THE IROQUOIS;
OR,
The Bright Side of Indian Character.
BY
MINNIE MYRTLE.
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
346 AND 348 BROADWAY.
1855.
Dedicatory Letter,
TO
COL. THOMAS McKENNEY, AND PHILLIP E. THOMAS.
Without their knowledge, I presume to dedicate my first volume of
Indian History to those whose names I have heard most frequently, as
friends of the red man. The title of the first indicates that he has
been on the war-path, while the other belongs to the Society whose
members are so eminently the missionaries of peace. The one was for
many years conspicuous as a public man, and the other has been seen
only in the most private walks, but they have been ever intimately
associated in efforts for promoting the best interests of Indians of
every name and race. The “good works” of the one, in his official
capacity and as an author, are well known, while those of the other
have been necessarily silent and unseen, except by his friends, and
those who were the recipients of the blessings he has so munificently
scattered; but having wandered through the scenes of their labors, I
have found them to have been fellow-laborers, the designs of each being
cordially approved and forwarded by the other, and their sympathies
always the same.
In behalf of the Indian, to whom each name is dear as father, protector
and friend, and as a testimony of her own reverence and grateful
affection, this slight tribute is offered by the
AUTHOR.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE.
Introduction, 11
CHAPTER I.
National Traits of Character, 19
Christian Atrocities, 21
Indian Homes, 23
Civilized Barbarism, 25
King Philip, 27
Hospitality, 29
The Christian and Indian contrasted, 31
CHAPTER II.
National Government; or, Long House of the Iroquois
League, 32
Origin of the League, 33
Design of the League, 35
Indian Traits, 37
Councils, 39
Wampum and Calumet, 41
Indian Women, 43
CHAPTER III.
The Religion of the Iroquois, 44
Anecdote, 45
Employment in Heaven, 47
Maple Festival, 49
Thanks to the Great Spirit, 51
Address to Heno, 53
Succotash, 55
Thanksgiving Address, 57
Guessing of Dreams, 59
Indian Courtesy, 61
The Council Fire, 63
The Iroquois not Savages, 65
CHAPTER IV.
Customs and Individual traits of Character, 67
Indian Burials, 69
Religious Duties, 71
Indian Vengeance, 73
Good for Evil, 75
Cannasatego, 76
Hans Hanson, 77
Indian Honesty, 79
Indian Beauty, 81
CHAPTER V.
Love, Music, and Poetry, 83
Matrimonial Negotiations, 85
Social Affections, 87
Legend of Ampatd Sapa, 89
Poetic Sentiment of the Indians, 91
A Love Legend, 93
Indian Nobleness, 95
Instances of Civilization, 97
Characteristic Songs, 99
Transportation of Children, 101
Honor to the Noble Dead, 103
CHAPTER VI.
Legendary Literature, 105
Indian Legend, 107
Medicinal Feast, 109
A Hunting Legend, 115
Adventures of the Hunter Ho-cha-gah, 116
A Pigmy Legend, 121
Legend of the Jo-go-o, or Pigmies destroying
the Monster Buffaloes, 121
A War Legend, 123
War Dance, 125
The Virgin of War, 126
Indian Fireside, 129
Mythological Legends, 131
The Legend of He-no, the Thunderer, 131
Ga-oh, 133
The Seven Stars, 133
The Three Sisters, 134
The Spirit of Corn, 135
CHAPTER VII.
A Captive’s Life among Indians, Illustrated by the
Life of “The White Woman,” 136
Treatment of Prisoners, 137
Respect towards Women, 139
Story of Mary Jewison, 141
The Deserted Baby, 153
Mission Burial Ground, 155
CHAPTER VIII.
Eloquence among the Iroquois—Red Jacket, or
Sa-go-ye-wat-ha, 158
Red Jacket, 159
Plea of the Women, 161
Indian Superstitions, 163
Eloquence of Red Jacket, 167
The Missionaries, 171
Witchcraft, 173
CHAPTER IX.
Sarcasm and Sagacity—Red Jacket, or Sa-go-ye-wat-ha, 174
Interview with Red Jacket, 175
Vanity of Red Jacket, 185
Last hours of Red Jacket, 197
Death of Red Jacket, 199
Red Jacket’s Grave, 201
CHAPTER X.
