MACKINAW.--INDIANS.--INDIAN WOMEN.--EVERETT'S RECEPTION OF
CHIEFS.--UNFITNESS OF INDIAN MISSIONARIES.--OUR DUTIES TOWARD THIS
RACE.
Late at night we reached this island of Mackinaw, so famous for its
beauty, and to which I proposed a visit of some length. It was the
last week in August, at which, time a large representation from the
Chippewa and Ottawa tribes are here to receive their annual payments
from the American government. As their habits make travelling easy and
inexpensive to them, neither being obliged to wait for steamboats, or
write to see whether hotels are full, they come hither by thousands,
and those thousands in families, secure of accommodation on the beach,
and food from the lake, to make a long holiday out of the occasion.
There were near two thousand encamped on the island already, and more
arriving every day.
As our boat came in, the captain had some rockets let off. This
greatly excited the Indians, and their yells and wild cries resounded
along the shore. Except for the momentary flash of the rockets, it
was perfectly dark, and my sensations as I walked with a stranger to a
strange hotel, through the midst of these shrieking savages, and heard
the pants and snorts of the departing steamer, which carried, away
all my companions, were somewhat of the dismal sort; though it was
pleasant, too, in the way that everything strange is; everything that
breaks in upon the routine that so easily incrusts us.
I had reason to expect a room to myself at the hotel, but found
none, and was obliged to take up my rest in the common parlor and
eating-room, a circumstance which insured my being an early riser.
With the first rosy streak, I was out among my Indian neighbors, whose
lodges honeycombed the beautiful beach, that curved away in long, fair
outline on either side the house. They were already on the alert, the
children creeping out from beneath the blanket door of the lodge, the
women pounding corn in their rude mortars, the young men playing on
their pipes. I had been much amused, when the strain proper to the
Winnebago courting flute was played to me on another instrument, at
any one fancying it a melody; but now, when I heard the notes in
their true tone and time, I thought it not unworthy comparison, in
its graceful sequence, and the light flourish at the close, with the
sweetest bird-song; and this, like the bird-song, is only practised
to allure a mate. The Indian, become a citizen and a husband, no more
thinks of playing the flute, than one of the "settled-down" members of
our society would, of choosing the "purple light of love" as dye-stuff
for a surtout.
Mackinaw has been fully described by able pens, and I can only add my
tribute to the exceeding beauty of the spot and its position. It is
charming to be on an island so small that you can sail round it in an
afternoon, yet large enough to admit of long, secluded walks through
its gentle groves. You can go round it in your boat; or, on foot, you
can tread its narrow beach, resting, at times, beneath the lofty walls
of stone, richly wooded, which rise from it in various architectural
forms. In this stone, caves are continually forming, from the action
of the atmosphere; one of these is quite deep, and a rocky fragment
left at its mouth, wreathed with little creeping plants, looks, as you
sit within, like a ruined pillar.
The arched rock surprised me, much as I had heard of it, from, the
perfection of the arch. It is perfect, whether you look up through it
from the lake, or down through it to the transparent waters. We both
ascended and descended--no very easy matter--the steep and crumbling
path, and rested at the summit, beneath the trees, and at the foot,
upon the cool, mossy stones beside the lapsing wave. Nature has
carefully decorated all this architecture with shrubs that take root
within the crevices, and small creeping vines. These natural ruins may
vie for beautiful effect with the remains of European grandeur, and
have, beside, a charm as of a playful mood in Nature.
The sugar-loaf rock is a fragment in the same kind as the pine rock
we saw in Illinois. It has the same air of a helmet, as seen from an
eminence at the side, which you descend by a long and steep path. The
rock itself may be ascended by the bold and agile: half-way up is a
niche, to which those who are neither can climb by a ladder. A very
handsome young officer and lady who were with us did so, and then,
facing round, stood there side by side, looking in the niche, if
not like saints or angels wrought by pious hands in stone, as
romantically, if not as holily, worthy the gazer's eye.
The woods which adorn the central ridge of the island are very full
in foliage, and, in August, showed the tender green and pliant leaf
of June elsewhere. They are rich in beautiful mosses and the wild
raspberry.
From Fort Holmes, the old fort, we had the most commanding view of the
lake and straits, opposite shores, and fair islets. Mackinaw itself is
best seen from the water. Its peculiar shape is supposed to have been
the origin of its name, Michilimackinac, which means the Great Turtle.
One person whom I saw wished to establish another etymology, which he
fancied to be more refined; but, I doubt not, this is the true one,
both because the shape might suggest such a name, and the existence
of an island of such form in this commanding position would seem
a significant fact to the Indians. For Henry gives the details of
peculiar worship paid to the Great Turtle, and the oracles received
from this extraordinary Apollo of the Indian Delphos.
It is crowned, most picturesquely, by the white fort, with its gay
flag. From this, on one side, stretches the town. How pleasing a
sight, after the raw, crude, staring assemblage of houses everywhere
else to be met in this country, is an old French town, mellow in
its coloring, and with the harmonious effect of a slow growth, which
assimilates, naturally, with objects round it! The people in its
streets, Indian, French, half-breeds, and others, walked with a
leisure step, as of those who live a life of taste and inclination,
rather than of the hard press of business, as in American towns
elsewhere.
