I renounce a name so ancient and so venerable? Alas, she herself,
that once indulgent parent, forces me to take up arms against her.
She herself, first inspired the most unhappy citizens of our remote
districts, with the thoughts of shedding the blood of those whom
they used to call by the name of friends and brethren. That great
nation which now convulses the world; which hardly knows the extent
of her Indian kingdoms; which looks toward the universal monarchy of
trade, of industry, of riches, of power: why must she strew our poor
frontiers with the carcasses of her friends, with the wrecks of our
insignificant villages, in which there is no gold? When, oppressed
by painful recollection, I revolve all these scattered ideas in my
mind, when I contemplate my situation, and the thousand streams of
evil with which I am surrounded; when I descend into the particular
tendency even of the remedy I have proposed, I am convulsed--
convulsed sometimes to that degree, as to be tempted to exclaim--Why
has the master of the world permitted so much indiscriminate evil
throughout every part of this poor planet, at all times, and among
all kinds of people? It ought surely to be the punishment of the
wicked only. I bring that cup to my lips, of which I must soon
taste, and shudder at its bitterness. What then is life, I ask
myself, is it a gracious gift? No, it is too bitter; a gift means
something valuable conferred, but life appears to be a mere
accident, and of the worst kind: we are born to be victims of
diseases and passions, of mischances and death: better not to be
than to be miserable.--Thus impiously I roam, I fly from one erratic
thought to another, and my mind, irritated by these acrimonious
reflections, is ready sometimes to lead me to dangerous extremes of
violence. When I recollect that I am a father, and a husband, the
return of these endearing ideas strikes deep into my heart. Alas!
they once made it to glow with pleasure and with every ravishing
exultation; but now they fill it with sorrow. At other times, my
wife industriously rouses me out of these dreadful meditations, and
soothes me by all the reasoning she is mistress of; but her
endeavours only serve to make me more miserable, by reflecting that
she must share with all these calamities, the bare apprehensions of
which I am afraid will subvert her reason. Nor can I with patience
think that a beloved wife, my faithful help-mate, throughout all my
rural schemes, the principal hand which has assisted me in rearing
the prosperous fabric of ease and independence I lately possessed,
as well as my children, those tenants of my heart, should daily and
nightly be exposed to such a cruel fate. Selfpreservation is above
all political precepts and rules, and even superior to the dearest
opinions of our minds; a reasonable accommodation of ourselves to
the various exigencies of the time in which we live, is the most
irresistible precept. To this great evil I must seek some sort of
remedy adapted to remove or to palliate it; situated as I am, what
steps should I take that will neither injure nor insult any of the
parties, and at the same time save my family from that certain
destruction which awaits it, if I remain here much longer. Could I
insure them bread, safety, and subsistence, not the bread of
idleness, but that earned by proper labour as heretofore; could this
be accomplished by the sacrifice of my life, I would willingly give
it up. I attest before heaven, that it is only for these I would
wish to live and to toil: for these whom I have brought into this
miserable existence. I resemble, methinks, one of the stones of a
ruined arch, still retaining that pristine form that anciently
fitted the place I occupied, but the centre is tumbled down; I can
be nothing until I am replaced, either in the former circle, or in
some stronger one. I see one on a smaller scale, and at a
considerable distance, but it is within my power to reach it: and
since I have ceased to consider myself as a member of the ancient
state now convulsed, I willingly descend into an inferior one. I
will revert into a state approaching nearer to that of nature,
unencumbered either with voluminous laws, or contradictory codes,
often galling the very necks of those whom they protect; and at the
same time sufficiently remote from the brutality of unconnected
savage nature. Do you, my friend, perceive the path I have found
out? it is that which leads to the tenants of the great------village
of------, where, far removed from the accursed neighbourhood of
Europeans, its inhabitants live with more ease, decency, and peace,
than you imagine: where, though governed by no laws, yet find, in
uncontaminated simple manners all that laws can afford. Their system
is sufficiently complete to answer all the primary wants of man, and
to constitute him a social being, such as he ought to be in the
great forest of nature. There it is that I have resolved at any rate
to transport myself and family: an eccentric thought, you may say,
thus to cut asunder all former connections, and to form new ones
with a people whom nature has stamped with such different
characteristics! But as the happiness of my family is the only
object of my wishes, I care very little where we be, or where we go,
provided that we are safe, and all united together. Our new
calamities being shared equally by all, will become lighter; our
mutual affection for each other, will in this great transmutation
become the strongest link of our new society, will afford us every
joy we can receive on a foreign soil, and preserve us in unity, as
the gravity and coherency of matter prevents the world from
dissolution. Blame me not, it would be cruel in you, it would beside
be entirely useless; for when you receive this we shall be on the
wing. When we think all hopes are gone, must we, like poor
pusillanimous wretches, despair and die? No; I perceive before me a
few resources, though through many dangers, which I will explain to
you hereafter. It is not, believe me, a disappointed ambition which
leads me to take this step, it is the bitterness of my situation, it
is the impossibility of knowing what better measure to adopt: my
education fitted me for nothing more than the most simple
occupations of life; I am but a feller of trees, a cultivator of
land, the most honourable title an American can have. I have no
exploits, no discoveries, no inventions to boast of; I have cleared
about 370 acres of land, some for the plough, some for the scythe;
and this has occupied many years of my life. I have never possessed,
or wish to possess anything more than what could be earned or
produced by the united industry of my family. I wanted nothing more
than to live at home independent and tranquil, and to teach my
children how to provide the means of a future ample subsistence,
founded on labour, like that of their father, This is the career of
life I have pursued, and that which I had marked out for them and
for which they seemed to be so well calculated by their
inclinations, and by their constitutions. But now these pleasing
expectations are gone, we must abandon the accumulated industry of
nineteen years, we must fly we hardly know whither, through the most
impervious paths, and become members of a new and strange community.
