignation--Subsequent deaths of four others of this party
in England--The three parties of Indians in Europe--Their
objects--Their success--Their conduct--Their reception and
treatment--Things which they saw and learned--Estimates and
statistics of civilized life which they have carried home--Their
mode of reasoning from such premises--And the probable results.
During the time that my collection was exposed to the exclusive views
of the Royal Family and their guests, the Indians were lying still, at
my expense, which was by no means a trifling item. The young man whom I
said they were under a contract with to pay them so much per month had
performed his agreement with them for the two first months, and when
the third month's wages became due he declared to them and to me that
he could not pay them, nor pay their expenses back to London, as he was
obligated to do. These duties then devolved on me, or at least, the
Indians having been so long under my control and direction, I assumed
them, and told the chiefs I would pay their expenses to London, and
probably make something for them on the way, after my exhibition in the
Louvre was finished.
They were thus lying idle at this time, waiting for me to be at liberty
to go with them, and, as I have said, living at my expense. I told
them that I designed going by the way of Belgium, and making their
exhibitions in Bruxelles, Antwerp, and Ghent for a few weeks, the whole
receipts of which, over the expenses, they should have, and I fully
believed it would be sufficient to pay their expenses quite home to
their own country; and that I would also, as I had promised, pay all
their expenses from Paris to London myself.
With this design and with these views, leaving my collection in the
Louvre, I started with the Indians for Bruxelles, where we arrived the
next evening.
We were all delighted with the appearance of Bruxelles, and the Indians
in fine glee, in the fresh recollections of the honours just paid
them in Paris, and the golden prospect which they considered now lay
before them. But little did they dream, poor fellows! of the different
fate that there awaited them. While resting a few days, preparing
for the commencement of their exhibitions, they were kindly invited,
with the author, to attend the _soirée_ of the American Minister, Mr.
Clemson, where they were ushered into a brilliant and numerous crowd of
distinguished and fashionable people, and seemed to be the lions of the
evening, admired and complimented by all, and their way was thus paved
for the commencement of their exhibitions. I had in the mean time made
all the preparations and the necessary outlays for their operations,
which they merely began upon, when it became necessary to suspend their
exhibitions, owing to one of the number having been taken sick with the
small-pox.
I had at this time an audience appointed with the King, at the Palace,
where I went and was most kindly received and amused in half an hour's
conversation with His Majesty about the condition and modes of the
American Indians. He expressed the deepest sympathy for them and
solicitude for their welfare and protection, and, a few days after my
audience, transmitted to me, through one of his ministers, a beautiful
gold medal, with an appropriate inscription on it.
The nature of the sickness that had now appeared amongst the Indians
prevented the contemplated interview at the Palace, and also all
communication with the public. It was still hoped by the physicians
that a few days would remove all difficulty, but it was destined to be
otherwise, for in a few days two others were attacked, and in a day or
two more another and another, and at last they were in that pitiable
and alarming state that seven of them were on their backs with that
awful and (to them) most fatal of all diseases.
My position then, as the reader will perceive, was one of a most
distressing and painful kind, with my natural sympathy for their race,
and now with the whole responsibility for the expenses, lives, and
welfare of these poor people on my shoulders, their only friend and
protector in a foreign country, as their conductor had left them and
returned to London, and my own life in imminent danger whilst I was
attending on them.
One of these poor fellows died in the course of a few days in their
rooms, another died in one of the hospitals to which he was removed,
and a third died a few days after they reached London, though he was in
good health when he travelled across the Channel.
Such were the melancholy results of this awful catastrophe, which the
reader will easily see broke up all their plans of exhibitions in
Belgium, and ended in the death of three of the finest men of the party.
Their sickness in Bruxelles detained me there near two months before
the survivors were well enough to travel, during which gloomy time I
had opportunity enough to test the fidelity of my man Daniel and his
attachment to the Indians, who stayed by them night and day, fearless
of his own danger, as he lifted them about in his arms in their
loathsome condition both when dead and alive.
