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The R<'d Man.
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' Tndiafis,^ althou};!! the designation is as preposterous us if we
were to persist in nick-naming' thein * Persians' or ' Chinese.'
If the annihilation of our red brethren had been completed,
it might be declared to be now as useless, as it certainly would
be unpopular, to enter into any painful speculation on the
subject; but a portion of their race still exists. By the bayonet,
by the diseases we bring among them, by the introduction of
spirituous liquors, by our vices, and last, though not least, by our
proffered friendship, the work of destruction is still progressing ;
and if, in addition to all this, it be true, as in documentary
evidence it has confidently been asserted, that every day through-
out the year the sun sets upon 1000 negroes, who in anguish of
mind, and under sea-sickness, sail as slaves from the coast of
Africa — niinqiiam redituri—surc\y the civilised world is bound to
pause ere it be too late, in an equally merciless course of conduct
towards the * Indians,' which must sooner or later bring upon us
a day of retribution, the justice of which we shall not be able to
deny. But even dismissing from our minds the flagrant immorality
of such conduct, as well as its possible results, it certainly appears
unaccountable that we should have interested ourselves so little
in the philosophical consideration of the condition of man in that
unlettered, simple state, in which only a few centuries ago we
found him on the two continents of America.
If a flock of wild grey geese following their leader in the form
of the letter >, and flying high over our heads at the rate of
1000 miles a day, be compared with the string of birds of the
same species which at the same moment are seen in single file
waddling across their ' short commons' lo their parish puddle ; —
if a flight of widgeon, hundreds of miles from lanrl, and skim-
ming like the shadow of a small cloud over the glassy surface
of the boundless ocean, be compared with a brood of ' lily-white
ducks' luxiuiously dabbling in a horse-pond ; — if the wild boars,
which with their progeny are roaming through the forests of
Europe and Asia in quest of food, be compared to our sly-fed
domestic animals which, with every want supplied, lie with
twinkling eyes grunting in idle cxtacy as the florid bacon-fed
attendant scratches their hides with the prongs of his pitch-
fork ; — if a herd of buffalo with extended tails, retreating across
their plains at their utmost speed from that malignant speck
on the horizon vhich proclaims to them the fearful outline of
the human form, be compared with a Devonshire cow chewing
the cud before a barn-door, while at every stroke of John's flail
honest Susan, leaning her blooming cheek against her favourite's
side, with her bright tin milk-pail at her feet, pulls, pulls, pulls,
so long as she can say, as John Bunyan said of his book,
'still
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The Red Man.
' still as I puUd it came ;' — if the fort'golnj;:, as well as many
similar comjjarisons which mijjht ho hroi^rht hcl'orc tlic iniiid,
were duly considered, it would proljahly he declarctl ili.it there
does not exist in the moral world, and that there can scarcely
exist in the physical, a more striking contrast than that which
distinguishes the condition and character of hirds and animals in
a wild and in an artificial condition.
But there is a contrast in nature even stronger than any we
have mentioned — we mean that which exists between man in his
civilised and uncivilised (or, as we term the latter), lus 'savaije'
state; and, great as the contrast is, and self-interesting as it un-
doubtedly ought to be, it is, nevertheless, most strange how
small a proportiim of our curiosity has been attra(;ted by it.
The scientific world has waged civil war in its geological dis-
cussi(ms on the Huttonian and Wernerian theories. In ex-
ploring the source of the Nile — in seeking for the course of the
Niger — in making voyages of discovery, in order triumphantly
'to plant the British flag on the North Pole of the earth,' man
has not been wanting in enterprise. In his endeavours to obtain
the most accurate knowledge of every ocean, sea, or river — of every
country — of every great range of mountains — of every cataract, or
even volcano — and of evjry extraordinary feature of the globe ; —
in the prosecution of these and of similar inquiries he has not
been wanting in curiosity or courage. Into the natural history
of almost every animal, and even of insects, he has microscopically
inquired. To every plant and little flower he has prescribed a
name. He has dissected the rays of light, and has analysed and
weighed even the air he breathes : and yet, with volumes of in-
formation on all these subjects, it is astonishing to reflect how
little correct philosophical knowledge we possess of the real con-
dition of man in a state of nature.