Dignity of Character among the Iroquois, Illustrated
by the life of Farmer’s Brother and Young-King, 202
Farmer’s Brother, 203
Generosity to Captives, 205
Ignorance of Money, 209
Indian Fund, 211
American Barbarism, 215
Young-King, 217
Death of Young-King, 219
CHAPTER XI.
Indian Magnanimity Illustrated by the life of
cornplanter, 220
Cornplanter, 221
Cornplanter’s Generosity, 223
Code of Morality, 225
Cornplanter’s Appeal, 229
Cornplanter’s Son, 235
CHAPTER XII.
Refinement and Sensibility in Indian Character,
Illustrated in the Life of Logan, 237
Logan, 239
Logan’s Wrongs, 241
Speech of Logan, 243
CHAPTER XIII.
The Darkest Page of Indian History, 245
Report upon the Indians, 247
Appeal of the Indians, 249
Society of Friends, 251
Big Kettle, 252
Speech of Big Kettle, 253
Speech of Gayashuta, addressed to the Society
of Friends, 257
Speech of Black Hawk, 259
Manners and Customs, 261
Red Jacket’s Step-daughter, 263
CHAPTER XIV.
The Educated Indian, 266
Indian Orations, 267
Injustice to the Indians, 273
Indian Civilization, 275
Indian Oration, 279
Closing Remarks, 283
CHAPTER XV.
The Future of the North American Indian, 284
Injustice to the Indians, 285
Story of James Macdonald, 287
Stigma attached to the Indians, 289
Inconsistency, 291
Kusick, 293
Sabbath Morning among the Chippewas, 295
Doom of the Indian, 297
APPENDIX, 298
INTRODUCTION.
“A book about Indians,—who cares any thing about them?”
This will probably be the exclamation of many who glance at my
title-page, for to those who know nothing concerning them, a whole book
about Indians will seem a very prosy affair. To these I can answer
nothing, for they will not proceed as far as my preface to see what
reason I can render for this seeming folly. But to those who are
willing to listen, I will say, that the Indians are a very interesting
people, whether I have made an interesting book about them or not.
The Antiquarian, the Historian, and the Scholar, have been a long time
studying Indian character, and have given us plenty of information
concerning Indians, but it is all in ponderous tomes for State and
College libraries, and quite inaccessible to the multitudes. Those who
only take up such books as may be held in the hand, sitting by the
fire, still remain very ignorant of the inhabitants who peopled the
forests, before the Saxon set his foot upon our shore.
There is also a great deal of prejudice, the consequence of this
ignorance, and the consequence of the representations of our
forefathers, who were brought into contact with the Indians, under
circumstances that made it impossible to judge impartially and
correctly.
This ignorance and prejudice I have attempted to dispel. I thought at
first of only giving a series of Indian Biographies, but without some
knowledge of the Government and Religion of the Iroquois, the lives of
their great men could not be understood or appreciated. The histories
which are in our schools, and from which our first impressions are
obtained, are still very deficient in what they relate of Indian
history, and most of them are still filling the minds of children and
youth with very false ideas.
I knew little of what I was undertaking when I began, or I might have
shrunk from the task. In my ignorance I thought a very small book would
cover all the ground I had marked out, but I soon found it would not
cover half of it, and I am obliged to leave the lives of Brandt the
great Mohawk Chief, of Sir William Johnson and several other
interesting chiefs and personages connected with Indian history, for
another volume. If the success of these should be sufficiently
encouraging, they may be followed by others, concerning Southern
Indians, in volumes to correspond in design and character.
Though a difficult task, I have found it a very pleasing one. The mists
of prejudice and ignorance have been cleared from my own mind by the
light of truth, and I have been happy indeed, when, either in
imagination or in reality, I have been seated by Indian firesides. I
have read every thing I could hear of connected with my subjects, but
aside from books have enjoyed peculiar facilities for prosecuting my
labors. A teacher whom I loved in childhood, became a missionary among
the Senecas in Western New York. In compliance with her wishes we took
a little Indian girl into our family, who was my pupil and companion
two years, and whom we all learned to love. Her father was the step-son
of Red Jacket, the most renowned chief of the Iroquois, and through our
correspondence with the missionaries, we continued, and deepened our
interest in her people. It was long a favorite idea with me to write a
book concerning them, and when I had decided to do so, I went to
Cattaraugus and spent several months in order to become better
acquainted with the Indians myself, and to be in daily communion with
those who had been among them more than twenty years, and also to gain
access to books and documents to be found nowhere else.