When the party were well enough to travel I went to Antwerp with
them, and placed them on a steamer for London, having paid their fare
and given them a little money to cover their first expenses when they
should arrive there. I then took leave of them, and returned to my
little family in Paris, having been absent near three months, with an
expenditure of 350_l._
With the poor fellows who died there seemed to be a presentiment with
each, the moment he was broken out with the disease, that he was to
die, and a very curious circumstance attended this conviction in each
case.
The first one, when he found the disease was well identified on him,
sat down upon the floor with the next one, his faithful and confiding
friend, and, having very deliberately told him he was going to die,
unlocked his little trunk, and spreading all his trinkets, money, &c.,
upon the floor, bequeathed them to his friends, making the other the
sole executor of his will, intrusting them all to him, directing him
to take them to his country and deliver them with his own hand. As he
was intrusting these precious gifts, with his commands, to an Indian,
he was certain, poor fellow! that they would be sacredly preserved and
delivered, and he then locked his little trunk, and, having given to
his friend the key, he turned to his bed, where he seemed composed and
ready to die, because, he said, it was the will of the Great Spirit,
and he didn't think that the Great Spirit would have selected him
unless it was to better his condition in some way.
About the time of the death of this young man his confiding and
faithful friend was discovered to be breaking out with the disease
also, and, seeming to be under a similar conviction, he called
_Say-say-gon_ (the War-chief) to him, and, like the other, unlocked
_his_ little trunk, and, taking out his medal from the King, and other
presents and money, he designated a similar distribution of them
amongst his relatives; and trusting to the War-chief to execute his
will, he locked his trunk, having taken the last look at his little
hard-earned treasures, and, unlocking that of his deceased companion,
and designating, as well as he could, the manner in which the verbal
instructions had been left with him, gave the key to the War-chief,
and begged of him to take charge of the trunk and the presents, and to
see them bestowed according to the will of the testator. After this
he turned away from his little worldly treasures, and suddenly lost
all knowledge of them in the distress of the awful disease that soon
terminated his existence.
The War-chief was one who escaped the disease in Bruxelles, and, being
amongst those whom I took to Antwerp and sent by steamer to London, was
at that time in good health and spirits; but letters which I received
a few days after their arrival in London informed me that he was there
attacked with the same disease, and, most singular to relate, as soon
as he discovered the disease breaking out upon his skin, he said that
he should die, and, calling the chief _Maun-gua-daus_ to him, he,
like the others, opened _his_ trunk, and, willing his gold medal from
the hand of Louis Philippe, to his little son, and his other trinkets
and money to his wife and other relatives, intrusted the whole to the
chief to execute. He then unlocked the trunks of his two friends who
were dead, and, as well as he could recollect them, communicated to
_Maun-gua-daus_ the nature of the two bequests that had been intrusted
to him, and died, leaving the chief to be the bearer of all the little
effects they had earned, and sole executor of their three wills.
It is a fact which may be of interest to be made known, that all of
this party had been vaccinated in their own country, and supposed
themselves protected from the disease; and also that the only three
full-blooded men of the party died. The other four who had the disease
had it in a modified form, and, in all probability, with the three who
died, the vaccine matter had not been properly communicated, or, what
is more probable, and often the case in the exposed lives they lead, it
had in some way been prevented from taking its usual effect.
After their misfortunes in Belgium and in London the excellent lady of
the American Ambassador in Bruxelles raised, by a subscription, several
hundred francs and sent to me in Paris, to which I got other additions
in that city, and forwarded to them in England, to assist in paying
their expenses back to their own country; and shortly after, and before
they embarked for America, I received the following letter from them,
which I feel it my duty to myself to insert here, lest any one should
be led to believe that I did less than my duty to these unfortunate
people:--
"TO GEO. CATLIN, Esq., now in Paris.