On the other side, along the fair, curving beach, below the white
houses scattered on the declivity, clustered the Indian lodges, with
their amber-brown matting, so soft and bright of hue, in the late
afternoon sun. The first afternoon I was there, looking down from
a near height, I felt that I never wished to see a more fascinating
picture. It was an hour of the deepest serenity; bright blue and gold,
with rich shadows. Every moment the sunlight fell more mellow.
The Indians were grouped and scattered among the lodges; the women
preparing food, in the kettle or frying-pan, over the many small
fires; the children, half naked, wild as little goblins, were playing
both in and out of the water. Here and there lounged a young girl,
with a baby at her back, whose bright eyes glanced, as if born into a
world of courage and of joy, instead of ignominious servitude and slow
decay. Some girls were cutting wood, a little way from me, talking and
laughing, in the low musical tone, so charming in the Indian women.
Many bark canoes were upturned upon the beach, and, by that light, of
almost the same amber as the lodges; others coming in, their square
sails set, and with almost arrowy speed, though heavily laden with
dusky forms, and all the apparatus of their household. Here and there
a sail-boat glided by, with a different but scarce less pleasing
motion.
It was a scene of ideal loveliness, and these wild forms adorned it,
as looking so at home in it. All seemed happy, and they were happy
that day, for they had no fire-water to madden them, as it was Sunday,
and the shops were shut.
From my window, at the boarding-house, my eye was constantly attracted
by these picturesque groups. I was never tired of seeing the canoes
come in, and the new arrivals set up their temporary dwellings. The
women ran to set up the tent-poles, and spread the mats on the ground.
The men brought the chests, kettles, &c.; the mats were then laid on
the outside, the cedar-boughs strewed on the ground, the blanket hung
up for a door, and all was completed in less than twenty minutes. Then
they began to prepare the night meal, and to learn of their neighbors
the news of the day.
The habit of preparing food out of doors gave all the gypsy charm and
variety to their conduct. Continually I wanted Sir Walter Scott to
have been there. If such romantic sketches were suggested to him, by
the sight of a few gypsies, not a group near one of these fires but
would have furnished him material for a separate canvas. I was so
taken up with the spirit of the scene, that I could not follow out
the stories suggested by these weather-beaten, sullen, but eloquent
figures.
They talked a great deal, and with much, variety of gesture, so that I
often had a good guess at the meaning of their discourse. I saw
that, whatever the Indian may be among the whites, he is anything but
taciturn with his own people; and he often would declaim, or narrate
at length. Indeed, it is obvious, if only from the fables taken from
their stores by Mr. Schoolcraft, that these tribes possess great power
that way.
I liked very much, to walk or sit among them. With, the women I held
much communication by signs. They are almost invariably coarse and
ugly, with the exception of their eyes, with a peculiarly awkward
gait, and forms bent by burdens. This gait, so different from the
steady and noble step of the men, marks the inferior position
they occupy. I had heard much eloquent contradiction of this. Mrs.
Schoolcraft had maintained to a friend, that they were in fact as
nearly on a par with their husbands as the white woman with hers.
"Although," said she, "on account of inevitable causes, the Indian
woman is subjected to many hardships of a peculiar nature, yet her
position, compared with that of the man, is higher and freer than that
of the white woman. Why will people look only on one side? They either
exalt the red man into a demigod, or degrade him into a beast. They
say that he compels his wife to do all the drudgery, while he does
nothing but hunt and amuse himself; forgetting that upon his activity
and power of endurance as a hunter depends the support of his
family; that this is labor of the most fatiguing kind, and that it is
absolutely necessary that he should keep his frame unbent by burdens
and unworn by toil, that he may be able to obtain the means of
subsistence. I have witnessed scenes of conjugal and parental love
in the Indian's wigwam, from, which I have often, often thought the
educated white man, proud of his superior civilization, might learn a
useful lesson. When he returns from hunting, worn out with, fatigue,
having tasted nothing since dawn, his wife, if she is a good wife,
will take off his moccasons and replace them with dry ones, and will
prepare his game for their repast, while his children will climb upon
him, and he will caress them, with all the tenderness of a woman; and
in the evening the Indian wigwam is the scene of the purest domestic
pleasures. The father will relate, for the amusement of the wife and
for the instruction of the children, all the events of the day's hunt,
while they will treasure up every word that falls, and thus learn
the theory of the art whose practice is to be the occupation of their
lives."