On glancing at the table of contents the book may seem fragmentary, but
instead of devoting a whole long chapter to the dry details of “manners
and customs,” I have woven these usually uninteresting materials into
the Biographies, so that no one part can be at all understood or
appreciated without reading the whole.
My title will not be so attractive to American ears as if it related to
any other unknown people. A tour in Arabia, or Africa, or Kamchatka,
with far less important and interesting material, would secure a
greater number of readers, as we are always more curious about things
afar off.
I might have covered as many pages with “Indian atrocities,” but these
have been detailed in other histories till they are familiar to every
ear, and I had neither room nor inclination for even a glance at war
and its dark records.
I have not written the whole truth, yet what I have written is truth,
in the minutest details.
Mr. Clarke in the “Onondaga,” has in two large volumes given, a mass of
useful information concerning missions, and Indian life and character;
and in the “History of Pontiac,” by Parkman, we have a glowing picture
of forest life, and life-breathing portraits of forest men.
Charlevoix, La Hontan, Colden, Smith, Macaulay, Morse, and Bancroft,
are well-known historians, and their books are the fountains to which
all resort for historical knowledge.
Mr. William L. Stone has given us several Indian Biographies, which are
most interesting and truthful, presenting Indian rights and wrongs in a
new light, and doing justice to Indian character. To these I am
indebted for some of the most valuable materials of my book.
Mr. Schoolcraft has given us a world of wondrous things in his numerous
quartos and folios, which will prove a treasure-house in all future
time for philologists, ethnologists, and antiquarians of all names; and
Mr. Lewis H. Morgan has written one of the most curious books in his
“League of the Iroquois,” in which we have the Government, Religion,
and Customs of the Six Nations portrayed truly, and yet so brightly,
that one is almost tempted to say, “What need is there of a better
way?” There are few, however learned, who would not be surprised on
reading his account of Indian “Church and State.” Knowing his devotion
to truth and accuracy, and his opportunities for obtaining correct
knowledge of what he wrote, I have, in all I have taken from books
concerning the Iroquois Confederacy, relied upon him. To him I am also
indebted for criticisms and suggestions which will save the critics
much trouble, though they will probably have plenty to do as it is.
The works of Col. Thomas L. McKenney, the well-known administrator of
Indian affairs, contain the most life-like and glowing pictures of
Indian character, and the most truthful appreciation of Indian life,
for he knew our forest forefathers longer, and saw them under a greater
variety of circumstances, than it was possible for another to do; and
he rightly understood both the Indian and the white man, and the means
of adapting them to each other.
Alas, that his noble plans for civilizing and Christianizing the red
races of America should have been frustrated, when there was not only
the hope, but the most encouraging prospect, that the work might be
accomplished. His was no Utopian scheme, but one which successful
operation had proved practicable. But it was not so to be. He could not
save them; but through his own personal efforts, and influence as head
of department, we have the gallery of Indian portraits, invaluable as
specimens of art, and invaluable as the only correct representatives of
a people so soon to have passed away. I am not only indebted to the
books of Mr. McKenney, but to him, for every facility which it has been
in his power to afford for information, and promoting the success of my
plan.
In the poem of Alfred B. Street, “Frontenac,” we have the government,
religion, and festivals of the Long House in one beautiful picture. As
a poem, it is one of the most artistic in our language; but its Indian
hue has prevented its being appreciated, and it concerns a people so
little known and so entirely misunderstood in prose, that its
descriptions are like a panorama without light. I have quoted from it
several songs, to embellish my sombre pages.
Tecumseh, by Colton, has been longer published, and is better known;
and the poems of Hosmer are familiar to the readers of Magazines, and
do not need me to commend them.
