us how to preserve the Ginseng, so as to give it a proper colour; for
could we once effect that, it must become a valuable branch of trade. It
is an exceeding good stomachic, and greatly supports nature against
hunger and thirst. It is likewise beneficial against asthmatic
complaints, and it may be said to promote fertility in women, as much as
the East-India tea causes sterility in proportion to the baneful use
that is made of it. A learned physician and botanist assured me, that
the eastern teas are slow, but sure poison, in our American climates;
and that he generally used the Ginseng very successfully in clysters, to
those who had destroyed their health, by that dangerous habit. I advised
my friend to write a treatise on its medical virtues, in the posterior
application, as it must redound much to the public good. He told me, it
would be needless; for quacks could gain nothing from the best
directions; and that already several of his acquaintance of the faculty
mostly pursued his practice in curing their patients. The eastern tea is
as much inferior to our American teas, in its nourishing quality, as
their album græcum is to our pure venison, from which we here sometimes
collect it; let us, therefore, like frugal and wise people, use our own
valuable aromatic tea, and thus induce our British {362} brethren to
imitate our pleasant and healthy regimen; shewing the utmost
indifference to any duties the statesmen of Great-Britain, in their
assumed prerogative, may think proper to lay on their East-India
poisoning, and dear-bought teas.
The industry of the uncorrupt part of the Indians, in general, and of
the Chikkasah, in particular, extends no farther than to support a plain
simple life, and secure themselves from the power of the enemy, and from
hunger and cold. Indeed most of them are of late grown fond of the
ornaments of life, of raising live stock, and using a greater industry
than formerly, to increase wealth. This is to be ascribed to their long
intercourse with us, and the familiar easy way in which our traders live
with them, begetting imperceptibly an emulous spirit of imitation,
according to the usual progress of human life. Such a disposition, is a
great advance towards their being civilized; which, certainly must be
effected, before we can reasonably expect to be able to bring them to
the true principles of christianity. Instead of reforming the Indians,
the monks and friars corrupted their morals: for, in the place of
inculcating love, peace, and good-will to their red pupils, as became
messengers of the divine author of peace, they only impressed their
flexible minds with an implacable hatred against every British subject,
without any distinction. Our people will soon discover the bad policy of
the late Quebec act, and it is to be hoped that Great-Britain will in
due time, send those black croaking clerical frogs of Canada home to
their infallible mufti of Rome.
I must here beg leave to be indulged, in a few observations on our own
American missionaries. Many evils are produced by sending out ignorant
and wicked persons as clergymen. Of the few I know,—two among them dare
not venture on repeating but a few collects in the common prayer. A
heathen could say, “if thou wouldst have me weep, thou must first weep
thyself:” and how is it possible we should be able to make good
impressions on others, unless they are first visible on ourselves? The
very rudiments of learning, not to say of religion, are wanting in
several of our missionary Evangelists; the best apology I have heard in
their behalf, is, “an English nobleman asked a certain bishop, why he
conferred holy orders on such a parcel of arrant blockheads? He replied,
because it was better to have the ground plowed by asses, than leave it
a waste full of thistles.” {363}
It seems very surprising, that those who are invested with a power of
conferring ecclesiastical orders, should be so careless in propagating
the holy gospel, and assiduous to prophane holy things, in appointing
and ordaining illiterate and irreligious persons to the service. What is
it? but saying, “go teach the American fools. My blessing is enough.
Cherish confidence, and depend upon it, they will not have confidence to
laugh at you: Leave the remote and poor settlements to the care of
divine providence, which is diffusive of its rich gifts. The harvest is
great elsewhere. Only endeavour to episcopize the northern colonies; it
is enough: there they are numerous, and able to pay Peter’s pence, as
well as our old jewish, and new parliamentary tithes; and in time your
labours will be crowned with success.”
That court however, which sends abroad stupid embassadors to represent
it, cannot be reasonably expected to have success, but rather shame and
derision. What can we think at this distance, when we see the number of
blind guides, our spiritual fathers at home have sent to us, to lead us
clear of the mazes of error? but, that they think of us with
indifference, and are studiously bent on their own temporal interest,
instead of our spiritual welfare. There are thousands of the Americans,
who I believe have not heard six sermons for the space of above thirty
years—and in fact they have more knowledge than the teachers who are
sent to them, and too much religion to communicate with them. And even
the blinder sort of the laity not finding truth sufficiently supported
by their purblind guides, grow proud of their own imaginary knowledge,
and some thereby proudly commence teachers,—by which means they rend the
church asunder; and, instead of peace and love, they plant envy,
contempt, hatred, revilings, and produce the works of the flesh, instead
of those of the spirit.