"_London, Jan. 27, 1846._
"OUR DEAR FRIEND,
"We send you our words on paper to let you know that we are thankful
for your kindness to us. You have done everything to make us happy
while with you in Paris and Belgium; and as all our people know in
America that you are indeed their best friend, they will be glad to
hear that you have taken us into your kind care whilst we were in a
foreign land, and that while you were in a deep affliction with your
own family.
MAUN-GUA-DAUS,
KE-CHE-US-SIN,
A-WUN-NE-WA-BE,
WAU-BUD-DICK,
UH-WUS-SIG-GEE-ZIGH-GOOK-KWAY."
The above letter was spontaneous on their part, and written in the hand
of _Maun-gua-daus_, the chief, who spoke and wrote the English language
very correctly.
I was much shocked and distressed to hear of the death of
_Say-say-gon_, the War-chief, for he was a remarkably fine Indian, and
had become much attached to me. His life, as a warrior and a hunter,
had been one of an extraordinary nature, and the principal incidents of
it, particularly in the hunting department, he had been for some weeks
engaged, just before their disastrous sickness, in illustrating by a
series of designs in his rude way, presenting me a portfolio of them,
with the story of each, which I wrote down from his own lips as he
narrated them.
This most amusing and original keepsake, which I shall treasure up as
long as I live, and which I regret that the dimensions of this work
did not allow me the space to insert, can at all times be seen by the
curious of my friends who desire to see it.
For the amusement of the reader, however, I have made room for a
couple of his drawings, which will convey some idea of their general
character, and of the decided cleverness of this good fellow at
story-telling and design. The woodcuts are traced from the originals,
and are therefore as near fac-similes as I could make them. _Plate No.
23_ represents _Pane-way-ee-tung_, the brother-in-law of _Say-say-gon_,
crossing the river Thomas in a bark canoe, who had the following
curious and amusing encounter with a bear which he met swimming in
the middle of the river. Though the Indian had no other weapon than a
paddle, he pursued the bear, and, overtaking it, struck it a blow, upon
which it made an effort to climb into the canoe, by which the canoe was
upset and the Indian sank under it. He arose to the surface, however,
just behind the canoe, which in its progress had passed over him, and,
being bottom upwards, the bear had climbed upon it, as seen in the
sketch, and, having seen the man sink under it, was feeling under the
canoe with his paws in hopes of getting hold of him. The bear, having
made no calculation for the progress of the canoe, had not thought of
looking behind it for his enemy, but balanced himself with difficulty
without being able to look back; and whilst he was thus engaged feeling
for his enemy under the canoe the Indian silently swam behind it, and,
cautiously pushing it forward with his hand, succeeded in moving it
near the shore, where he discovered his friend _Say-say-gon_ hunting
with his rifle, who was in waiting for it, and when near enough shot it
in the head.
_Plate No. 24_ is his illustration of the first interview between white
men and the Ojibbeway Indians; his description of it is as follows:--
"_Gitch-ee-gaw-ga-osh_ (the point that remains for ever), who died
many snows since, and who was so old that he had smoked with three
generations, said that his grandfather, _On-daig_, met the first
white man who ever entered an Ojibbeway's wigwam. That white man was
a great chief, who wore a red coat. He had many warriors with him,
who all came in sight of the village of _On-daig_ (the crow),
and, leaving his warriors behind, he walked towards the wigwam of
_On-daig_, who came out, with his pipe of peace in one hand, and
his war-club in the other. _On-daig_ offered his pipe to the white
chief to smoke, who put his sword behind him in one hand, and raised
his hat with the other. _On-daig_ never had seen a white man's hat
before, and, thinking the white chief was going to strike him with
it, drew his war-club. They soon, however, understood each other, and
smoked the pipe together."
[Illustration: N^o. 23.]
[Illustration: N^o. 24.]