Mrs. Grant speaks thus of the position of woman amid the Mohawk
Indians:--
"Lady Mary Montague says, that the court of Vienna was the paradise of
old women, and that there is no other place in the world where a woman
past fifty excites the least interest. Had her travels extended to
the interior of North America, she would have seen another instance of
this inversion of the common mode of thinking. Here a woman never was
of consequence, till sire had a son old enough to fight the battles of
his country. From, that date she held a superior rank in society; was
allowed to live at ease, and even called to consultations on national
affairs. In savage and warlike countries, the reign of beauty is very
short, and its influence comparatively limited. The girls in childhood
had a very pleasing appearance; but excepting their fine hair,
eyes, and teeth, every external grace was soon banished by perpetual
drudgery, carrying burdens too heavy to be borne, and other slavish
employments, considered beneath the dignity of the men. These walked
before, erect and graceful, decked with ornaments which set off to
advantage the symmetry of their well-formed persons, while the poor
women followed, meanly attired, bent under the weight of the children
and the utensils, which they carried everywhere with, them, and
disfigured and degraded by ceaseless toils. They were very early
married, for a Mohawk had no other servant but his wife; and whenever
he commenced hunter, it was requisite he should have some one to carry
his load, cook his kettle, make his moccasons, and, above all, produce
the young warriors who were to succeed him in the honors of the chase
and of the tomahawk. Wherever man is a mere hunter, woman is a mere
slave. It is domestic intercourse that softens man, and elevates
woman; and of that there can be but little, where the employments
and amusements are not in common. The ancient Caledonians honored the
fair; but then it is to be observed, they were fair huntresses,
and moved in the light of their beauty to the hill of roes; and the
culinary toils were entirely left to the rougher sex. When the young
warrior made his appearance, it softened the cares of his mother, who
well knew that, when he grew up, every deficiency in tenderness to his
wife would be made up in superabundant duty and affection to her. If
it were possible to carry filial veneration to excess, it was done
here; for all other charities were absorbed in it. I wonder this
system of depressing the sex in their early years, to exalt them,
when all their juvenile attractions are flown, and when mind alone
can distinguish them, has not occurred to our modern reformers.
The Mohawks took good care not to admit their women to share their
prerogatives, till they approved themselves good wives and mothers."
The observations of women upon the position of woman are always more
valuable than those of men; but, of these two, Mrs. Grant's seem
much, nearer the truth than Mrs. Schoolcraft's, because, though her
opportunities for observation did not bring her so close, she looked
more at both sides to find the truth.
Carver, in his travels among the Winnebagoes, describes two queens,
one nominally so, like Queen Victoria; the other invested with a
genuine royalty, springing from her own conduct.
In the great town of the Winnebagoes, he found a queen presiding over
the tribe, instead of a sachem. He adds, that, in some tribes, the
descent is given to the female line in preference to the male, that
is, a sister's son will succeed to the authority, rather than a
brother's son. The position of this Winnebago queen reminded me
forcibly of Queen Victoria's.
"She sat in the council, but only asked a few questions, or gave some
trifling directions in matters relative to the state, for women are
never allowed to sit in their councils, except they happen to be
invested with the supreme authority, and then it is not customary for
them to make any formal speeches, as the chiefs do. She was a very
ancient woman, small in stature, and not much distinguished by
her dress from several young women that attended her. These, her
attendants, seemed greatly pleased whenever I showed any tokens
of respect to their queen, especially when I saluted her, which I
frequently did to acquire her favor."
The other was a woman, who, being taken captive, found means to kill
her captor, and make her escape; and the tribe were so struck with
admiration at the courage and calmness she displayed on the occasion,
as to make her chieftainess in her own light.
Notwithstanding the homage paid to women, and the consequence allowed
them in some cases, it is impossible to look upon the Indian women
without feeling that they _do_ occupy a lower place than women among
the nations of European civilization. The habits of drudgery expressed
in their form and gesture, the soft and wild but melancholy expression
of their eye, reminded me of the tribe mentioned by Mackenzie, where
the women destroy their female children, whenever they have a good
opportunity; and of the eloquent reproaches addressed by the Paraguay
woman to her mother, that she had not, in the same way, saved her from
the anguish and weariness of her lot.
More weariness than anguish, no doubt, falls to the lot of most of
these women. They inherit submission, and the minds of the generality
accommodate themselves more or less to any posture. Perhaps they
suffer less than their white sisters, who have more aspiration and
refinement, with little power of self-sustenance. But their place is
certainly lower, and their share of the human inheritance less.
Their decorum and delicacy are striking, and show that, when these are
native to the mind, no habits of life make any difference. Their whole
gesture is timid, yet self-possessed. They used to crowd round me, to
inspect little things I had to show them, but never press near; on the
contrary, would reprove and keep off the children. Anything they took
from my hand was held with care, then shut or folded, and returned
with an air of lady-like precision. They would not stare, however
curious they might be, but cast sidelong glances.
A locket that I wore was an object of untiring interest; they seemed
to regard it as a talisman. My little sun-shade was still more
fascinating to them; apparently they had never before seen one. For an
umbrella they entertained profound regard, probably looking upon it as
the most luxurious superfluity a person can possess, and therefore a
badge of great wealth. I used to see an old squaw, whose sullied
skin and coarse, tanned locks told that she had braved sun and storm,
without a doubt or care, for sixty years at least, sitting gravely at
the door of her lodge, with an old green umbrella over her head, happy
for hours together in the dignified shade. For her happiness pomp
came not, as it so often does, too late; she received it with grateful
enjoyment.
One day, as I was seated on one of the canoes, a woman came and sat
beside me, with her baby in its cradle set up at her feet. She asked
me by a gesture to let her take my sun-shade, and then to show her how
to open it. Then she put it into her baby's hand, and held it over
its head, looking at me the while with a sweet, mischievous laugh, as
much, as to say, "You carry a thing that is only fit for a baby." Her
pantomime was very pretty. She, like the other women, had a glance,
and shy, sweet expression in the eye; the men have a steady gaze.