Not so act the uncivilized Indians. Their supposed holy orders are
obtained from a close attention to, and approved knowledge of their
sacred mysteries. No temptations can corrupt their virtue on that head:
neither will they convey their divine secrets to the known impure. This
conduct is worthy to be copied, by all who pretend to any religion at
all, and especially by those who are honoured with the pontifical
dignity, and assume the name of “Right reverend, and Most reverend
Fathers in God.” I have been importunately requested at different times,
by several eminent gentlemen, {364} who wish well to both church and
state, to represent the evils resulting from such missionaries, in hope
of redress; and on this occasion, I thought it criminal to refuse their
virtuous request. The representation is true, and the writer is
persuaded he cannot give the least offence by it, to any but the guilty.
My situation does not allow me, to fix the bounds our legislators claim
on the Missisippi: but I have good reason to believe that the fine court
title which France, in her late dying will, has transferred to
Great-Britain, mostly consists in ideal possessions she never enjoyed.
The monopolies already made, are equally unjust and pernicious. They,
who take up valuable lands, especially on such a barrier, ought to
settle them in a reasonable time, or be prevented from keeping out
industrious inhabitants, and causing the place to continue in a
defenceless condition. Before we can settle the Missisippi, with any
reasonable view of success, the government must build sufficient places
of strength, both to make the colony appear respectable in the eyes of
the Indians, and guard it from the evil eye of the Spaniards, who are
watching at New Orleans, and over the river, to impede our interests, in
that valuable but dangerous quarter. It might become an impenetrable
barrier, if proper encouragement was given to the laborious and hardy
inhabitants of our northern settlements, on the various branches of the
Ohio, and in the back settlements of North Carolina, who are now almost
useless to the community. As Great-Britain would be the chief gainer by
their removal, she ought to encourage them to remove.[214] Great numbers
of them were preparing to come down,[215] even in the years 1768 and
1769; but finding too many inconveniences and hazards in their way, they
declined the attempt. As it is natural for every colony to endeavour to
increase its number of industrious inhabitants, it cannot be expected,
even if the mother country behaved more prudently than of late, that any
of them would exert themselves much on such an occasion, as to raise
dangerous rivals in their own staple commodity.—However rice, indigo,
silk, hemp, wine, and many other valuable productions are suitable to so
fine a soil and climate; besides great quantities of beef, pork, and
every kind of useful timber for Jamaica, which is contiguous to the
mouth of the Missisippi. So great an acquisition of raw materials would
soon prove very beneficial to Great-Britain, as well as a great
safe-guard to the best part of our other colonies, and a very needful
check to Spanish insolence. {365} Such a material undertaking, as the
colonizing of so important a barrier, deserves public encouragement to
put it in a fair way of doing well; and the continuance of a supply, and
protection through its infant state, to secure it from any artful
attempts the Spaniards and their French subjects might plot to disturb
its tranquility, and thereby check its growth.
There might be introduced even among the Indian nations I have
described, a spirit of industry, in cultivating such productions as
would agree with their land and climates; especially, if the
super-intendency of our Indian affairs, westward, was conferred on the
sensible, public-spirited, and judicious Mr. George Galphin, merchant,
or Lachlan M’Gilwray, Esq; of equal merit. Every Indian trader knows
from long experience, that both these gentlemen have a greater influence
over the dangerous Muskohge, than any others besides. And the security
of Georgia requires one or other of them speedily to superintend our
Indian affairs. It was, chiefly, the skilful management of these worthy
patriots, which prevented the Muskohge from joining the Cheerake,
according to treaty, against us in the year 1760 and 1761,—to their
great expence and hazard of life, as they allowed those savages to eat,
drink, and sleep at Silver-Bluff, below New Windsor garrison, and at
Augusta fifteen miles apart, and about 150 miles from Savanah. I write
from my own knowledge, for I was then on the spot, with a captain’s
commission from South Carolina. A Muskohge war against us, could easily
be prevented by either of those gentlemen, if chosen, and the
destructive plan of general licences was repealed. It is to be hoped,
that they who are invested with the power, will retract their former
error, and have the pleasure of knowing the good effect it would
produce, by giving an opportunity of civilizing and reforming the
savages; which can never be effected by the former usual means. Admit
into Indian countries, a sufficient number of discreet orderly
traders.—This needful regulation will likewise benefit trade, which is
almost ruined; and our valuable weak frontier colonies would thereby
increase in numbers, proportionable to their security.