But a few months after the death of this fine Indian I was on a visit
to London, and while walking in Piccadilly was accosted by an old
acquaintance, who in our conversation informed me that the skeleton of
my old friend the War-chief had been preserved, and he seemed to think
it might be an interesting thing for me to see. The struggle between
the ebullition of indignation and the quiescence of disgust rendered
me for the moment almost unfit for a reply; and I withheld it for a
moment, until the poor Indian's ideas of hyænas before described had
time to run through my mind, and some other similar reflections, when
I calmly replied, "I have no doubt but the skeleton is a subject of
interest, but I shall not have time to see it."
My friend and I parted here, and I went on through Piccadilly, and I
know not where, meditating on the virtues of scientific and mercenary
man. I thought of the heroic _Osceola_, who was captured when he was
disarmed and was bearing a white flag in his hand; who died a prisoner
of war, and whose head was a few months afterwards offered for sale in
the city of New York! I thought also of the thousands of Indian graves
I had seen on the frontier thrown open by sacrilegious hands for the
skulls and trinkets they enclosed, to which the retiring relatives were
lurking back to take the last glance of, and to mingle their last tears
over, with the horror of seeing the bones of their fathers and children
strewed over the ground by hands too averse to labour and too ruthless
to cover them again.
I was here forcibly struck with the fitness of Jim's remarks about the
hyænas, of "their resemblance to _Chemokimons_ or pale-faces," when I
told him that they lived by digging up and devouring bodies that had
been consigned to the grave.
I thought also of the distress of mind of the Little Wolf when he lost
his child at Dundee--of his objections to bury it in a foreign land;
and also of the double pang with which the fine fellow suffered when
dire necessity compelled him to leave the body of his affectionate
wife amidst the graves of the thousands whose limbs and bones were no
curiosity. And I could thus appreciate the earnestness with which,
in his last embrace of me in Paris, he desired me to drive every day
in a cab, as he had been in the habit of doing, to the cemetery of
Montmartre, to see that no one disturbed the grave of her whom he had
loved, but was then to leave; and that I should urge his kind friend
M. Vattemare to hasten the completion of the beautiful monument he was
getting made, that it might be sure to be erected over her grave before
she might be dug up.
With regard to the remainder of the party of Ojibbeways whom I have
said I had advised to return as soon as possible to their own country,
I am grieved to inform the reader that, from letters from several
friends in England, I have learned that the chief has persisted in
travelling through various parts of the kingdom, making his exhibitions
of Indian life during the last year, and has had the singular and
lamentable misfortune of burying three of his children and his wife!
These, being facts, show a loss of seven out of twelve of that party,
affording a shocking argument against the propriety of persons bringing
Indians to Europe with a view to making their exhibitions a just or
profitable speculation.
Three of the former party died while under my direction, as I have
described in the foregoing pages; and a noble fine Indian, by the name
of _Jock-o-sot_, of the Sac tribe, brought to England by a Mr. Wallace
about the same time, was dying, and died on his way home, from causes
he met in this country; making the melancholy list of eleven who lost
their lives in the space of eighteen months.
These are facts which bring the reader's mind, as well as that of
the author, to inquire what were the objects of these parties in
England--how they came here--and what their success, as well as what
will be the results that will probably flow from them. Each of these
speculations has undoubtedly been projected by the white men who
brought the Indians over, having conceived a plan of employing and
taking to Europe such parties, who would be great curiosities in a
foreign country, and by their exhibitions enabled to realise a great
deal of money.
These parties, in each case, have been employed, and induced to come on
condition of a certain sum of money to be paid them per month, or so
much per year, to be given them on their return to their own country,
with the additional advantage of having all their expenses borne, and
themselves entitled to all the numerous presents they would receive
during their travels.
As I have been with each of these parties the greater part of the time
while they were making their exhibitions, I feel quite sure that this
last condition of their engagements has been strictly kept with them,
and that by it the Indians profited to a considerable amount from the
kind and charitable hands of people whom they were amusing. But how far
they have been benefited by the other conditions of their engagements,
after they have returned to their homes, I am unable to tell.
