Higher up, on the river Thames, and above the Moravian settlements, a
small tribe of the Chippewa nation has been for some time located. They
have apparently attained a certain degree of civilisation, live in
log-huts instead of bark wigwams, and have, from necessity, turned their
attention to agriculture. I have now in my pocket-book an original
document sent up from these Indians to the Indian agency at Toronto. It
runs thus:
"We, the undersigned chiefs of the Chippewa Indians of Colborne on the
Thames, hereby request Mr. Superintendent Clench to procure for us--
"One yoke of working oxen.
"Six ploughs.
"Thirty-three tons of hay.
"One hundred bushels of oats.
"The price of the above to be deducted from our land-payments."
Signed by ten chiefs, or, more properly, chief men, of the tribe, of
whom one, the Beaver, signs his name in legible characters: the others,
as is usual with the Indians, affix each their _totem_, (crest or
sign-manual,) being a rude scratch of a bird, fish, deer, &c. Another of
these papers, similarly signed, contains a requisition for working tools
and mechanical instruments of various kinds. This looks well, and it
_is_ well; but what are the present state and probable progress of this
Chippewa settlement? Why, one half the number at least are half-caste,
and as the white population closes and thickens around them, we shall
see in another generation or two none of entire Indian blood; they will
become, at length, almost wholly amalgamated with the white people. Is
this _civilising the Indians_?[17] I should observe, that when an Indian
woman gives herself to a white man, she considers herself as his wife to
all intents and purposes. If forsaken by him, she considers herself as
injured, not disgraced. There are great numbers of white settlers and
traders along the borders living thus with Indian women. Some of these
have been persuaded by the missionaries or magistrates to go through the
ceremony of marriage; but the number is few in proportion.
You must not imagine, after all I have said, that I consider the Indians
as an inferior race, merely because they have no literature, no
luxuries, no steam-engines; nor yet, because they regard our superiority
in the arts with a sort of lofty indifference, which is neither contempt
nor stupidity, look upon them as being beyond the pale of our
sympathies. It is possible I may, on a nearer acquaintance, change my
opinion, but they do strike me as an _untamable_ race. I can no more
conceive a city filled with industrious Mohawks and Chippewas, than I
can imagine a flock of panthers browsing in a penfold.
The dirty, careless habits of the Indians, while sheltered only by the
bark-covered wigwam, matter very little. Living almost constantly in the
open air, and moving their dwellings perpetually from place to place,
the worst effects of dirt and negligence are neither perceived nor
experienced. But I have never heard of any attempt to make them
stationary and congregate in houses, that has not been followed by
disease and mortality, particularly among the children; a natural result
of close air, confinement, heat, and filth. In our endeavours to
civilise the Indians, we have not only to convince the mind and change
the habits, but to overcome a certain physical organisation to which
labour and constraint and confinement appear to be fatal. This cannot be
done in less than three generations, if at all, in the unmixed race; and
meantime--they perish!
[Footnote 17: The Indian village of Lorette, near Quebec, which I
visited subsequently, is a case in point. Seven hundred Indians, a
wretched remnant of the Huron tribe, had once been congregated there
under the protection of the Jesuits, and had always been cited as
examples of what might be accomplished in the task of conversion and
civilisation. When I was there, the number was under two hundred; many
of the huts deserted, the inhabitants having fled to the woods and taken
up the hunter's life again; in those who remained, there was scarce a
trace of native Indian blood.]
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