I have not wished to encumber my book with notes and authorities, and
therefore express my obligations, by naming the principal sources of my
information from books, in this way, and add that I have gleaned “here
a little and there a little,” wherever I could find any thing to suit
my purpose.
Mr. Wright, in whose family I remained whilst seeking new materials,
understands the Seneca language, and also many others, and gave me
freely the results of his long and intimate experience of Indian life;
whilst his wife, who also speaks the language with fluency, was
enabled, by the observation which is woman’s peculiar province, and as
a highly cultivated intellectual woman, to give me the aid which no
man, however learned he might be, could render.
There are also many educated Indians on my list of friends and helpers.
Dr. Peter Wilson is well known as a highly gifted and educated man. Mr.
N. T. Strong and M. B. Pierce are intelligent and accomplished
gentlemen. To Mr. N. W. and Ely S. Parker I am much indebted, as their
time and knowledge have been ever cordially at my service. The one is
engaged in translating the Bible into the Seneca language, having been
educated at the Normal School, Albany; and the other is one of the most
honored and valuable servants in the employment of the State, as
Engineer. Their sister is a highly intelligent and cultivated young
lady, as one often meets in any society. These that I have mentioned
are young, and pertain to the new order of things; but there are aged
men and aged women still living, who give us some idea of the Indian as
he was. I have been in their houses, and become acquainted with their
hearts, and not among any people have I seen firesides where love and
friendship wore a brighter smile, or hearts throbbed with more genuine
Christian sympathy.
I experienced to the full their cordial hospitality, and bring away the
mark of respect which they only bestow upon favored ones. The manner in
which names are bestowed is one of their peculiar customs, and is quite
an imposing ceremony. The name of every child is publicly confirmed in
Council, in order to be a legal name; and when he grows to man’s
estate, another is given him, which is confirmed in the same public
way. At the present time, when they bestow a name upon a stranger, it
is usually done at the New Year’s Council, whether the person is
present or absent.
Mine was conferred at a private social gathering, a speech being made
on the occasion by Sha-dye-no-wah (John Hudson), one of their most
distinguished men, who adopted me into the Bear tribe as his niece.
This token of regard was afterwards confirmed by a Council of the
Nation, and this name I shall be ever proud to subscribe. It signifies
“one who has a new style,” or “tells new things.”
Gui-ee-wa-zay.
THE IROQUOIS.
CHAPTER I.
NATIONAL TRAITS OF CHARACTER.
In all the early histories of the American colonies—in the stories of
Indian life and delineations of Indian character—we have these children
of the wilderness represented as savage and barbarous, with scarcely a
redeeming trait of character. And in the minds of a large portion of
the community the sentiment still prevails, that they were
bloodthirsty, revengeful, and merciless—justly a terror to both friends
and foes. Children are impressed with the idea that an Indian is
scarcely human, and as much to be feared as the most ferocious animal
of the forest.
Novelists have now and then clothed a few with a garb which excites our
admiration; but seldom has one been invested with qualities which we
could love, unless it were also said that through some captive, taken
in distant wars, he inherited a whiter skin and a paler blood.
But I am inclined to think that Indians are not alone in being
savage—not alone barbarous, and heartless, and merciless.
It is said they were exterminating each other by aggressive and
devastating wars before the white people came among them. But
wars—certainly, aggressive and exterminating wars—are not proofs of
barbarity. The bravest warrior was the most honored; and this has been
ever true of Christian nations; and those who call themselves
Christian, have not ceased yet to look upon him who could plan most
successfully the wholesale slaughter of human beings, as the most
deserving his king’s and his country’s laurels. How long since the pæan
died away in praise of the Duke of Wellington? What have been the wars
in which all Europe has been engaged since there have been any records
of her history? For what are civilized and Christian nations now
drenching their fields with blood?