As for their reception by the public generally where they have
travelled, and their conduct whilst amongst and dealing with the world,
it gives me great pleasure, as a living witness, to tender to that
public my grateful acknowledgments for the kindness and friendship with
which they received those unsophisticated people; and in justice to
the Indians, as well as for the satisfaction of those who knew them,
to acknowledge the perfect propriety of their conduct and dignity of
deportment whilst they were abroad.
There were of the three parties thirty-five in all, and I am proud, for
the character of the abused race which I am yet advocating, that, for
the year and a half that I was daily and hourly in familiarity with
them in Europe, I never discovered either of them intoxicated, or in a
passion with one another, or with the world. They met the people, and
all the wondrous and unaccountable works which their eyes were daily
opened to in the enlightened world, with an evenness of temper and
apparent ease and familiarity which surprised all who saw them.
Their conduct was uniformly decent and respectful, and through their
whole tour, whilst abroad, they furnished a striking corroboration of
two of the leading traits of their national character, which I have
advanced in my former work, of their strict adherance to promises they
make, and of their never-ending garrulity and anecdote when, in their
little fireside circles, they are out of the embarrassing gaze of the
enlightened world, who are wiser than themselves.
For these nightly gossips, which generally took place in their private
apartments after the labours of the day were done and the pipe was lit,
the excitements of the day, and the droll and marvellous things they
had seen in their exhibition-room and in the streets of London and
Paris, afforded them the endless themes; and of these little sittings
I was almost an inseparable member, as will have been seen by many
anecdotes entered in the pages which the reader has already passed over.
It will be pleasing therefore to the reader, at least to those who
felt an interest in those poor people, to learn, that, though they
might have been objects of concern and pity whilst making a show of
themselves in this country, they were, nevertheless, happy, and in the
height of amusements, philosophically enjoying life as they went along;
and to those who know me, and feel any anxiety for my welfare, that,
although I was aiding them in a mode of living to which I was always
opposed, I was happy in their society, and also in the belief that I
was rendering them an essential service, although my labours were much
less successful as regarded my own pecuniary interest.
One of the leading inducements for Indians to enter into such
enterprises, and the one which gains the consent of their friends
and relations around them, and more particularly is advanced to the
world as the plausible motive for taking Indians abroad, is that of
enlightening them--of opening their eyes to the length and breadth of
civilization, and all the inventions and improvements of enlightened
society. These three parties (having met their old friend and advocate
abroad, who has introduced them to the highest society of the
world--has led them into three palaces, and from those down through
every grade of society, and into almost every institution and factory
of the continent--whose eyes and whose ears have been opened to most of
the information and improvements of this enlightened age, and who have
gone back to relate and to apply, in their own country, the knowledge
they have gained) will furnish the best argument on record, for or
against the propriety of bringing American Indians abroad, as the means
of enlightening them and making them suitable teachers of civilization
when they go back to the wilderness. And though the pages of this book
cannot sum up the results of these visits, which can only be looked up
ultimately in the respective tribes to which they have returned, yet a
few words more upon the materials with which they have returned, and
the author's opinion (in his familiar knowledge of the Indians' mode of
reasoning) of their probable results, may not be obtrusive, as a sort
of recapitulation of scenes and estimates, with their tendencies, made
in the foregoing pages.
It is natural, or at least habitual, to suppose that, for the ignorant
to learn is always to improve; and that what a savage people can learn
amongst civilized society _must be_ for their benefit. But in this
view of the case, which would generally be correct, there arises a
very fair question how far, for the benefit of the unenlightened parts
of the world, it is judicious to acquaint them at a glance, with the
whole glare of the lights and shades of civilized life, by opening
the eyes of such parties to so many virtues and so many luxuries and
refinements so far beyond the possibility of their acquiring, and at
the same time to so many vices, to so much poverty and beggary not
known in their simple modes of life, to teach to their people and
to descant on when they get home; themselves as well as those whom
they are teaching, despairing of ever attaining to what they have
seen to admire and covet, and unwilling to descend to the degrading
vices and poverty which they have seen mixed up in the mysterious and
money-making medley of civilization.