That noblest and loveliest of modern Preux, Lord Edward Fitzgerald,
who came through Buffalo to Detroit and Mackinaw, with Brant, and was
adopted into the Bear tribe by the name of Eghnidal, was struck in
the same way by the delicacy of manners in women. He says:
"Notwithstanding the life they lead, which would make most women rough
and masculine, they are as soft, meek, and modest as the best brought
up girls in England. Somewhat coquettish too! Imagine the manners of
Mimi in a poor _squaw_, that has been carrying packs in the woods all
her life."
McKenney mentions that the young wife, during the short bloom of her
beauty, is an object of homage and tenderness to her husband. One
Indian woman, the Flying Pigeon, a beautiful and excellent person, of
whom he gives some particulars, is an instance of the power uncommon
characters will always exert of breaking down the barriers custom has
erected round them. She captivated by her charms, and inspired her
husband and son with, reverence for her character. The simple praise
with which the husband indicates the religion, the judgment, and the
generosity he saw in her, are as satisfying as Count Zinzendorf's more
labored eulogium on his "noble consort." The conduct of her son,
when, many years after her death, he saw her picture at Washington, is
unspeakably affecting. Catlin gives anecdotes of the grief of a
chief for the loss of a daughter, and the princely gifts he offers
in exchange for her portrait, worthy not merely of European, but of
Troubadour sentiment. It is also evident that, as Mrs. Schoolcraft
says, the women have great power at home. It can never be otherwise,
men being dependent upon them for the comfort of their lives. Just
so among ourselves, wives who are neither esteemed nor loved by their
husbands have great power over their conduct by the friction of
every day, and over the formation of their opinions by the daily
opportunities so close a relation affords of perverting testimony
and instilling doubts. But these sentiments should not come in brief
flashes, but burn as a steady flame; then there would be more women
worthy to inspire them. This power is good for nothing, unless the
woman be wise to use it aright. Has the Indian, has the white woman,
as noble a feeling of life and its uses, as religious a self-respect,
as worthy a field of thought and action, as man? If not, the white
woman, the Indian woman, occupies a position inferior to that of man.
It is not so much a question of power, as of privilege.
The men of these subjugated tribes, now accustomed to drunkenness and
every way degraded, bear but a faint impress of the lost grandeur of
the race. They are no longer strong, tall, or finely proportioned.
Yet, as you see them stealing along a height, or striding boldly
forward, they remind you of what _was_ majestic in the red man.
On the shores of Lake Superior, it is said, if you visit them at
home, you may still see a remnant of the noble blood. The Pillagers
(Pilleurs), a band celebrated by the old travellers, are still
existent there.
"Still some, 'the eagles of their tribe,' may rush."
I have spoken of the hatred felt by the white man for the Indian: with
white women it seems to amount to disgust, to loathing. How I could
endure the dirt, the peculiar smell, of the Indians, and their
dwellings, was a great marvel in the eyes of my lady acquaintance;
indeed, I wonder why they did not quite give me up, as they certainly
looked on me with great distaste for it. "Get you gone, you Indian
dog," was the felt, if not the breathed, expression towards the
hapless owners of the soil;--all their claims, all their sorrows quite
forgot, in abhorrence of their dirt, their tawny skins, and the vices
the whites have taught them.
A person who had seen them during great part of a life expressed his
prejudices to me with such violence, that I was no longer surprised
that the Indian children threw sticks at him, as he passed. A lady
said: "Do what you will for them, they will be ungrateful. The savage
cannot be washed out of them. Bring up an Indian child, and see if you
can attach it to you." The next moment, she expressed, in the presence
of one of those children whom she was bringing up, loathing at the
odor left by one of her people, and one of the most respected, as
he passed through the room. When the child is grown, she will be
considered basely ungrateful not to love the lady, as she certainly
will not; and this will be cited as an instance of the impossibility
of attaching the Indian.
Whether the Indian could, by any efforts of love and intelligence
from, the white man, have been civilized and made a valuable
ingredient in the new state, I will not say; but this we are sure
of,--the French Catholics, at least, did not harm them, nor disturb
their minds merely to corrupt them. The French, they loved. But the
stern Presbyterian, with his dogmas and his task-work, the city circle
and the college, with their niggard concessions and unfeeling stare,
have never tried the experiment. It has not been tried. Our people and
our government have sinned alike against the first-born of the
soil, and if they are the fated agents of a new era, they have done
nothing,--have invoked no god to keep them sinless while they do the
hest of fate.
Worst of all is it, when they invoke the holy power only to mask their
iniquity; when the felon trader, who, all the week, has been besotting
and degrading the Indian with rum mixed with red pepper, and damaged
tobacco, kneels with him on Sunday before a common altar, to tell
the rosary which recalls the thought of Him crucified for love of
suffering men, and to listen to sermons in praise of "purity"!!
"My savage friends," cries the old, fat priest, "you must, above all
things, aim at _purity_."
Oh! my heart swelled when I saw them in a Christian church. Better
their own dog-feasts and bloody rites than such mockery of that other
faith.
"The dog," said an Indian, "was once a spirit; he has fallen for his
sin, and was given by the Great Spirit, in this shape, to man, as his
most intelligent companion. Therefore we sacrifice it in highest honor
to our friends in this world,--to our protecting geniuses in another."
There was religion in that thought. The white man sacrifices his own
brother, and to Mammon, yet he turns in loathing from, the dog-feast.