The rich mine which contained this knowledge has always
been before us, but, because its wealth was not absolutely lying
on the surface, we have been too indolent to dig for it. In short,
between the civilised and uncivilised world a barrier exists, which
neither party is very desirous to cross ; for the v/ild man is as
much opprrssed by the warm houses, by the short tether, and by
the minute regulations of civilised men, as they suffer from sleep-
ing with him under the canopy of heaven, or irom following him
over the surface of his trackless and townless territory ; besides
which, if we reflect for a moment how grotesque the powdered
hair, pig-tails, and whole costume of our fathers and forefathers
now appear to our eyes, and how soon the dress we wear will,
l)y our own children, be alike condemned ; we need not be
surprised at the fact, which all travellers have experienced,
namdv,
Thv lied M,tn.
.'387
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namely, tl'.nt on tho first inlroduction to uiirivilisotl tribes, the
jtulgiiient is too tipt to set down as utterly and merely ridiculous,
f,^'lrnlents, habits, and customs, which on a Ioniser acquaintance it
ol'ten cannot be denied, are not more contom])tible than many of
our own ; in fact, in the great case of ' civilisation versus the
savajje' we are but bad judges in our own cause.
But even supposing that our travellers had been determined to
suspend their opinions and to prosecute their Kjuiries, in spite of
hardships and unsavory food, yet when the barrier has aj)parently
been crossed, the evidence which first j)resents itself bears false
witness in the case; — for just as the richest lodes are covered
at their surface with a glittering substance (termed by miners
' mundic'), resembling metal, but which on being smelted flies
away in poisonous fumes of arsenic — .so is that portion of the un-
civilised world which borders upim civilisation always found to
be contaminated, or, in other words, to have lost its own good
(qualities without having received in return anything but the vices
of the neighbouring race.
It is from the operation of these two causes, that so many of
our travellers in both continents of America, mistaking tho
111 indic for the metal, have overlooked the real Indian character,
firb from a disinclination to encounter the question ; and, se-
condly, having attempted to encounter it, from having been at
once, and at the outset, disgusted with the task. In order, there-
fore, to take a fair view of the Indian, it is evidently necessary
that we should overleap the barrier we have described, and thus
visit him either in the vast interminable plains, — in the lofty and
almost inaccessible mountains, — or in the lonelv interior of the
immense wilderness in which he resides. — In each of these three
situations we have had a very transient opportunity of viewing
him, but it will be on the more ample experience of others that
we shall mainly rely in the following sketches and observations.
It is a singular fact, that while in Europe, Asia, and Africa, there
exist races of men whose complexion and countenances are almost
as strongly contrasted with each other as are animals of different
species, the aborigines of both continents of America everywhere
appear like children of the same race ; indeed the ocean itself under
all latitudes does scarcely preserve a more equable colour than
the red man of America in every situation in which he is found.
Wherever he has been unruttied by injustice, his reception of
his white brother is an affecting example of that genuine hospitality
which is only to be met with in savage tribes. However inferior
the stranger may be to him in stature or in physical strength, ho
at vixiCQ: treats him as a superior being. He is proud to serve
him : it is his highest pleasure to conduct him — to protect him —
and
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Thf Rrd Man.
and to afford him, without cxpectins^ tlio slightest rocomponsc.
all that his country can offer — all that his humble \vi|2:\vani may
contain. If his object in visiting the Indian country be unsus-
pected, the stranger's life and property are perfectly secure ;
under such circumstances, we believe, there has scarcely ever
been an instance of a vvLite man having been murdered or
robbed. Mr, Catlin, who has had, perha])S, more experience
of these simple people than any other white inhabitant of
the globe, unhesitatingly adds his testimony to this general
remark. From the particular objects of hk visit to the Indians,
he had more baggage than any individual would usually carry.
