Description of the manner in which the Indian Traders set out on their
first adventure.
TO return to the boys, as all young men were called here till they
married. Thus early trained to a love of sylvan sports, their characters
were unfolded by contingencies. In this infant society, penal laws lay
dormant, and every species of coercion was unknown.
Morals, founded on Christianity, were fostered by the sweet influence of
the charities of life. The reverence which children in particular, had
for their parents, and the young in general for the old, was the chief
bond that held society together. This veneration, being founded on
esteem, certainly could only have existed thus powerfully in an
uncorrupted community. It had, however, an auxiliary no less powerful.
Here, indeed, it might with truth be said,
“Love breath’d his infant sighs from anguish free.”
In consequence of the singular mode of associating together little
exclusive parties of children of both sexes, which has been already
mentioned, endearing intimacies, formed in the age of playful innocence,
were the precursors of more tender attachments.
These were not wrought up to romantic enthusiasm, or extravagant
passion, by an inflamed imagination, or by the fears of rivalry, or the
artifices of coquetry, yet they had power sufficient to soften the
manners and elevate the character of the lover.
I know not if this be the proper place to observe how much of the
general order of society, and the happiness of a people, depend on
marriage being early and universal among them; but of this more
hereafter. The desire, (undiverted by any other passion,) of obtaining
the object of their affection, was to them a stimulus to early and
severe exertion. The enamoured youth did not listlessly fold his arms,
and sigh over his hopeless or unfortunate passion. Of love not fed by
hope, they had not an idea. Their attachments originated at too early an
age, and in a circle too familiar, to give room for those first-sight
impressions of which we hear such wonders. If the temper of the youth
was rash and impetuous, and his fair one gentle and complying, they
frequently formed a rash and precipitate union, without consulting their
relations, when, perhaps, the elder of the two was not above seventeen.
This was very quietly borne by the parties aggrieved. The relations of
both parties met, and with great calmness consulted on what was to be
done. The father of the youth or the damsel, whichever it was who had
most wealth or fewest children, brought home the young couple; and the
new married man immediately set about a trading adventure, which was
renewed every season, till he had the means of providing a home of his
own. Meantime the increase of the younger family did not seem an
inconvenience, but rather a source of delight to the old people; and an
arrangement begun from necessity, was often continued through choice for
many years after. Their tempers, unruffled by the endless jealousies and
competitions incident to our mode of life, were singularly placid, and
that love of offspring, where children were truly an unmixed blessing,
was a common sentiment which united all the branches of the family, and
predominated over every other. The jarring and distrust—the petulance
and egotism, which, distinct from all weightier considerations, would
not fail to poison concord, were different families to dwell under one
roof here, were there scarcely known. It is but justice to our acquired
delicacy of sentiment to say, that the absence of refinement contributed
to this tranquillity. These primitive people, if they did not gather the
flowers of cultivated elegance, were not wounded by the thorns of
irritable delicacy. They had neither artificial wants nor artificial
miseries. In short, they were neither too wise to be happy, nor too
witty to be at rest.
Thus it was in the case of unauthorized marriages. In the more ordinary
course of things, love, which makes labour light, tamed these young
hunters, and transformed them into diligent and laborious traders, for
the nature of their trade included very severe labour. When one of the
_boys_ was deeply smitten, his fowling-piece and fishing-rod were at
once relinquished. He demanded of his father forty or at most fifty
dollars, a negro boy, and a canoe; all of a sudden he assumed the brow
of care and solicitude, and began to smoke, a precaution absolutely
necessary to repel aguish damps and troublesome insects. He arrayed
himself in a habit very little differing from that of the aborigines,
into whose bounds he was about to penetrate, and in short commenced
Indian trader. That strange, amphibious animal, who, united the acute
senses, strong instincts, and unconquerable patience and fortitude of
the savage, with the art, policy, and inventions of the European,
encountered, in the pursuit of gain, dangers and difficulties equal to
those described in the romantic legends of chivalry.
The small bark canoe in which this hardy adventurer embarked himself,
his fortune, and his faithful _squire_, (who was generally born in the
same house, and predestined to his service,) was launched amidst the
tears and prayers of his female relations, amongst whom was generally
included his destined bride, who well knew herself to be the motive of
this perilous adventure.
The canoe was entirely filled with coarse strouds and blankets, guns,
powder, beads, &c., suited to the various wants and fancies of the
natives; one pernicious article was never wanting, and often made a
great part of the cargo. This was ardent spirits, for which the natives
too early acquired a relish, and the possession of which always proved
dangerous and sometimes fatal to the traders. The Mohawks bringing their
furs and other peltry, habitually to the stores of their wonted friends
and patrons, it was not in that easy and safe direction that these
trading adventures extended. The canoe generally steered northward
towards the Canadian frontier. They passed by the flats and stonehook in
the outset of their journey; then commenced their toils and dangers at
the famous water-fall called the Cohoes, ten miles above Albany, where
three rivers, uniting their streams into one, dash over a rocky shelf,
and falling into a gulf below with great violence, raise clouds of mist,
bedecked with splendid rainbows. This was the rubicon which they had to
pass, before they plunged into pathless woods, engulfing swamps and
lakes, the opposite shores of which the eye could not reach. At the
Cohoes, on account of the obstruction formed by the torrent, they
unloaded their canoe, and carried it above a mile further upon their
shoulders, returning again for the cargo, which they were obliged to
transport in the same manner. This was but a prelude to labours and
dangers, incredible to those who dwell at ease. Further on, much longer
carrying places frequently recurred—where they had the vessel and cargo
to drag through thickets, impervious to the day, abounding with snakes
and wild beasts, which are always to be found on the side of rivers.