"You say," said the Indian of the South to the missionary, "that
Christianity is pleasing to God. How can that be?--Those men at
Savannah are Christians."
Yes! slave-drivers and Indian traders are called Christians, and the
Indian is to be deemed less like the Son of Mary than they! Wonderful
is the deceit of man's heart!
I have not, on seeing something of them in their own haunts, found
reason to change the sentiments expressed in the following lines, when
a deputation of the Sacs and Foxes visited Boston in 1837, and were,
by one person at least, received in a dignified and courteous manner.
GOVERNOR EVERETT RECEIVING THE INDIAN CHIEFS,
NOVEMBER, 1837.
Who says that Poesy is on the wane,
And that the Muses tune their lyres in vain?
'Mid all the treasures of romantic story,
When thought was fresh and fancy in her glory,
Has ever Art found out a richer theme,
More dark a shadow, or more soft a gleam,
Than fall upon the scene, sketched carelessly,
In the newspaper column of to-day?
American romance is somewhat stale.
Talk of the hatchet, and the faces pale,
Wampum and calumets and forests dreary,
Once so attractive, now begins to weary.
Uncas and Magawisca please us still,
Unreal, yet idealized with skill;
But every poetaster, scribbling witling,
From the majestic oak his stylus whittling,
Has helped to tire us, and to make us fear
The monotone in which so much we hear
Of "stoics of the wood," and "men without a tear."
Yet Nature, ever buoyant, ever young,
If let alone, will sing as erst she sung;
The course of circumstance gives back again
The Picturesque, erewhile pursued in vain;
Shows us the fount of Romance is not wasted,--
The lights and shades of contrast not exhausted.
Shorn of his strength, the Samson now must sue
For fragments from the feast his fathers gave;
The Indian dare not claim what is his due,
But as a boon his heritage must crave;
His stately form shall soon be seen no more
Through all his father's land, the Atlantic shore;
Beneath the sun, to _us_ so kind, _they_ melt,
More heavily each day our rule is felt.
The tale is old,--we do as mortals must:
Might makes right here, but God and Time are just.
Though, near the drama hastens to its close,
On this last scene awhile your eyes repose;
The polished Greek and Scythian meet again,
The ancient life is lived by modern men;
The savage through our busy cities walks,
He in his untouched, grandeur silent stalks.
Unmoved by all our gayeties and shows,
Wonder nor shame can touch him as he goes;
He gazes on the marvels we have wrought,
But knows the models from whence all was brought;
In God's first temples he has stood so oft,
And listened to the natural organ-loft,
Has watched the eagle's flight, the muttering thunder heard.
Art cannot move him to a wondering word.
Perhaps he sees that all this luxury
Brings less food to the mind than to the eye;
Perhaps a simple sentiment has brought
More to him than your arts had ever taught.
What are the petty triumphs _Art_ has given,
To eyes familiar with the naked heaven?
All has been seen,--dock, railroad, and canal,
Fort, market, bridge, college, and arsenal,
Asylum, hospital, and cotton-mill,
The theatre, the lighthouse, and the jail.
The Braves each novelty, reflecting, saw,
And now and then growled out the earnest "_Yaw_."
And now the time is come, 'tis understood,
When, having seen and thought so much, a _talk_ may do some good.
A well-dressed mob have thronged the sight to greet,
And motley figures throng the spacious street;
Majestical and calm through all they stride,
Wearing the blanket with a monarch's pride;
The gazers stare and shrug, but can't deny
Their noble forms and blameless symmetry.
If the Great Spirit their _morale_ has slighted,
And wigwam smoke their mental culture blighted,
Yet the _physique_, at least, perfection reaches,
In wilds where neither Combe nor Spurzheim teaches;
Where whispering trees invite man to the chase,
And bounding deer allure him to the race.
Would thou hadst seen it! That dark, stately band,
Whose ancestors enjoyed all this fair land,
Whence they, by force or fraud, were made to flee,
Are brought, the white man's victory to see.
Can kind emotions in their proud hearts glow,
As through these realms, now decked by Art, they go?
The church, the school, the railroad, and the mart,--
Can these a pleasure to their minds impart?
All once was theirs,--earth, ocean, forest, sky,--
How can they joy in what now meets the eye?
Not yet Religion has unlocked the soul,
Nor Each has learned to glory in the Whole!
Must they not think, so strange and sad their lot,
That they by the Great Spirit are forgot?
From the far border to which they are driven,
They might look up in trust to the clear heaven;
But _here_,--what tales doth every object tell
Where Massasoit sleeps, where Philip fell!
We take our turn, and the Philosopher
Sees through the clouds a hand which cannot err
An unimproving race, with all their graces
And all their vices, must resign their places;
And Human Culture rolls its onward flood
Over the broad plains steeped in Indian blood
Such thoughts steady our faith; yet there will rise
Some natural tears into the calmest eyes,--
Which gaze where forest princes haughty go,
Made for a gaping crowd a raree-show.
But _this_ a scene seems where, in courtesy,
The pale face with the forest prince could vie,
For one presided, who, for tact and grace,
In any age had held an honored place,--
In Beauty's own dear day had shone a polished Phidian vase!
Oft have I listened to his accents bland,
And owned the magic of his silvery voice,
In all the graces which life's arts demand,
Delighted by the justness of his choice.