At no time, however, was his life in greater danger than theirs,
and in no instance was he pilfered of a single article — on the
contrary, it was not until he reached the contaminated barrier
that he found it even necessary to watch over his baggage; and,
indeed, it was not until he returned to people of his own colour,
that he found it almost impossible to protect the various items of
his property.
The Indians talk but little ; and though their knowledge is of
course limited, yet they have at least the wisdom never to speak
when the have nothing to say ; and it is a remarkable fact, which
has repeatedly been observed, that they neither curse nor swear.
When an Indian arrives with a message of the greatest import-
ance to his tribe, even with intelligence of the most imminent
danger, he never tells it at his first approach, but sits down for a
minute or two in silence, to recollect himself before he speaks,
that he may not evince fear or excitement ; for though these people
admit, that when individual talks to individual, any licence may be
permitted, they consider that in all dealings between nation and
nation the utmost dignity should be preserved. 'I'he public
speakers are accordingly selected from the most eloquent of their
tribes ; and it is impossible for any one who has not repeatedly
listened to them, to describe the effects of the graceful attitude,
the calm argument, and the manly sense with which they express
themselves. Indeed, it seems perfectly unaccountable how men
— who have never read a line, who have never seen a town, who
have never heard of a school, and who have passed their whole
existence either among rugged mountains, on boundless plains, or
closely envinmed by trees, — can manage, all of a sudden, to ex-
press themselves without hesitation, in beautiful language, and
afterwards listen to the reply as calmly and as patiently.
It has often been said ex cathedra that the Indians are inferior
to ourselves in their powers of body and mind. With respect to
their physical strength, it should on the outset be remembered that
men, like animals, are strong in proportion to the sustenance they
receive.
Thv Rid Mii>i.
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receive. In many parts of America, wlioro tlie country, nccordinj;
to the seas<m of the year, is cither venlant or parched, it is well
known that not only the horses and cattle are infinitely stronsjcr
at the former season than at the latter, but that the human inha-
bitants who feed on them are sympathetically fat and powerful at
the one period, and lean and weak at the other. Even in oui'
own country, a horse or a man in condition* can effect infinitely
more than when they are taken either from a meadow or a gaol ;
and accordingly a sturdy well-fed Englishman may with truth
declare, that he has been able to surpass in bodily strength his
red brother ; but let him subsist for a couple of months on the
s.ime food, or on only twice or thrice the same quantity of food,
and he will soon cease to despise the physical powers of his com-
panion. The weights which Indian carriers can convey, the sur-
prising distances which their runners can perform, the number of
hours they can remain on horseback, and the length of time they
can subsist without food, are facts which unanswerably disprove
the alleged inferiority of their strength.
In one of the most remote and mountainous districts of their
country, when it was completely enveloped in snow, we happened,
at the bottom of a deep mine, to see a naked Indian in an adit, or
gallery, in which he could only kneel. We had been attracted
towards him by the loud and constant reverberation of the heavy
blows he was striking ; and so great was the noise he was making
that we crawled towards him unobserved, and for a minute or two
knelt close behind him. Not the slightest perspiration appeared
on his deep red body ; but with the gad or chisel in his left hand,
he unremittingly continued at his work, until we suddenly arrested
his lean sinewy right arm ; and as soon as he had recovered from
his astonishment, we induced him to surrender to us the hammer he
was using, which is now in our possession Its weight is no less
than eighteen pounds, exactly twice as much as a blacksmith's
double-handed hammer ; and we can confidently assert that no
miner or labourer in this country could possibly wield it for five
minutes, and that, among all the sturdy philosophers who congre-
gate at Lord Northampton's soiree or Mr. Babbage's conversa-
zione, hardly one besides Professor Whewell could use it for a
tenth of that time.