Oh, virtue! is this all the reward thou hast to confer on thy
votaries? Either thou art only a chimera, or thou art a timid
useless being; soon affrighted, when ambition, thy great adversary,
dictates, when war re-echoes the dreadful sounds, and poor helpless
individuals are mowed down by its cruel reapers like useless grass.
I have at all times generously relieved what few distressed people I
have met with; I have encouraged the industrious; my house has
always been opened to travellers; I have not lost a month in illness
since I have been a man; I have caused upwards of an hundred and
twenty families to remove hither. Many of them I have led by the
hand in the days of their first trial; distant as I am from any
places of worship or school of education, I have been the pastor of
my family, and the teacher of many of my neighbours. I have learnt
them as well as I could, the gratitude they owe to God, the father
of harvests; and their duties to man: I have been as useful a
subject; ever obedient to the laws, ever vigilant to see them
respected and observed. My wife hath faithfully followed the same
line within her province; no woman was ever a better economist, or
spun or wove better linen; yet we must perish, perish like wild
beasts, included within a ring of fire!
Yes, I will cheerfully embrace that resource, it is an holy
inspiration; by night and by day, it presents itself to my mind: I
have carefully revolved the scheme; I have considered in all its
future effects and tendencies, the new mode of living we must
pursue, without salt, without spices, without linen and with little
other clothing; the art of hunting, we must acquire, the new manners
we must adopt, the new language we must speak; the dangers attending
the education of my children we must endure. These changes may
appear more terrific at a distance perhaps than when grown familiar
by practice: what is it to us, whether we eat well made pastry, or
pounded alagriches; well roasted beef, or smoked venison; cabbages,
or squashes? Whether we wear neat home-spun or good beaver; whether
we sleep on feather-beds, or on bear-skins? The difference is not
worth attending to. The difficulty of the language, fear of some
great intoxication among the Indians; finally, the apprehension lest
my younger children should be caught by that singular charm, so
dangerous at their tender years; are the only considerations that
startle me. By what power does it come to pass, that children who
have been adopted when young among these people, can never be
prevailed on to readopt European manners? Many an anxious parent I
have seen last war, who at the return of the peace, went to the
Indian villages where they knew their children had been carried in
captivity; when to their inexpressible sorrow, they found them so
perfectly Indianised, that many knew them no longer, and those whose
more advanced ages permitted them to recollect their fathers and
mothers, absolutely refused to follow them, and ran to their adopted
parents for protection against the effusions of love their unhappy
real parents lavished on them! Incredible as this may appear, I have
heard it asserted in a thousand instances, among persons of credit.
In the village of------, where I purpose to go, there lived, about
fifteen years ago, an Englishman and a Swede, whose history would
appear moving, had I time to relate it. They were grown to the age
of men when they were taken; they happily escaped the great
punishment of war captives, and were obliged to marry the Squaws who
had saved their lives by adoption. By the force of habit, they
became at last thoroughly naturalised to this wild course of life.