Not his the stream of lavish, fervid thought,--
The rhetoric by passion's magic wrought;
Not his the massive style, the lion port,
Which with the granite class of mind assort;
But, in a range of excellence his own,
With all the charms to soft persuasion known,
Amid our busy people we admire him,--"elegant and lone."
He scarce needs words: so exquisite the skill
Which modulates the tones to do his will,
That the mere sound enough would charm the ear,
And lap in its Elysium all who hear.
The intellectual paleness of his cheek,
The heavy eyelids and slow, tranquil smile,
The well-cut lips from which the graces speak,
Pit him alike to win or to beguile;
Then those words so well chosen, fit, though few,
Their linked sweetness as our thoughts pursue,
We deem them spoken pearls, or radiant diamond dew.
And never yet did I admire the power
Which makes so lustrous every threadbare theme,--
Which won for La Fayette one other hour,
And e'en on July Fourth could cast a gleam,--
As now, when I behold him play the host,
With all the dignity which red men boast,--
With all the courtesy the whites have lost;
Assume the very hue of savage mind,
Yet in rude accents show the thought refined;
Assume the _naïveté_ of infant age,
And in such prattle seem still more a sage;
The golden mean with tact unerring seized,
A courtly critic shone, a simple savage pleased.
The stoic of the woods his skill confessed,
As all the father answered in his breast;
To the sure mark the silver arrow sped,
The "man without a tear" a tear has shed;
And them hadst wept, hadst thou been there, to see
How true one sentiment must ever be,
In court or camp, the city or the wild,--
To rouse the father's heart, you need but name his child.
The speech of Governor Everett on that occasion was admirable; as I
think, the happiest attempt ever made to meet the Indian in his own
way, and catch the tone of his mind. It was said, in the newspapers,
that Keokuck did actually shed tears when addressed as a father. If he
did not with his eyes, he well might in his heart.
Not often have they been addressed with such intelligence and tact.
The few who have not approached them with sordid rapacity, but from
love to them, as men having souls to be redeemed, have most frequently
been persons intellectually too narrow, too straitly bound in sects
or opinions, to throw themselves into the character or position of
the Indians, or impart to them anything they can make available. The
Christ shown them by these missionaries is to them but a new and more
powerful Manito; the signs of the new religion, but the fetiches that
have aided the conquerors.
Here I will copy some remarks made by a discerning observer, on the
methods used by the missionaries, and their natural results.
"Mr. ---- and myself had a very interesting conversation, upon the
subject of the Indians, their character, capabilities, &c. After ten
years' experience among them, he was forced to acknowledge that the
results of the missionary efforts had produced nothing calculated to
encourage. He thought that there was an intrinsic disability in them
to rise above, or go beyond, the sphere in which they had so long
moved. He said, that even those Indians who had been converted, and
who had adopted the habits of civilization, were very little improved
in their real character; they were as selfish, as deceitful, and
as indolent, as those who were still heathens. They had repaid the
kindnesses of the missionaries with the basest ingratitude, killing
their cattle and swine, and robbing them of their harvests, which,
they wantonly destroyed. He had abandoned the idea of effecting any
general good to the Indians. He had conscientious scruples as to
promoting an enterprise so hopeless as that of missions among
the Indians, by sending accounts to the East that might induce
philanthropic individuals to contribute to their support. In fact, the
whole experience of his intercourse with them seemed to have convinced
him of the irremediable degradation of the race. Their fortitude
under suffering he considered the result of physical and mental
insensibility; their courage, a mere animal excitement, which they
found it necessary to inflame, before daring to meet a foe. They have
no constancy of purpose; and are, in fact, but little superior to the
brutes in point of moral development. It is not astonishing, that one
looking upon the Indian character from Mr. ----'s point of view should
entertain such sentiments. The object of his intercourse with them
was, to make them apprehend the mysteries of a theology, which, to the
most enlightened, is an abstruse, metaphysical study; and it is not
singular they should prefer their pagan superstitions, which address
themselves more directly to the senses. Failing in the attempt to
Christianize before civilizing them, he inferred that in the intrinsic
degradation of their faculties the obstacle was to be found."
Thus the missionary vainly attempts, by once or twice holding up the
cross, to turn deer and tigers into lambs; vainly attempts to convince
the red man that a heavenly mandate takes from him his broad lands. He
bows his head, but does not at heart acquiesce. He cannot. It is not
true; and if it were, the descent of blood through the same channels,
for centuries, has formed habits of thought not so easily to be
disturbed.
Amalgamation would afford the only true and profound means of
civilization. But nature seems, like all else, to declare that this
race is fated to perish. Those of mixed blood fade early, and are not
generally a fine race. They lose what is best in either type,
rather than enhance the value of each, by mingling. There are
exceptions,--one or two such I know of,--but this, it is said, is the
general rule.
A traveller observes, that the white settlers who live in the woods
soon become sallow, lanky, and dejected; the atmosphere of the trees
does not agree with Caucasian lungs; and it is, perhaps, in part an
instinct of this which causes the hatred of the new settlers towards
trees. The Indian breathed the atmosphere of the forests freely; he
loved their shade. As they are effaced from the land, he fleets too; a
part of the same manifestation, which cannot linger behind its proper
era.