Mr. Catlin states, that in another very distant part of America,
a short thick-set warrior, known by the appellaticm of * the
Brave,' amicably agreed, before a large party of spectators, to
wrestle with some of tlic most pf)v/erful trooj)ers in a regiment of
* The Indians train then^selves for war by extra t'ood, and hv sweating themselves
in a vaiiour bafli, which they ini;oiiii)usly I'orni hy covering flieniselves over with a
skin, under which they have jihiced hot stones, liept wet hy a small stream of water.
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United States' drafjoons ; and that the Indian, pfiapphn": ^vith one
after another, (h-jshed thcni successively to the jyround with a
violenre which they did not at all appear to enjoy, but w ith about
as much ease seeminpcly to himself as if they had been so many
maids of honour.
With resj)e(t to the moral power of the red al)oris:ines, in
ad(Ution to the few short specimens of their sjieeches and replies
which we mean by and by to notice, wc must observe, that
the tortures which these beardless men can smilingly and rx-
ultingly endure, must surely be admitted as proofs of a com-
manding fibre of mind, of a self-possession — in short, of a moral
prowess which few among us could evince, and which we there-
fore ought to blush to deny to them as their due. Injustice,
however, to the Indian character, we deem it a painful duly to
quote a single authenticated instance of the triumph of the red
man's mind over the anguish of his l)ody. We hope that ' the
better-half of our readers will pass it over unread, as revolting
to the soft feelings of their nature ; but the question is too im-
portant for us to shrink from the production of real evidence ;
and, having undertaken their defence, we feel we should not l)e
justified in suddenly abandoning it, from the apprehension lest
any man should call it ' unmannerly to bring a slovenly unhand-
some corse betwixt the wind and his nobility.'
The Hon. Cadwallader Colden, who, in 1 750, was one of his
Majesty's counsel, and surveyor-general of New York, in his
' History of the Five Indian Nati(ms of Canada,' * says, —
* The French, all this summer, were obliged to keep upon the de-
fensive within their forts, while the Five Nations, in small parties,
ravaged the whole country, so that no man stirred the least distance
from a fort but he was in danger of losing his scalp.
* The Count de Frontenac was pierced to the heart when he found he
could not revenge these terrible incursions; and his anguish made
him guilty of such a piece of monstrous cruelty, in burning a prisoner
alive after the Indian manner, as, though I have frequently mentioned
to have been done by the Indians, yet I forbore giving the particulars
of such barbarous acts, suspecting it might be too offensive to Christian
ears, even in the history of savages
* The Count de Frontenac, I say, condemned two prisoners of the
Five Nations to be burnt publicly alive. The Intendant's lady entreated
him to moderate the sentence ; and the Jesuits, it is said, used their
endeavours for the same purpose ; but the Count de Frontenac said,
*' There is a necessity of making such an example, to frighten the Five
Nations from approaching the plantations." But, with submission to
the politeness of the French nation, may I not ask whether every (or
any) horrid action of a barbarous enemy can justify a civilised nation in
"^ We (^iioto from the London edition, 8vo. p. 487 — 1750.
doing
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The Red Man.