While I was there, their friends sent them a considerable sum of
money to ransom themselves with. The Indians, their old masters,
gave them their choice, and without requiring any consideration,
told them, that they had been long as free as themselves. They chose
to remain; and the reasons they gave me would greatly surprise you:
the most perfect freedom, the ease of living, the absence of those
cares and corroding solicitudes which so often prevail with us; the
peculiar goodness of the soil they cultivated, for they did not
trust altogether to hunting; all these, and many more motives, which
I have forgot, made them prefer that life, of which we entertain
such dreadful opinions. It cannot be, therefore, so bad as we
generally conceive it to be; there must be in their social bond
something singularly captivating, and far superior to anything to be
boasted of among us; for thousands of Europeans are Indians, and we
have no examples of even one of those Aborigines having from choice
become Europeans! There must be something more congenial to our
native dispositions, than the fictitious society in which we live;
or else why should children, and even grown persons, become in a
short time so invincibly attached to it? There must be something
very bewitching in their manners, something very indelible and
marked by the very hands of nature. For, take a young Indian lad,
give him the best education you possibly can, load him with your
bounty, with presents, nay with riches; yet he will secretly long
for his native woods, which you would imagine he must have long
since forgot; and on the first opportunity he can possibly find, you
will see him voluntarily leave behind him all you have given him,
and return with inexpressible joy to lie on the mats of his fathers.
Mr.----, some years ago, received from a good old Indian, who died
in his house, a young lad, of nine years of age, his grandson. He
kindly educated him with his children, and bestowed on him the same
care and attention in respect to the memory of his venerable
grandfather, who was a worthy man. He intended to give him a genteel
trade, but in the spring season when all the family went to the
woods to make their maple sugar, he suddenly disappeared; and it was
not until seventeen months after, that his benefactor heard he had
reached the village of Bald Eagle, where he still dwelt. Let us say
what we will of them, of their inferior organs, of their want of
bread, etc., they are as stout and well made as the Europeans.
Without temples, without priests, without kings, and without laws,
they are in many instances superior to us; and the proofs of what I
advance, are, that they live without care, sleep without inquietude,
take life as it comes, bearing all its asperities with unparalleled
patience, and die without any kind of apprehension for what they
have done, or for what they expect to meet with hereafter. What
system of philosophy can give us so many necessary qualifications
for happiness? They most certainly are much more closely connected
with nature than we are; they are her immediate children, the
inhabitants of the woods are her undefiled off-spring: those of the
plains are her degenerated breed, far, very far removed from her
primitive laws, from her original design. It is therefore resolved
on. I will either die in the attempt or succeed; better perish all
together in one fatal hour, than to suffer what we daily endure. I
do not expect to enjoy in the village of------an uninterrupted
happiness; it cannot be our lot, let us live where we will; I am not
founding my future prosperity on golden dreams. Place mankind where
you will, they must always have adverse circumstances to struggle
with; from nature, accidents, constitution; from seasons, from that
great combination of mischances which perpetually lead us to new
diseases, to poverty, etc. Who knows but I may meet in this new
situation, some accident from whence may spring up new sources of
unexpected prosperity? Who can be presumptuous enough to predict all
the good? Who can foresee all the evils, which strew the paths of
our lives? But after all, I cannot but recollect what sacrifice I am
going to make, what amputation I am going to suffer, what transition
I am going to experience. Pardon my repetitions, my wild, my
trifling reflections, they proceed from the agitations of my mind,
and the fulness of my heart; the action of thus retracing them seems
to lighten the burden, and to exhilarate my spirits; this is besides
the last letter you will receive from me; I would fain tell you all,
though I hardly know how. Oh! in the hours, in the moments of my
greatest anguish, could I intuitively represent to you that variety
of thought which crowds on my mind, you would have reason to be
surprised, and to doubt of their possibility. Shall we ever meet
again? If we should, where will it be? On the wild shores of----. If
it be my doom to end my days there, I will greatly improve them; and
perhaps make room for a few more families, who will choose to retire
from the fury of a storm, the agitated billows of which will yet
roar for many years on our extended shores. Perhaps I may repossess
my house, if it be not burnt down; but how will my improvements
look? why, half defaced, bearing the strong marks of abandonment,
and of the ravages of war. However, at present I give everything
over for lost; I will bid a long farewell to what I leave behind. If
ever I repossess it, I shall receive it as a gift, as a reward for
my conduct and fortitude. Do not imagine, however, that I am a
stoic--by no means: I must, on the contrary, confess to you, that I
feel the keenest regret, at abandoning an house which I have in some
measure reared with my own hands. Yes, perhaps I may never revisit
those fields which I have cleared, those trees which I have planted,
those meadows which, in my youth, were a hideous wilderness, now
converted by my industry into rich pastures and pleasant lawns. If
in Europe it is praise-worthy to be attached to paternal
inheritances, how much more natural, how much more powerful must the
tie be with us, who, if I may be permitted the expression, are the
founders, the creators of our own farms! When I see my table
surrounded with my blooming offspring, all united in the bonds of
the strongest affection, it kindles in my paternal heart a variety
of tumultuous sentiments, which none but a father and a husband in
my situation can feel or describe. Perhaps I may see my wife, my
children, often distressed, involuntarily recalling to their minds
the ease and abundance which they enjoyed under the paternal roof.