The Chippewas have lately petitioned the State of Michigan, that they
may be admitted as citizens; but this would be vain, unless they could
be admitted, as brothers, to the heart of the white man. And while
the latter feels that conviction of superiority which enabled our
Wisconsin friend to throw away the gun, and send the Indian to
fetch it, he needs to be very good, and very wise, not to abuse his
position. But the white man, as yet, is a half-tamed pirate, and
avails himself as much as ever of the maxim, "Might makes right." All
that civilization does for the generality is to cover up this with a
veil of subtle evasions and chicane, and here and there to rouse the
individual mind to appeal to Heaven against it.
I have no hope of liberalizing the missionary, of humanizing the
sharks of trade, of infusing the conscientious drop into the flinty
bosom of policy, of saving the Indian from immediate degradation and
speedy death. The whole sermon may be preached from the text, "Needs
be that offences must come, yet woe onto them by whom they come."
Yet, ere they depart, I wish there might be some masterly attempt to
reproduce, in art or literature, what is proper to them,--a kind of
beauty and grandeur which few of the every-day crowd have hearts to
feel, yet which ought to leave in the world its monuments, to inspire
the thought of genius through all ages. Nothing in this kind has been
done masterly; since it was Clevengers's ambition, 't is pity he had
not opportunity to try fully his powers. We hope some other mind may
be bent upon it, ere too late. At present the only lively impress
of their passage through the world is to be found in such books as
Catlin's, and some stories told by the old travellers.
Let me here give another brief tale of the power exerted by the
white man over the savage in a trying case; but in this case it was
righteous, was moral power.
"We were looking over McKenney's Tour to the Lakes, and, on observing
the picture of Key-way-no-wut, or the Going Cloud, Mr. B. observed,
'Ah, that is the fellow I came near having a fight with'; and he
detailed at length the circumstances. This Indian was a very desperate
character, and of whom, all the Leech Lake band stood in fear. He
would shoot down any Indian who offended him, without the least
hesitation, and had become quite the bully of that part of the tribe.
The trader at Leech Lake warned Mr. B. to beware of him, and said that
he once, when he (the trader) refused to give up to him his stock of
wild-rice, went and got his gun and tomahawk, and shook the tomahawk
over his head, saying, '_Now_, give me your wild-rice.' The trader
complied with his exaction, but not so did Mr. B. in the adventure
which I am about to relate. Key-way-no-wut came frequently to him with
furs, wishing him to give for them, cotton-cloth, sugar, flour, &c.
Mr. B. explained to him that he could not trade for furs, as he was
sent there as a teacher, and that it would be like putting his hand
into the fire to do so, as the traders would inform against him, and
he would be sent out of the country. At the same time, he _gave_
him the articles which he wished. Key-way-no-wut found this a very
convenient way of getting what he wanted, and followed up this sort
of game, until, at last, it became insupportable. One day the Indian
brought a very large otter-skin, and said, 'I want to get for this
ten pounds of sugar, and some flour and cloth,' adding, 'I am not like
other Indians, _I_ want to pay for what I get.' Mr. B. found that he
must either be robbed of all he had by submitting to these exactions,
or take a stand at once. He thought, however, he would try to avoid a
scrape, and told his customer he had not so much sugar to spare. 'Give
me, then,' said he, 'what you can spare'; and Mr. B., thinking to make
him back out, told him he would, give him five pounds of sugar for his
skin. 'Take it,' said the Indian. He left the skin, telling Mr. B. to
take good care of it. Mr. B. took it at once to the trader's store,
and related the circumstance, congratulating himself that he had got
rid of the Indian's exactions. But in about a month Key-way-no-wut
appeared, bringing some dirty Indian sugar, and said, 'I have brought
back the sugar that I borrowed of you, and I want my otter-skin back.'
Mr. B. told him, 'I _bought_ an otter-skin of you, but if you will
return the other articles you have got for it, perhaps I can get it
for you.' 'Where is the skin?' said he very quickly; 'what have you
done with it?' Mr. B. replied it was in the trader's store, where he
(the Indian) could not get it. At this information he was furious,
laid his hands on his knife and tomahawk, and commanded Mr. B. to
bring it at once. Mr. B. found this was the crisis, where he must take
a stand or be 'rode over rough-shod' by this man. His wife, who was
present was much alarmed, and begged he would get the skin for the
Indian, but he told her that 'either he or the Indian would soon be
master of his house, and if she was afraid to see it decided which
was to be so, she had better retire,' He turned to Key-way-no-wut, and
addressed him in a stern voice as follows: 'I will _not_ give you the
skin. How often have you come to my house, and I have shared with you
what I had. I gave you tobacco when you were well, and medicine when
you were sick, and you never went away from my wigwam with your hands
empty. And this is the way you return my treatment to you. I had
thought you were a man and a chief, but you are not, you are nothing
but an old woman. Leave this house, and never enter it again.' Mr. B.
said he expected the Indian would attempt his life when he said this,
but that he had placed himself in a position so that he could defend
himself, and looked straight into the Indian's eye, and, like other
wild beasts, he quailed before the glance of mental and moral courage.
He calmed down at once, and soon began to make apologies. Mr. B. then
told him kindly, but firmly, that, if he wished to walk in the same
path with him, he must walk as straight as the crack on the floor
before them; adding, that he would not walk with anybody who would
jostle him by walking so crooked as he had done. He was perfectly
tamed, and Mr. B. said he never had any more trouble with him."