Their provision of food was necessarily small, for fear of overloading
the slender and unstable conveyance already crowded with goods. A little
dried beef and Indian cornmeal was their whole stock, though they
formerly enjoyed both plenty and variety. They were, in a great measure,
obliged to depend upon their own skill in hunting and fishing, and the
hospitality of the Indians. For hunting, indeed, they had small leisure,
their time being sedulously employed, in consequence of the obstacles
that retarded their progress. In the slight and fragile canoes, they
often had to cross great lakes, on which the wind raised a terrible
surge. Afraid of going into the track of the French traders, who were
always dangerous rivals, and often declared enemies, they durst not
follow the direction of the river St. Lawrence; but, in search of
distant territories and unknown tribes, were wont to deviate to the east
and south-west, forcing their painful way towards the source of “rivers
unknown to song,” whose winding course was often interrupted by
shallows, and oftener still by fallen trees of great magnitude, lying
across, which it was requisite to cut through with their hatchets,
before they could proceed. Small rivers, which wind through fertile
valleys, in this country, are peculiarly liable to this obstruction. The
chestnut and hickory grew to so large a size in this kind of soil, that
in time they became top-heavy, and are then the first prey to the
violence of the winds; and thus falling, form a kind of accidental
bridge over these rivers.
When the toils and dangers of the day were over, the still greater
terrors of the night commenced. In this, which might literally be styled
the howling wilderness, they were forced to sleep in the open air, which
was frequently loaded with the humid evaporation of swamps, ponds, and
redundant vegetation. Here the axe must be again employed to procure the
materials of a large fire, even in the warmest weather. This precaution
was necessary, that the flies and mosquitoes might be expelled by the
smoke, and that the wolves and bears might be deterred by the flame from
encroaching on their place of rest. But the light which afforded them
protection created fresh disturbance, as the American wolves howl to the
fires kindled to affright them—watching the whole night on the
surrounding hills to keep up a concert which truly “rendered night
hideous:” meantime the bull-frogs, terrible though harmless, and smaller
kinds, of various tones and countless numbers, seemed all night calling
to each other from opposite swamps, forming the most dismal assemblage
of discordant sounds. Though serpents abounded very much in the woods,
few of them were noxious. The rattle-snake, the only dangerous reptile,
was not so frequently met with as in the neighbouring provinces, and the
remedy which nature has bestowed as an antidote to his bite, was very
generally known. The beauties of rural and varied scenery seldom
compensated the traveller for the dangers of his journey. “In the close
prison of innumerous boughs,” and on ground thick with underwood, there
was little of landscape open to the eye. The banks of streams and lakes
no doubt afforded a rich variety of trees and plants—the former of a
most majestic size, the latter of singular beauty and luxuriance; but
otherwise they only travelled through a grove of chestnuts or oak, to
arrive at another of maple or poplar, or a vast stretch of pines and
other evergreens. If, by chance, they arrived at a hill crowned with
cedars, which afforded some command of prospect, still the gloomy and
interminable forest, only varied with different shades of green, met the
eye whichever way it turned, while the mind, repelled by solitude so
vast, and silence so profound, turned inward on itself. Nature here wore
a veil rich and grand, but impenetrable—at least this was the impression
it was likely to make on an European mind; but a native American,
familiar from childhood with the productions and inhabitants of the
woods, sought the nuts and wild fruits with which they abounded—the
nimble squirrel, in all its varied forms, the architect beaver, the
savage raccoon, and the stately elk, where we should see nothing but
awful solitudes, untrod by human foot. It is inconceivable how well
these young travellers, taught by their Indian friends, and the
experimental knowledge of their fathers, understood every soil and its
productions. A boy of twelve years old would astonish you with his
accurate knowledge of plants, their properties, and their relation to
the soil and to each other. “Here,” said he, “is a wood of red oak, when
it is grubbed up this will be loam and sand, and make good Indian corn
ground. This chestnut wood abounds with strawberries, and is the very
best soil for wheat. The poplar wood, yonder, is not worth clearing—the
soil is always wet and cold. There is a hickory wood, where the soil is
always rich and deep, and does not run out; such and such plants that
dye blue or orange, grow under it.”