It is said the Indian was cruel to the captive, and inflicted
unspeakable tortures upon his enemy taken in battle. But, from what we
know of them, it is not to be inferred that Indian chiefs were ever
guilty of filling dungeons with innocent victims, or slaughtering
hundreds and thousands of their own people, whose only sin was a quiet
dissent from some religious dogma. Towards their enemies they were
often relentless, and they had good reason to look upon white men as
their enemies. They slew them in battle, plotted against them secretly,
and in a few instances—few comparatively—subjected individuals to
torture, burnt them at the stake, and, perhaps, flayed them alive. But
who knows any thing of the precepts and practice of Roman Catholic
Christendom, and quotes these things as proofs of unmitigated
barbarity? At the very time that Indians were using the tomahawk and
scalping-knife to avenge their wrongs, peaceful citizens in every
country in Europe, where the Pope was the man of authority, were
incarcerated for no crime whatever, and such refinements of torture
invented and practised as it never entered in the heart of the fiercest
Indian warrior that roamed the wilderness, to inflict upon man or
beast. We know very little of the secrets of the Inquisition, and this
little chills our blood with horror; yet these things were done in the
name of Christ, the Saviour of the world—the Prince of Peace; and not
savage, but civilized, Christian men looked on, not coldly, but
rejoicingly, while women and children writhed in flames and weltered in
blood!
Were the atrocities, committed in the Vale of Wyoming and Cherry Valley
unprecedented among the Waldensian fastnesses and the mountains of
Auvergne? Who has read Fox’s Book of Martyrs and found any thing to
parallel it in all the records of Indian warfare? The slaughter of St.
Bartholomew’s day, the destruction of the Jews in Spain, and the Scotch
Covenanters, were in obedience to the mandates of Christian princes,
aye, and some of them devised by Christian women, who professed to be
serving God, and to make the Bible the man of their counsel.
It is said also the Indian was treacherous, and in compliance with the
conditions of no treaty was ever to be trusted. But our Puritan fathers
cannot be wholly exonerated from the charge of faithlessness; and who
does not blush to talk of Indian traitors when he remembers the Spanish
invasion and the fall of the princely and magnanimous Montezuma?
“Indians believed in witches and burned them too!” Did not the sainted
Baxter, with the Bible in his hand, pronounce it right? and was not the
Indian permitted to be present, when a quiet, unoffending woman was
cast into the fire by the decree of a Puritan council?
To come down to more decidedly Christian times, we are yet called upon
to shudder at the revelations of Howard and Miss Dix. It is not so very
long since, in Protestant England, hanging was the punishment of a
petty theft, and long and hopeless imprisonment, of a slight
misdemeanor. I think it is within the memory of those who are not the
oldest inhabitants, when men were yet up to be stoned and spit upon by
those who claimed the exclusive right to be called humane and merciful.
Again, it is said, the Indian mode of warfare is, without exception,
the most inhuman and revolting. But I do not know that those who die by
the barbed and poisoned arrow, linger in more unendurable torments,
than those who are mangled by powder and balls. The tomahawk makes
quick work of dying, and the custom of scalping among Christian
murderers would save thousands from groaning days, and perhaps weeks,
among heaps that cover victorious fields and fill hospitals with the
wounded and the dying! But scalping was not an invention exclusively
Indian. “It claims,” says Prescott, “high authority, or, at least,
antiquity.” The Father of history, Herodotus, gives an account of it
among the Scythians, showing that they performed the operation, and
wore the scalps of their enemies taken in battle, as trophies, in the
same manner as our North American Indians. Traces of the same custom
are also found in the laws of the Visigoths, among the Franks, and even
the Anglo-Saxons. The Southern Indians did not scalp, but they had a
system of slavery, no trace of which is to be found among the customs,
laws, or legends of the Iroquois.
Again: “They carried away women and children captive, and in their long
journeys through the wilderness, they were subjected to heart-rending
trials.”
The wars of Christian men throw hundreds and thousands of women and
children helpless upon the cold world, to toil, to beg, to starve!
This is not so bright a picture as is usually given of people who have
written laws and stores of learning; but I cannot see that in any place
the coloring is too dark. There is no danger of painting Indians, so
that they will become attractive to civilized people; and there is no
need of painting them more hideously than they paint themselves.
There is a bright and pleasing side to Indian character; and thinking
that there has been enough written of their wars and their cruelties,
of the hunter’s and the fisherman’s life, I have sat down by their
firesides, and listened to their legends, and tried to become
acquainted with their domestic habits, and to understand their finer
feelings, and the truly noble traits of their character.