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doing the like ? "When the Governor could not he moved, the Jesuits
went to the prison to instruct the prisoners in the mysteries of our holy
religion, viz., of the Trinity, the incarnatiDU of our Saviour, the joys of
Paradise, nnd the punishments of Hell, to lit theiv souls for Heaven by
baptism, while their bodies were condemned to torments. But the
Indians, after they had heard their scntonce, refused to hear the Jesuits
speak; and began to prepare for death in their own country manner, by
singing their death-song. Some charitable ])erBon threw a knife into
the prison, with which one of them despatched himself. The other was
carried out to the place of execution by the Christian hidians of Lnretto,
to which he walked, seemingly, with fis much indifference as ever martyr
did to the stake. While they were *orturing him, he continued singing,
that he was a warrior brave, and without fear ; that the most cruel death
could not shake his courage ; that the most cruel torments should not
draw an indecent expression from him ; that his comrade was a coward,
a scandal to the Five NadonSy who had killed himself for fear of pain ;
that he had the comfort to reflect that he had made many Frenchmen
suffer as he did now. He fully verified his words, for the rrost violent
torments could not force the least complaint from hmi, though his exe-
cutioners tried their utmost skill to do it. They first broiled his feet
between two red-hot stones; then they put his fingers into red-hot
pipes, and though he had his arms at liberty, he would not pull his
fingers out; they cut his joints, and taking hold of the sinews, twisted
them round small bars of iron. All this while, he kept singing and re-
counting his own brave actions against the French. At last they flayed
his scalp from his skull, and poured scalding hot sand upon it, at which
time the Intendant's lady obtained leave of the Governor to have the
coup de fjrace given ; and I believe she thereby likewise obtained a
favour to every reader, in delivering him from a further continuance of
this account of French cruelty.'
We have selected this tragic story out of many, because it offers
a double moral ; for it not only evinces the indomitable power of
an Indian mind, but it at once turns the accusation raised against
the cruelty of his nature, upon a citizen of one of the politest and
bravest nations of the civilised globe, and with this fact before him
v/ell might the red man say, " smo sih'i yladio hunc jugulo ! '
With a view, however, to show that an Indian heart is not
always unsusceptible of the horror we must all feel at the torture
they are in the habit of inflicting upon their prisoners of war, we
have pleasure in offering, especially to the fairer sex, the follow-
ing anecdote related by Captain Bell and Major Long, of the
United States Army, and certified by Major O'Fallan the
American agent, as also by his interpreter who witnessed it.
A few years ago a Pawnee warrior, son of ' Old Knife,' know-
ing that his tribe, according to their custom, were going to torture
a Paduca woman, whom they had taken in war, resolutely deter-
mined, at all hazards, to rescue her, if possible, from so cruel a
fate.
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f;it(?. Tlic poor rro.'ituro, far from hor family and triho, and sur-
roundod only by tfie raffcr altitmlos and anxious faros of lior
enpinios, had Ik'pu actually fastonr<l to the stake — her funeral pile
was about to be kindled, and every eye was mercilessly directed
upon her, when the younj; chieftain, mounted on one horse, and.
nccordinpf to the habit of his country, leadins; another, was seen
nj)proaching the ceremony at full frailop. — To the astonishment
of every one, he rode straip;ht up to the j)ile — extricated the
victim from the stake — threw her on the loost? horse, :md then
vaultinn^ cm the ba(;k of the other, he carried her off in triumph !
' She is won ! we arc gone — over hank, busli, and scaur ;
* " They'll have Heet steeds that folio-.," quoth young Lochinvar.'
The deed, however, was so sudden and unexpected — and. being
mysterious, it was at the moment so j2:enerally considered as
nothing less than the act of the Great Spirit, that no efforts were
made to resist it, and the captive after three days' travelling, was
thus safely transported to ber nation, and to her friends. On the
return of her liberator to bis own people, no censure was i)asse<i
upon his extraordinary conduct — it was allowed to pass unnoticed.
On the publication of ibis glorious love-story at Washington,
the boarding-school girls of Miss White's seminary were so
sensibly touched by it, tb.at they very prettily subscribed among
each other to purchase a silver medal, bearing a suitable inscrij)-
tion, which they presented to the young Red-skin, as a token of
the admiration of white-skins at the chivalrous act he had per-
formed, in having i escued one of their sex from so unnatural a
fate. Their address closed as follows : —
* Brother ! accept this token of our esteem ; always wear it for our
sakes ; and when again you have the power to save a poor woman from
death, think of this, and of us, and fly to her relief.'
The young Pawnee had been unconscious of his merit, but he
was not ungrateful : —
' Brothers and sisters!' he exclaimed, extending towards them the medal
which had been hanging on his red naked breast, ' this will give me ease
more than I ever had, and I will listen more than I ever did to white men.