If I startle the readers, let them reflect for a moment upon what
perhaps some of them have never yet exactly appreciated--that a man,
to know how his own house looks, must see how the houses of others
appear. To know how his own city and country actually look, and how
his countrymen act and live, he should see how cities and countries
look, and how people act, in other parts of the world. If he will do
this, and then leave all civilized countries a while, and the din and
clatter, and the struggles for wealth amidst the rags and vices of the
community he has lived in, and taste for a time the simple, silent
life of the wilderness, he will find, on returning to his home, that
he has been raised amongst a variety of vices and follies which he
never before had duly appreciated, and will then realise, to a certain
degree, the view which the savages take of the scenes in civilized life
when they look into the strange medley of human existence in our great
towns and cities, where all the contrasts are before their eyes, of
rich and poor, equally struggling for wealth or the means of existence.
With such eyes were those wild people here to look; and without the
cares and hourly and momentary concerns which lead the scrambling,
busy world through and across the streets, blinded to what is about
them, the poor but entirely independent Indians were daily and
hourly scanning from the top of their buss, or the platform of their
exhibition-rooms, the scenes, and manners, and expressions that were
about them; and though they looked with unenlightened eyes, they
saw and correctly appreciated many things in London and Paris which
the eyes of Londoners and Parisians scarcely see. They saw their
sights and got their estimates and statistics, and in the leisure of
their inquisitive and abstracted minds drew deductions which few of
the business world have leisure or inclination to make; and with all
of these they have gone back to be the illustrators and teachers of
civilization in the wilderness.
Each one will be a verbal chronicler, as long as he lives, of the
events and scenes he witnessed while abroad, and _Wash-ka-mon-ya_ (or
Jim), with his smattering of civilization, and his book of entries,
which he will find enough to read and translate, will furnish abundance
of written evidence for them to comment upon to their nation, who will
be looking to them for information of the secret of civilization.
The bazaar of toys and trinkets presented to them, with the money and
medals which they will open to view in the wilderness, will glitter in
the eyes of their people, and, it is to be feared, may be an inducement
to others to follow their example.
Their _Bibles_ had increased in their various boxes since the last
census to more than a hundred and fifty; their _religious tracts_,
which they could not read, to some thousands; their _dolls_, in all,
to fifty; and other useless toys, to a great number. Then came their
_medals_, their _grosses of buttons_, their _beads_, _ribbons_,
_brooches_, _fans_, _knives_, _daggers_, _combs_, _pistols_, _shawls_,
_blankets_, _handkerchiefs_, _canes_, _umbrellas_, _beaver hats_,
_caps_, _coats_, _bracelets_, _pins_, _eye-glasses_, &c. &c.; and
then their prints--views of countries they had seen, of _churches_,
_cathedrals_, _maps of London and Paris_, _views of bridges_, of
_factories_, of _coal-pits_, of _catacombs_, of _Morgues_, &c. &c.,
to an almost countless number, all to be opened and commented upon,
and then scattered, as the first indications of civilization, in the
wilderness. These are but mere toys, however, but gewgaws that will
be met as matters of course, and soon used up and lost sight of. But
Jim's book of the statistics of London, of Paris, and New York, will
stand the _Magna Charta_ of his nation, and around it will assemble
the wiseacres of the tribe, descanting on and seeking for a solution
of the blessings of civilization, as the passing pipe sends off its
curling fumes, to future ages, over its astounding and marvellous
estimates of civilized _nations_, of _cities_, of _churches_, of
_courts of justice_, and _gaols_--of the tens of thousands of civilized
people who are in it recorded (to their amazement) as _blind_, as _deaf
and dumb_, and _insane_; of _gallows_ and _guillotines_, of _massacres_
and _robberies_, the number of _grog-shops_ and _breweries_,
of _coal-pits_, of _tread-mills_ and _foundling hospitals_, of
_poorhouses_ and _paupers_, of _beggars_ and _starvation_, of
_brothels_, of _prisons for debtors_, of _rapes_, of _bigamy_, of
_taxation_, of _game-laws_, of _Christianity_, of _drunkenness_, of
_national debt_ and _repudiation_.