It is so long now since they were the lords of our soil, and formidable
as our enemies,—they are so utterly wasted away and helpless that we
can afford to listen to the truth, and to believe that even our enemies
had virtues. Man was created in the image of God, and it cannot be that
any thing human is utterly vile and contemptible. To remain in
ignorance and censure without knowledge is easier than to study and
toil for the truth, but with the present facilities for digging,
Christian people cannot be excused in remaining content with dross.
Those who have always thought of Indians as roaming about in the
forests, hunting and fishing or at war, will laugh, perhaps, at the
idea of Indian homes and domestic happiness; yet there is no people of
which we have any knowledge, among whom, in their primitive state,
family ties and relationships were more distinctly defined or more
religiously respected.
The treatment which they received from the white people, whom they
always considered as intruders, aroused and kept in exercise all their
ferocious passions, so that none except those who mingled with them as
missionaries or as captives, saw them in their true character—as they
were to each other.
Almost any portrait which we have of Indians, represents them with
tomahawk and scalping knife in hand, as if they possessed no other but
a barbarous nature. Christian nations might with equal justice be
always represented with cannon and balls and swords and pistols, as the
emblems of their employments and their prevailing tastes.
The details of wars form far too great a portion of every history of
civilized and barbarous nations; to conquer and to slay has been too
long the glory of Christian people; he who has been most successful in
subjugating and oppressing, in mowing down human beings, has too long
worn the laurel crown,—been too long an object for the admiration of
men and the love of woman.
We are weary of the pomp and circumstance of war—of princely banquets
and gay cavalcades. The time and space we bestow upon Kings and Courts,
and the homage we pay to empty titles, are unworthy our professed
Republican spirit and preferences. Let us turn aside from the war path
and sit down by the hearth stone of peace.
In the pictures which I shall give I shall confine myself principally
to the Iroquois or Six Nations, a people who no more deserve the term
savage, than we do that of heathen, because we have still lingering
among us heathen superstitions, and many opinions and practices which
deserve no better name!
The cannibals of some of the West India Islands, and the islands of the
Pacific, may with justice be termed savage, but a people like the
Iroquois who had a government, established offices, a system of
religion eminently pure and spiritual, a code of honor and laws of
hospitality excelling those of all other nations, should be considered
something better than savage, or utterly barbarous.
The terrible tortures they inflicted upon their enemies have made their
name a terror, and yet there were not so many burnt and hung and
starved by them as perish among Christian nations by these means. The
miseries they inflicted were light in comparison with those they
suffered, and when individuals from them have come among us to expose
the barbarity of savage white men, the deeds they relate equal any
thing we know of Indian cruelty. The picture an Indian will give of
civilized barbarism, leaves the revolting customs of the wilderness
quite in the background. We experienced their revenge when we had put
their souls and bodies on the rack, and with our fire-water had
maddened their brains. There was a pure and beautiful spirituality in
their faith, and their conduct was as much influenced by it as are any
people, Christian or pagan.
Is there any thing more barbaric in the annals of Indian warfare than
the narrative of the destruction of the Pequod Indians? In one place we
read of the surprise of an Indian fort by night, when the inmates were
slumbering unconscious of danger. When they awoke they were wrapped in
flames, and when they attempted to flee, were shot down like wild
beasts. From village to village, and wigwam to wigwam, the murderers
proceeded, “being resolved,” as our historian piously remarks, “by
God’s assistance, to make a final destruction of them,” till finally a
small but gallant band took refuge in a swamp “Burning with indignation
and made sullen by despair; with hearts bursting with grief at the
destruction of their nation, and spirits galled and sore at the fancied
ignominy of their defeat, they refused to ask their lives at the hand
of an insulting foe, and preferred death to submission. As the night
drew on they were surrounded in their dismal retreat, and volleys of
musketry poured into their midst, till nearly all were killed or buried
in the mire.” In the darkness of a thick fog which preceded the dawn of
day, a few broke through the ranks of the besiegers and escaped to the
woods.