* I am glad that my brothers and sisters have heard of the good act
I have done. My brothers and sisters think that I did it in ignorance ;
but I now know what I have done.
* I did it in ignorance, and did not know that I did good ; but by
giving me this medal I know it!'
The tranquillity and serenity which characterise an Indian in
time of peace are strangely contrasted with the furious passions
which convulse him in war. The moral thermometer, which, in
the English character, is generally somewhere about ' temperate,'
is with the Indians either many degrees below zero or high above
the
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tlic point at wliirh it is dcdan'd that • spirits l)()il.' The ranjrn
of the red man's emotions is infniitely ri^reater than that of his
whitf^ brother; and to all who have witnessed only the ralnniess,
the patie.ice, the endurance, and the silence of the Indians, it
seems almost incredible that the most furious passions should
he lyinfj dormant in a heart that seems fdled with benevolence;
and that under the sweet countenance which blossoms like the
rose there should be reposinjx in a coil a venomous serpent which
is only waitinjj to spring upon its enemy !
Althoujfh, therefore, it mifjht perhaps be said, that if the two
extremes of the Indian character were allowed to compensate each
other, they would not be far distant from the mean of our own, yet
vices and virtues ought not to be thus considered. In designating
the human character, there should be no compromise of principle;
no blending nf colours ; and accordingly we confess, without hesi-
tation, that nothing can be more barbarous than the manner in
which the Indians occasionally treat their nrisoners of war; yet in
this also they have two most remarkable ey*!-emes of conduct ; for
on presenting their captives to those who have lost relations in
battle, if they are accepted, they immediately become free, and
enjoy all the privileges of the persons in lieu of whom they have
been received. In fact they are adopted, and in (me moment sud-
clonly find thcirselves surrounded by people who address them,
and who act towards them, as brothers, sisters, parents, and even as
wives ! On the other hand, if they are rejected by the famili*:s of
the slain, then their doom is fixed, their torture is prepared, and
when the fatal moment arrives, there again appear before the
observer of the Indian character two extremes, in both of which
they infinitely surpass us. For the noblest resignation, the purest
courage, the most powerful self-possession are contrasted in the
same red race with the basest vengeance, the most barbarous
cruelty, and the most unrelenting malice that it is possible even
for poetry to conceive.
' About the time,' says Cadwallader Colden, ' of the conclusion of
the peace at Reswick, the noted Theronet died at Montreal. The
French gave him Christian burial in a pompous manner ; the priest
that attended liim at his death having declared that he died a true
Christian ; for, said the ])riest, while I explained to him the passion of
our Saviour, whom the Jews crucified, he cried out, " Oh, had T been
there I would have revenged his death, and brought away their scalps! '' '
We have no desire to attempt to waph out the ' damned spot'
which we have just described. Its sta;n upon the Indian cha-
racter is indelible : at the same time we must offer a few observa-
tions on the subject.
The feelings which actuate the great armies of Europe are
altogether
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The Red Man.
altogether tliffcront from those under whJch two tribes of Indians
meet each other in battle. In the former case the soldiers
but imperfectly understand the pohtical question in dispute,
and ihey come into action very much in the same slate of mind
in which an individual would take his ground to fight a duel for
his friend with a person he had never before seen, in defence
of some unknown lady, who had received some sort of insult
which he could not clearly comprehend. Accordingly, the word
of command regulates their attack ; and at the sound of the
bugle or the trumpet they advance or retreat, as the judgment
of a distant individual may deem it proper to ordain.