This is merely a slight epitome of the wide views of nature, that are
laid open to these people from their very infancy—the acquisition of
this kind of knowledge being one of their first amusements; yet those
who were capable of astonishing you by the extent and variety of this
local skill, in objects so varied and so complicated, never heard of a
petal, corolla, or stigma in their lives, nor even of the strata of that
soil, with the productions and properties of which they were so
intimately acquainted.
Without compass or guide of any kind, the traders steered through these
pathless forests. In those gloomy days, when the sun is not visible, or
in winter, when the falling snows obscured his beams, they made an
incision in the bark on the different sides of a tree; that on the north
was invariably thicker than the other, and covered with moss in much
greater quantity: and this never-failing indication of the polar
influence, was to those sagacious travellers a sufficient guide. They
had, indeed, several subordinate monitors. Knowing, so well as they did,
the quality of the soil, by the trees or plants most prevalent, they
could avoid a swamp, or approach with certainty to a river or high
ground, if such was their wish, by means, that to us would seem
incomprehensible. Even the savages seldom visited these districts,
except in the dead of winter; they had towns, as they called their
summer dwellings, on the banks of the lakes and rivers in the interior,
where their great fishing places were. In the winter, their grand
hunting parties were in places more remote from our boundaries, where
the deer and other larger animals took shelter from the neighbourhood of
man. These single adventurers sought the Indians in their spring haunts,
as soon as the rivers were open; there they had new dangers to
apprehend. It is well known that among the natives of America, revenge
was actually a virtue, and retaliation a positive duty. While faith was
kept with these people they never became aggressors; but the Europeans,
by the force of bad example and strong liquors, seduced them from their
wonted probity. Yet, from the first, their notion of justice and revenge
was of that vague and general nature, that if they considered themselves
injured, or if one of their tribe had been killed by an inhabitant of
any one of our settlements, they considered any individual of our nation
as a proper subject for retribution. This seldom happened among our
allies; never, indeed, but when the injury was obvious, and our people
very culpable. But the avidity of gain often led our traders to deal
with Indians, among whom the French possessed a degree of influence,
which produced a smothered animosity to our nation. When, at length,
after conquering numberless obstacles, they arrived at the place of
their destination, these daring adventurers found occasion for no little
address, patience, and indeed courage, before they could dispose of
their cargo, and return safely with the profits.
The successful trader had now laid the foundation of his fortune, and
approved himself worthy of her for whose sake he encountered all these
dangers. It is utterly inconceivable, how even a single season spent in
this manner, ripened the mind, and changed the whole appearance—nay, the
very character of the countenance of these demi-savages, for such they
seemed on returning from among their friends in the forests. Lofty,
sedate, and collected, they seem masters of themselves, and independent
of others; though sunburnt and austere, one scarce knows them till they
unbend. By this Indian likeness, I do not think them by any means
degraded. One must have seen these people, (the Indians I mean,) to have
any idea what a noble animal man is while unsophisticated. I have often
been amused with the descriptions that philosophers, in their closets,
who never in their lives saw man, but in his improved or degraded state,
give of uncivilized people; not recollecting that they are at the same
time uncorrupted. Voyagers, who have not their language, and merely see
them transiently, to wonder and be wondered at, are equally strangers to
the real character of man in a social though unpolished state. It is no
criterion to judge of this state of society by the roaming savages,
(truly such,) who are met with on these inhospitable coasts, where
nature is niggardly of her gifts, and where the skies frown continually
on her hard-fated children. For some good reason, to us unknown, it is
requisite that human beings should be scattered through all habitable
space, “till gradual life goes out beneath the pole;” and to beings so
destined, what misery would result from social tenderness and fine
perceptions. Of the class of social beings, (for such indeed they were,)
of whom I speak, let us judge from the traders, who know their language
and customs, and from the adopted prisoners, who have spent years among
them. How unequivocal, how consistent is the testimony they bear to
their humanity, friendship, fortitude, fidelity, and generosity; but the
indulgence of the recollections thus suggested, has already led me too
far from my subject.
The joy that the return of these youths occasioned was proportioned to
the anxiety their perilous journey had produced. In some instances, the
union of the lovers immediately took place before the next career of
gainful hardships commenced. But the more cautious went to New-York in
winter, disposed of their peltry, purchased a larger cargo, and another
slave and canoe. The next year they laid out the profits of their former
adventures in flour and provisions, the staple of the province; this
they disposed of at the Bermuda Islands, where they generally purchased
one of those light-sailing cedar schooners, for building of which those
islanders are famous, and proceeding to the Leeward Islands, loaded it
with a cargo of rum, sugar, and molasses.
They were now ripened into men, and considered as active and useful
members of society, possessing a stake in the common weal.
The young adventurer had generally finished this process by the time he
was one, or, at most, two and twenty. He now married, or if married
before, which pretty often was the case, brought home his wife to a
house of his own. Either he kept his schooner, and, loading her with
produce, sailed up and down the river all summer, and all winter
disposed of the cargoes he obtained in exchange, to more distant
settlers; or he sold her, purchased European goods, and kept a store.
Otherwise he settled in the country, and became as diligent in his
agricultural pursuits as if he had never known any other.
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