Again, the same historian tells us that the few who remained “stood
like sullen dogs to be killed rather than implore mercy; and the
soldiers, on entering the swamps, found many sitting together in
groups, when they approached; and resting their guns on the boughs of
trees within a few yards of them, literally filled their bodies with
bullets.” [1] But they were Indians, and it was pronounced a pious
work. “When the Gauls invaded Italy, and the Roman senators, in their
purple robes and chairs of state, sat unmoved in the presence of
barbarian conquerors, disdaining to flee and equally disdaining to
supplicate mercy, it is applauded as noble—as dying like statesmen and
philosophers. But when the Indian, with far more to lose, and
infinitely greater provocation, sits upon the green mound, beneath the
canopy of heaven, and refuses to ask mercy of civilized fiends, he is
stigmatized as dogged, spiritless, and sullen.” “What a different name
has greatness, clothed in the garb of Christian princes and sitting
beneath spacious domes, gorgeous with man’s devices; and greatness, in
the simple garb of nature, destitute, and alone in the wilderness!”
There is nothing in the character of Alexander of Macedon—who
“conquered the world, and wept that he had no more to conquer”—to
compare with the noble qualities of King Philip, of Mount Hope; and
among his warriors is a long list of brave men unrivalled in deeds of
heroism, by any in ancient or modern story. But in what country, and by
whom were they hunted and tortured and slain? Who was it that met
together to rejoice and give thanks at every species of cruelty
inflicted upon those who were fighting for their wives and their
children, their altars and their God? When it is recorded that “men,
women, and children, indiscriminately, were hewn down and lay in heaps
upon the snow,” it is spoken of as doing God service, because they were
nominally heathen. “Before the fight was finished, the wigwams were set
on fire, and into these, hundreds of innocent women and children had
crowded themselves and perished in the general conflagration,” and for
this, thanksgivings are sent up to heaven. The head of Philip is strung
bleeding upon a pole, and exposed in the public streets; but it is not
done by savage warriors, and the crowd that huzzas at the revolting
spectacle assemble on the Sabbath in a Puritan church, to listen to the
gospel that proclaims peace and love to all men. His body is literally
cut in slices to be distributed among the conquerors, and a Christian
city rings with acclamations.
In speaking of this bloody contest one who is most eminent among the
“Fathers” says, “Nor could they cease praying unto the Lord against
Philip till they had prayed the bullet through his heart.” “Two and
twenty Indian Captains were slain and brought down to hell in one day.”
“A bullet took him in the head, and sent his cursed soul in a moment
amongst the devils and blasphemers in hell forever.”
Massasoit, the father of Philip, was the true friend to the English,
and when he was about to die, took his two sons Alexander and Philip,
and fondly commended them to the kindness of the new settlers, praying
that the same peace and good will might be between them, that had
existed between him and his white friends. Upon mere suspicion, only a
little while afterwards, the elder, who succeeded his father as ruler
among his people, was hunted in his forest home, and dragged before a
court, the nature and object of which he could not understand; but the
indignity which was offered him and the treachery of those who thus
insulted him, so chafed his proud spirit, that a fever was the
consequence, of which he died. And this is not all. The son and wife of
Philip were sold into slavery, as were also many others of the Indians
taken captive during the colonial wars. “Yes,” says a distinguished
orator, [2] “they were sold into slavery,—West Indian slavery! an
Indian princess and her child sold from the cool breezes of Mount Hope,
from the wild freedom of a New England forest, to gasp under the lash,
beneath the blazing sun of the tropics! ‘Bitter as death,’ aye, bitter
as hell! Is there any thing, I do not say in the range of humanity,—is
there any thing animated, that would not struggle against this?”
Nor is this indeed all. A kinswoman of theirs, a princess in her own
right, Wet-a-more of Pocasset, was pursued and harassed till she fell
exhausted in the wilderness, and died of cold and starvation. There she
was found by men professing to be shocked at Indian barbarity, her head
severed from her body, and carried bleeding upon a pole to be exposed
in the public highways of a country, ruled by men who have been honored
as saints and martyrs. “Let me die among my kindred.” “Bury me with my
fathers,” is the prayer of every Indian heart; and the most delicate
and reverential kindness in their treatment of the bodies of the dead,
was considered a religious duty. There was nothing in all their customs
that indicated a barbarism so gross and revolting as these acts which
are recorded by New England historians without a censure, while the
lamentations which the Indian utters in his grief at seeing his kindred
dishonored and his religion reviled, are stigmatized as savage and
fiendish.