Formerly, each trader[216] had a licence for two towns, or villages; but
according to the present unwise plan, two, and even three Arab-like
pedlars sculk about in one of those villages. Several of them also
frequently emigrate into the woods with spirituous liquors, and cheating
trifles, {366} after the Indian hunting camps, in the winter season, to
the great injury of a regular trader, who supplies them with all the
conveniences of hunting: for, as they will sell even their wearing shirt
for inebriating liquors, they must be supplied anew in the fall of the
year, by the trader. At my first setting out among them, a number of
traders who lived contiguous to each other, joined through our various
nations in different companies, and were generally men of worth: of
course, they would have a living price for their goods, which they
carried on horseback to the remote Indian countries, at very great
expences. These set an honest copy for the imitation of the natives, for
as they had much at stake, their own interest and that of the government
co-incided. As the trade was in this wise manner kept up to its just
standard, the savages were industrious and frugal. But, lowering it,
through a mistaken notion of regaining their affections, we made
ourselves too cheap to them, and they despised us for it. The trade
ought to be raised to a reasonable fixed price, the first convenient
opportunity—thus we shall keep them employed, and ourselves secure.
Should we lower the trade, even fifty per cent below the prime cost,
they would become only the more discontented, by thinking we had cheated
them all the years past. A mean submissive temper can never manage our
Indian affairs. The qualities of a kind friend, sensible speaker, and
active brisk warrior, must constitute the character of a superintendant.
Great care ought to be taken, not to give the Indians offence, or a mean
opinion of the people or government our Indian superintendants
represent.
At a general congress in Mobille, Anno 1765, where were present his
Excellency the learned, cheerful, patriotic Governor of West-Florida,
George Johnstone Esquire, the present superintendant of Indian affairs,
and the head-men and warriors of the Choktah, and warlike Chikkasah
nations, a tariff of trade was settled on every material article, in the
most public and solemn manner,[217] mostly according to the Muskohge
standard, and to the great satisfaction of the Indians. The price for
which the corrupt and shamefully-indulged vagrant pedlars forced the
traders at the risque of their lives, to traffic with them, being then
about 70 per cent, below the French tariff in Indian trade up the
Missisippi. Each of these traders took out Indian trading licences, to
which the fixed prices of various goods were annext, thereby impowering
them to traffic during the space of a twelvemonth; and they gave penal
bonds of security to the {367} secretary, for the just observance of
their instructions. This proved however, through a bare-faced
partiality, only a shameful farce on œconomy and good order. His
Excellency, and the honourable Col. W——n,[218] were so strongly
convinced of my former integrity, that in order to testify publicly
their approbation of my good conduct, they did me the honour to pass
security in the secretary’s office, for my dealing with the Indians in
strict conformity to the laws of trade. As I lost in the space of a
year, to the amount of two and twenty hundred dollars-worth of goods at
prime cost, by the disorderly conduct of other licensed traders, and had
just reason to hope for redress on exhibiting a well-supported
complaint; I drew up on my own account, and at the importunate request
of the Chikkasah head-men, a memorial, setting forth their having
notoriously violated every essential part of their instructions,
enticing the Indians also to get drunk, and then taught them to
blaspheme their maker. This I proved, and that some of the lawless
traders had furnished the Indians, in the space of a few months, with so
great a quantity of prohibited liquors, as either did, or might enable
some of them to decoy the savages to squander away thousands of drest
deer-skins,—but they escaped with impunity.
A few months before this period, some family disputes rose very high
between the Chikkasah, on the following account. The Indians being
ambitious, free, and jealous of their liberties, as well as independent
of each other, where mutual consent is not obtained; one half of the
nation were exceedingly displeased with the other, because, by the
reiterated persuasions of a certain deputy, the latter had disposed of a
tract of land, twelve miles toward the south, on the upper trading
Choktah, or Mobille path, to one of those disorderly traders. By the
application of the deputy, the head-men of both parties met him
according to appointment, and partook of a plentiful barbicued feast,
with plenty of spirituous liquors. As such conduct was against his
majesty’s proclamation, and appeared to me to be calculated, either for
a clandestine trade, or family-job, I rejected the invitation, lest
otherwise I might be charged as a party. When they became intoxicated
with liquor, a war-leader of the dissenting party, struck his tomohawk
at the head of a noted chieftain, upbraiding him for bringing a strange
fire into their land; but happily the blow missed its aim. Their
disputes consequently rose higher every day; and the {368} dissidents
informed the Muskohge of their then situation, and future intentions.