The conviction here livingly enforced of the superiority on the side
of the white man, was thus expressed by the Indian orator at Mackinaw
while we were there. After the customary compliments about sun, dew,
&c., "This," said he, "is the difference between the white and the
red man; the white man looks to the future and paves the way for
posterity. The red man never thought of this." This is a statement
uncommonly refined for an Indian; but one of the gentlemen present,
who understood the Chippewa, vouched for it as a literal rendering of
his phrases; and he did indeed touch the vital point of difference.
But the Indian, if he understands, cannot make use of his
intelligence. The fate of his people is against it, and Pontiac and
Philip have no more chance than Julian in the times of old.
The Indian is steady to that simple creed which forms the basis of all
his mythology; that there is a God and a life beyond this; a right and
wrong which each man can see, betwixt which each man should choose;
that good brings with it its reward, and vice its punishment. His
moral code, if not as refined as that of civilized nations, is
clear and noble in the stress laid upon truth and fidelity. And all
unprejudiced observers bear testimony, that the Indians, until broken
from their old anchorage by intercourse with the whites,--who offer
them, instead, a religion of which they furnish neither interpretation
nor example,--were singularly virtuous, if virtue be allowed to
consist in a man's acting up to his own ideas of right.
My friend, who joined me at Mackinaw, happened, on the homeward
journey, to see a little Chinese girl, who had been sent over by one
of the missionaries, and observed that, in features, complexion, and
gesture, she was a counterpart to the little Indian girls she had just
seen playing about on the lake shore.
The parentage of these tribes is still an interesting subject of
speculation, though, if they be not created for this region, they have
become so assimilated to it as to retain little trace of any other. To
me it seems most probable, that a peculiar race was bestowed on each
region,[A] as the lion on one latitude and the white bear on another.
As man has two natures,--one, like that of the plants and animals,
adapted to the uses and enjoyments of this planet, another which
presages and demands a higher sphere,--he is constantly breaking
bounds, in proportion as the mental gets the better of the mere
instinctive existence. As yet, he loses in harmony of being what he
gains in height and extension; the civilized man is a larger mind, but
a more imperfect nature, than the savage.
[Footnote A: Professor Agassiz has recently published some able
scientific papers tending to enforce this theory.--ED.]
We hope there will be a national institute, containing all the remains
of the Indians, all that has been preserved by official intercourse at
Washington, Catlin's collection, and a picture-gallery as complete
as can be made, with a collection of skulls from all parts of the
country. To this should be joined the scanty library that exists on
the subject.
A little pamphlet, giving an account of the massacre at Chicago, has
lately; been published, which I wish much I had seen while there, as
it would have imparted an interest to spots otherwise barren. It is
written with animation, and in an excellent style, telling just what
we want to hear, and no more. The traits given of Indian generosity
are as characteristic as those of Indian cruelty. A lady, who was
saved by a friendly chief holding her under the waters of the lake, at
the moment the balls endangered her, received also, in the heat of the
conflict, a reviving draught from a squaw, who saw she was exhausted;
and as she lay down, a mat was hung up between her and the scene of
butchery, so that she was protected from the sight, though she could
not be from sounds full of horror.
I have not wished to write sentimentally about the Indians, however
moved by the thought of their wrongs and speedy extinction. I know
that the Europeans who took possession of this country felt themselves
justified by their superior civilization and religious ideas. Had they
been truly civilized or Christianized, the conflicts which sprang
from the collision of the two races might have been avoided; but this
cannot be expected in movements made by masses of men. The mass has
never yet been humanized, though the age may develop a human thought.
Since those conflicts and differences did arise, the hatred which
sprang from terror and suffering, on the European side, has naturally
warped the whites still further from justice.
The Indian, brandishing the scalps of his wife and friends, drinking
their blood, and eating their hearts, is by him viewed as a fiend,
though, at a distant day, he will no doubt be considered as having
acted the Roman or Carthaginian part of heroic and patriotic
self-defence, according to the standard of right and motives
prescribed by his religious faith and education. Looked at by his
own standard, he is virtuous when he most injures his enemy, and the
white, if he be really the superior in enlargement of thought, ought
to cast aside his inherited prejudices enough to see this, to look on
him in pity and brotherly good-will, and do all he can to mitigate the
doom of those who survive his past injuries.
In McKenney's book is proposed a project for organizing the Indians
under a patriarchal government; but it does not look feasible, even
on paper. Could their own intelligent men be left to act unimpeded
in their behalf, they would do far better for them than the white
thinker, with all his general knowledge. But we dare not hope
the designs of such will not always be frustrated by barbarous
selfishness, as they were in Georgia. _There_ was a chance of seeing
what might have been done, now lost for ever.
Yet let every man look to himself how far this blood shall be required
at his hands. Let the missionary, instead of preaching to the Indian,
preach to the trader who ruins him, of the dreadful account which will
be demanded of the followers of Cain, in a sphere where the accents
of purity and love come on the ear more decisively than in ours. Let
every legislator take the subject to heart, and, if he cannot undo the
effects of past sin, try for that clear view and right sense that may
save us from sinning still more deeply. And let every man and every
woman, in their private dealings with the subjugated race, avoid all
share in embittering, by insult or unfeeling prejudice, the captivity
of Israel.