Perhaps I may see them want that bread which I now leave behind;
overtaken by diseases and penury, rendered more bitter by the
recollection of former days of opulence and plenty. Perhaps I may be
assailed on every side by unforeseen accidents, which I shall not be
able to prevent or to alleviate. Can I contemplate such images
without the most unutterable emotions? My fate is determined; but I
have not determined it, you may assure yourself, without having
undergone the most painful conflicts of a variety of passions;--
interest, love of ease, disappointed views, and pleasing
expectations frustrated;--I shuddered at the review! Would to God I
was master of the stoical tranquillity of that magnanimous sect; oh,
that I were possessed of those sublime lessons which Appollonius of
Chalcis gave to the Emperor Antoninus! I could then with much more
propriety guide the helm of my little bark, which is soon to be
freighted with all that I possess most dear on earth, through this
stormy passage to a safe harbour; and when there, become to my
fellow passengers, a surer guide, a brighter example, a pattern more
worthy of imitation, throughout all the new scenes they must pass,
and the new career they must traverse. I have observed
notwithstanding, the means hitherto made use of, to arm the
principal nations against our frontiers. Yet they have not, they
will not take up the hatchet against a people who have done them no
harm. The passions necessary to urge these people to war, cannot be
roused, they cannot feel the stings of vengeance, the thirst of
which alone can compel them to shed blood: far superior in their
motives of action to the Europeans, who for sixpence per day, may be
engaged to shed that of any people on earth. They know nothing of
the nature of our disputes, they have no ideas of such revolutions
as this; a civil division of a village or tribe, are events which
have never been recorded in their traditions: many of them know very
well that they have too long been the dupes and the victims of both
parties; foolishly arming for our sakes, sometimes against each
other, sometimes against our white enemies. They consider us as born
on the same land, and, though they have no reasons to love us, yet
they seem carefully to avoid entering into this quarrel, from
whatever motives. I am speaking of those nations with which I am
best acquainted, a few hundreds of the worst kind mixed with whites,
worse than themselves, are now hired by Great Britain, to perpetuate
those dreadful incursions. In my youth I traded with the----, under
the conduct of my uncle, and always traded justly and equitably;
some of them remember it to this day. Happily their village is far
removed from the dangerous neighbourhood of the whites; I sent a man
last spring to it, who understands the woods extremely well, and who
speaks their language; he is just returned, after several weeks
absence, and has brought me, as I had flattered myself, a string of
thirty purple wampum, as a token that their honest chief will spare
us half of his wigwam until we have time to erect one. He has sent
me word that they have land in plenty, of which they are not so
covetous as the whites; that we may plant for ourselves, and that in
the meantime he will procure for us some corn and some meat; that
fish is plenty in the waters of---, and that the village to which he
had laid open my proposals, have no objection to our becoming
dwellers with them. I have not yet communicated these glad tidings
to my wife, nor do I know how to do it; I tremble lest she should
refuse to follow me; lest the sudden idea of this removal rushing on
her mind, might be too powerful. I flatter myself I shall be able to
accomplish it, and to prevail on her; I fear nothing but the effects
of her strong attachment to her relations. I will willingly let you
know how I purpose to remove my family to so great a distance, but
it would become unintelligible to you, because you are not
acquainted with the geographical situation of this part of the
country. Suffice it for you to know, that with about twenty-three
miles land carriage, I am enabled to perform the rest by water; and
when once afloat, I care not whether it be two or three hundred
miles. I propose to send all our provisions, furniture, and clothes
to my wife's father, who approves of the scheme, and to reserve
nothing but a few necessary articles of covering; trusting to the
furs of the chase for our future apparel. Were we imprudently to
encumber ourselves too much with baggage, we should never reach to
the waters of---, which is the most dangerous as well as the most
difficult part of our journey; and yet but a trifle in point of
distance. I intend to say to my negroes--In the name of God, be
free, my honest lads, I thank you for your past services; go, from
henceforth, and work for yourselves; look on me as your old friend,
and fellow labourer; be sober, frugal, and industrious, and you need
not fear earning a comfortable subsistence.--Lest my countrymen
should think that I am gone to join the incendiaries of our
frontiers, I intend to write a letter to Mr.---, to inform him of
our retreat, and of the reasons that have urged me to it. The man
whom I sent to----village, is to accompany us also, and a very
useful companion he will be on every account.