_Yah-Yah-Tustanage_, “the Great Mortar,” a bitter enemy of the English,
soon sent up a company of his war-relations, to persuade them to guard
in time, against our dangerous encroachments, by killing all the
English, that planted their lands without the general consent of the
owners, and to take their black people as a good prize; because they
were building and planting for the reception of an English garrison,
which was to come from the Missisippi, and be the first means of
enslaving them. While their transport of madness lasted, it was
fruitless to reason with them; but at every convenient opportunity, I
used such plain, friendly, and persuasive arguments to sooth them, as I
imagined might regain their lost affections, and procrastinate the
dangerous impending blow. They consented at last to forbear every kind
of resentment against our late suspicious conduct, on condition of my
writing to those who could redress them, and our people speedily
withdrawing from their land the intruding planters. This I did; and at
Mobile I delivered my remonstrance to the superintendant. Upon my urging
the absolute necessity of pacifying our old steady friends, by removing
the ungenerous cause of their jealousy, he assured me, that he would
gladly comply with so just a request, especially, as it exactly
coincided with his majesty’s proclamation, then fixed on the fort-gate.
In the space of about ten days after, by order of Governor Johnstone,
all the Chikkasah and Choktah traders were cited to appear before him
and the superintendant, in order to know the merit of, and answer to, my
numerous complaints. When they appeared, and every thing was properly
adjusted, his secretary read paragraph by paragraph, and his excellency,
very minutely examined all the reputable traders, who confirmed to his
full satisfaction, the truth of every thing in my complaint. But tho’
the memorial set forth, among other instances, that “but a few minutes
after I had once a troublesome dispute with the abovementioned Chikkasah
leader, on account of the traders prohibited and poisoning liquors, he
went home distracted, and finding none but his aged mother, he would
have killed her with his tomohawk, only for her earnest entreaties, and
then sudden escape,”—yet none of those disorderly people were either
suspended from trading with the Indians, or forfeited the penalty of
their bonds—neither was the Indians request complied with. Though, I
believe, the termination was to the no small mortification of his
excellency. {369}
Anno 1767, the super-intendant’s deputy convened all the Chikkasah
traders and head-men of the nation, declaring that he had received
positive orders from the superior over Indian affairs, to bring the
trade to the late standard of the Muskohge. The head-men replied, that
if their traders, or the superintendant acted unwisely, they were not
bound to follow the copy. We urged, that he had already exceedingly
lowered the Missisippi-Indian trade, and had, at the Mobille congress,
fixed a Tariff, a copy of which every one of us had, as well as a
regular licence, having given approved security for our peaceable
conduct, and fair dealing with the Indians, for the space of a year: and
that besides the wrong policy of such an edict, as he now proposed, if
we proved rogues to our own interest with them, we ought to be arrested
as fools below. We concluded, by observing the great disadvantage of
navigation that Mobille lay under, to which Charles-town was no way
exposed in imports and exports; and that if the aforesaid Indian trade
should, by any act be reduced below its present standard, it must
necessarily cease of itself, unless as free-men, we said No to the
command. Which the traders did, and resolved to support it.
The deputies[219] treatment of Capt. J. C—l—b—rt,[220] who has lived
among the Chikkasah from his childhood, and speaks their language even
with more propriety than the English, deserves to be recorded—but I hope
the gentleman will soon do it himself, to shew the higher powers the
consequences of appointing improper, mercenary, and haughty persons to
such offices. Sir William Johnson acted very differently—he was kind,
intelligent, intrepid—he knew when to frown and when to smile on the
Indian nations he was connected with, and blended the serpent with the
dove. He chose his deputies or representatives in the Indian countries,
according to their qualifications in the Indian life; and not unskilful
men, and mere strangers, like some who have been obtruded into our
southern nations. His prudent and brave deputy Col. Craghan,[221] did
our chain of colonies more real service in a few months, than all our
late southern commissioners of Indian affairs could possibly have done
in ages. In the dangerous time of our settling the Illinois-garrison,
500 leagues up the Missisippi, he went from Johnson’s Hall, in the lower
part of the Mohawk country, and from thence coursed through the various
nations of Indians, to the head-branches of Canada; and in like manner,
down those of the Missisippi, to the garrison, amidst the greatest
dangers; pleasing and reconciling the savages as he proceeded. {370} The
Chikkasah first informed me of his journey and success—and I had it some
time after, circumstantially confirmed to me by Sir W. Johnson. When I
spoke to the Col. himself on his fatigues and perils, he modestly
replied “that while he was performing the needful duties of his office,
and acting the part of a beloved man with the swan’s wing, white pipe,
and white beads, for the general good of his country, and of its red
neighbours, he had no leisure to think of any personal dangers that
might befall a well-meaning peacemaker.” Having reconciled the Kuskuske
Indians,[222] whom the French garrison had decoyed by their false
painting of us, to remove with them over the Missisippi,—he from thence
proceeded down by water to New Orleans; afterwards, along the
gulph-stream of Mexico, to the place from whence he set off, amounting
nearly to 5000 miles, in the oblique course he was forced to take.