To animate a kinder feeling between the white people and the Indians,
established by a truer knowledge of our civil and domestic life, and of
our capabilities for future elevation, is the motive for which this work
is founded.
The present Tuscarora Indians, the once powerful and gifted nation, after
their expulsion from the South, came North, and were initiated in the
confederacy of the Iroquois, and who formerly held under their
jurisdiction the largest portion of the Eastern States, now dwell within
your bounds, as dependent nations, subject to the guardianship and
supervision of a people who displaced their forefathers. Our numbers, the
circumstances of our past history and present condition, and more
especially the relation in which we stand to the people of the State,
suggest many important questions concerning our future destiny.
Being born to an inauspicious fate, which makes us the _inheritors of
many wrongs_, we have been unable, of ourselves, to escape from the
complicated difficulties which accelerate our decline. To make worse
these adverse influences, the public estimation of the Indian, resting,
as it does, upon the imperfect knowledge of their character, and infused,
as it ever has been, with the prejudice, is universally unjust.
The time has come in which it is no more than right to cast away all
ancient antipathies, all inherited opinions, and to take a nearer view of
our social life, condition and wants, and to learn anew your duty
concerning the Indians. Nevertheless, the embarrassments that have
obstructed our progress, in the obscurity which we have lived, and the
prevailing indifference to our welfare, we have gradually overcame many
of the evils inherent in our social system, and raised ourselves to a
degree of prosperity. Our present condition, if considered in connection
with the ordeal through which we have passed, shows that there is the
presence of an element in our character which must eventually lead to
important results.
As I do not profess that this work is based upon authorities, a question
might arise in the breast of some reader, where these materials were
derived, or what reliance is to be placed upon its contents. The
credibility of a witness is known to depend chiefly upon his means of
knowledge. For this reason, I deem it important to state, that I was born
and brought up by Tuscarora Indian parents on their Reservation in the
Town of Lewiston, N.Y. From my childhood up was naturally inquisitive and
delighted in thrilling stories, which led me to frequent the old people
of my childhood's days, and solicited them to relate the old Legends and
their Traditions, which they always delighted to do. I have sat by their
fireside and heard them, and thus they were instilled upon my young mind.
I also owe much of my information to our Chief, JOHN MT. PLEASANT. I have
also read much of Indian history, and compared them with our LEGENDS and
TRADITIONS.