If all, or even a few who ministered among them in holy things, had
been like Eliot, who is called “the apostle to the Indians,” and
deserves to be ranked with the apostles of old; or Kirkland, who is
endeared to the memory of every Iroquois who heard his name, it could
not have become a proverb or a truth that civilization and Christianity
wasted them away.
Not by one, but many, they are unscrupulously called “dogs, wolves,
bloodhounds, demons, devils incarnate, hell-hounds, fiends, monsters,
beasts,”—always considering them inferior beings, and scarcely allowing
them to be human. Yet one, who was at that time a captive among them,
represents them as “kind, loving, and generous,” and concerning this
same monster Philip, records nothing that should have condemned him in
the eyes of those who believed in wars aggressive and defensive, and
awarded honors to heroes, and martyrs, and conquerors.
By the Governor of Jamestown, a hand was severed from the arm of a
peaceful, unoffending Indian, that he might be sent back a terror to
his people, and through the magnanimity of a daughter and King of that
same people, that Colony was saved from destruction. It was through
their love and trust alone that Powhatan and Pocahontas lost their
forest dominions.
Hospitality was one of the Indians’ distinguishing virtues, and there
was no such thing among them as individual starvation or want. As long
as there was a cup of soup, it was divided. If a friend or stranger
called he was welcome to all their wigwams could furnish, and to offer
him food was not a custom merely, for it was a breach of politeness for
him to refuse to eat, however full he might be.
Because their system was not like ours, it does not follow that it was
not a system. We might have looked into a wigwam or lodge, and thought
every thing in confusion; while to the occupants, there was a place for
every thing and every thing in its place. Each had his couch, which
answered for bed by night and seat by day, and no other person would
have thought of appropriating it, any more than a private apartment
would be thus appropriated among us.
The ceremonies at their festivals were as regular as in our churches;
their rules of war were as well defined as those of Christian nations,
and in their games and athletic sports, there was a code of honor which
it was disgraceful to violate; their marriage vows were as well
understood, and courtesy as formally practised at their dances.
The nature of the Indian was in all respects like the nature of people
of any other nation, and if placed in the same circumstances he
exhibited the same passions and vices. But in his forest home there was
not the same temptation to great crimes, or what are usually termed the
lesser ones of slander, scandal, and gossip, as exists among civilized
nations.
They knew nothing of the desire of gain, and therefore were not made
selfish by the love of hoarding, and there was no temptation to steal
where they had all things common; and their reverence for truth and
fidelity to promises, may well put all the nations of Christendom to
shame.
I have written in something of the spirit which would characterize the
history written by an Indian, yet it does not deserve to be called
Indian partiality, but only justice and the spirit of humanity, or, if
I may be allowed to say it, the spirit with which any Christian should
be able to consider the character and deeds of his foes. I would not
derogate from the virtues of our forefathers. They were at that time
unrivalled, but the bigotry and superstition of the dark ages still
lingered among them, and their own perils blinded them to the
wickedness and cruelty of the means they took for defence. Four, and
perhaps two centuries hence, I doubt not, some of our dogmas will seem
as unchristian, as theirs seem to us; and I truly hope ere then our
wars will seem as barbarous, and the fantastic dress of our soldiers as
ridiculous, as we have been in the habit of representing the wars and
wild drapery of the Indian of the forest.
How long were the Saxon and Celt in becoming a civilized and Christian
people? How long since the helmet, the coat of mail, and the battle-axe
were laid aside? To make himself more terrific, the Briton of the days
of Henry II. drew the skin of a wild beast over his armor, with the
head and ears standing upright, and mounted his war-horse to go forth
crying “to arms!” “death to the invader!” The paint and the eagle plume
of the Indian warrior were scarcely a more barbarous invention, nor his
war-cry more terrible.
It is not just to compare the Indian of the fifteenth with the
Christian of the fifteenth century. Compare him with the barbarian of
Britain, of Russia, of Lapland, Kamchatka and Tartary, and represent
him as truly as these nations have been represented, and he will not
suffer by the comparison.