The estimates of all these subjects have gone to the wilderness, with
what the eyes of the Indians saw of the poverty and distress of the
civilized world, to be taught to the untaught, and hereafter to be
arrayed, if they choose, against the teachings of civilization and
Christianity in the Indian communities: a table of the enormous numbers
in the civilized world who by their own folly or wickedness drag
through lives of pain and misery, leaving their Indian critics, in the
richness of their imaginations, to judge of the immense proportion of
the enlightened world who, in just retribution, must perish for their
crimes and their follies; and in their ignorance, and the violence
of their prejudices, to imagine what proportion of them are actually
indulged in the comforts of this life, or destined to enjoy the
happiness of the world to come.
Teaching, I have always thought, should be gradual, and but one thing
(or at most but few things) taught at a time. By all who know me and
my views, I am known to be, as I am, an advocate of civilization; but
of civilization, as it has generally been taught amongst the American
Indians, I have a poor opinion; and of the plan I am now treating of,
of sending parties to foreign countries to see all that can be seen
and learned in civilized life, I have a still poorer opinion, being
fully convinced that they learn too much for useful teachers in their
own country. The strides that they thus take are too great and too
sudden for the slow and gradual steps that can alone bring man from a
savage to a civilized state. They require absolutely the reverse of
what they will learn from such teachers. They should, with all their
natural prejudices against civilized man, be held in ignorance of the
actual crime, dissipation, and poverty that belong to the enlightened
world, until the honest pioneer, in his simple life, with his plough
and his hoe, can wile them into the mode of raising the necessaries of
life, which are the first steps from savage to civil, and which they
will only take when their prejudices against white men are broken down,
which is most effectually done by teaching them the modes of raising
their food and acquiring property. I therefore am constrained to give
judgment here against the propriety of parties of Indians visiting
foreign countries with a view to enlightening their people when they
go back; and here also to register my opinion, for which I am daily
asked, as to the effects which these visits to Europe will have upon
the parties who have been abroad, and what impressions they will make
amongst their people when they return.
I am sure they saw many things which pleased them and gained their
highest admiration, and which they might be benefited by seeing; and
also that they saw many others which it would have been decidedly
better they had never seen. They have witnessed and appreciated the
virtues and blessings, and at the same time the vices and miseries and
degradations of civilized life, the latter of which will doubtless
have made the deepest impressions upon their minds, and which (not
unlike some _more distinguished travellers than themselves_) they will
comment and enlarge upon, and about in equal justice to the nation they
represent and are endeavouring to instruct.
Their tour of a year or two abroad, amidst the mazes and mysteries of
civilized life, will rest in their minds like a romantic dream, not to
be forgotten, nor to be dreamed over again; their lives too short to
aspire to what they have seen to approve, and their own humble sphere
in their native wilds so decidedly preferable to the parts of civilized
life which they did not admire, that they will probably convert the
little money they have made, and their medals and trinkets, into whisky
and rum, and drown out, if possible, the puzzling enigma, which, with
arguments, the poor fellows have found it more difficult to solve.
With this chapter I take leave of my Indian friends; and as the main
subject of this work ends with their mission to Europe, the reader
finds himself near the end of his task.
In taking leave of my red friends, I will be pardoned for repeating
what I have before said, that on this side of the Atlantic they
invariably did the best they could do; and that, loving them still as
I have done, I shall continue to do for them and their race, all the
justice that shall be in the power of my future strength to do.