Nevertheless, though they be in cool possession of their
senses, let any man, — after having witnessed the misery and
anguish of a field of battle, after having mourned over this dread-
ful sacrifice of human life, and after having, perhaps a few days
later, found on the plain, still writhing, hundreds of wounded
men, robbed of their clothes by suttlers, and even by women,
who, like a flock of vultures, follow every civilised army to prey
upon the fallen — declare whether, on reflecting upcm sucii a
scene, he has not devoutly wished that it could wholly be attri-
buted to the angry passions of man, rather than to the cold
judgment of the statesmen of the nations that had been en-
gaged. At all events, to be a party in such a scene is not the
habit of the Indians. On the other hand, if a foreign tribe,
with faces painted for war, invade their territory to deprive
them of the game on which they subsist — if in time of peace
they treacherously murder any of their families — carry off their
women — or if they offend their rude notions of honour by an in-
sult ; — when enmity against an individual or against a tribe, under
such provocation, is once imbibed, it flows in their veins, at
every pulsation it reaches their heart, and continues to infect it,
until revenge has washed away the injury that has been received.
With their passions violently self-excited by every artifice in their
power, they accordingly prepare for death or vengeance, and,
under these circumstances, the sole object they have in view is to
take the life of their enemy, or, if he surrenders, to demonstrate
the inferiority of his tribe by subjecting him to a torture which
they themselves, be it always remembered, were fully prepared to
have endured with songs of triumph, had the fortune of war sen-
tenced them to the test.
However revolting such barbarous cruelty must be to every
mind, yet surely no one can deny that the difference between
the two pictures we have described is nothing but the necessary
consequence of two opposite systems. The cold-blooded system
of the civilised world is undoubtedly the best ; on the other hand.
so
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The Red Man.
395
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so long .IS our laws mercifully refrain from punishing with death
the man who has destioyed his fellow-creature in a paroxysm
of passion, we may justly claim for the Indian that the same con-
sideration may l)e extended to his guilt. And if, moreover,
white men, fighting in cold blood, bi; justly declared by us to
have ' covered themselves with glory' by the scenes which have
been witnessed in European warfare, may not the savage tribes
of America humbly sue, at least to Heaven, for comparative
pardon, for the excesses they have committed in a fit ofamjer 9
With respect to their scalping system (which is not perpetrated
by the Indians as a punishment, Ijut on the principle on which
our hunters proudly carry home with them, as a trophy, ' the
brush' of the fox they have run to death), it is of course hor-
rible in the extreme ; at the same time, it may be said, that if
war can authorise us to blow out the Inains of our enemies —
run them through the body with our bayonets — hash them with
our swords — riddle them with round shot, grape, and canister
— and if, while the wounded are lying on the ground, it is our
habit, from necessity, to ride over them with our cavalry, and
with our artillery and ball-cartridge carts to canter over them as if
they were straw — if we can burn them with rockets, scald them with
steam, and by the explosion of well-conslructed mines blow them
by hundreds into the air — surely we are not altogether authorised
in so gravely declaring that, the civilised world having determined
the precise point to which war ought to be carried, it is therefore
undeniable that all who copy our fashions are * valientes," and that
whoever exceed it are ' savages' and ' brutes !' No doubt Achilles
thought himself at the very height of the fashion when he dragged
the body of Hector round the walls of Troy. The Phcenicians
no doubt thought it exquisitely fashionable to burn their children
in sacrifice. Many of us can remember when the guillotine was
in fashion ; and, lastly, the alterations which have taken place in
our own criminal laws show, that though the scales of justice
remain unaltered, the Goddess's sword has within the last few
years been deliberately shortened by us to half its ancient length.
In the few schools in which they have been educated by us,
the red children have evinced, not only many estimable virtues,
but considerable ability.
' f\ll the children of Indian schools,' says Dr. Morse, in his Report to
the Secretary at War, ' make much greater progress than is common in
our schools, and the missionaries declare that the children are more
modest and affectionate, and are more easily managed.'
To the above statement we are enabled to add our own testi-
mony, for in several seminaries which we have chanced to inspect,
we have seen the Indian boys perform sums in practice and in
VOL. Lxv. NO. cxxx. 2 K vulgar
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396
The Red Man.
vulgar fractions with a surprising quickness, and, on our express-
ing our astonishment, we have been assured by one of their
masters, who for many years liad conducted a respectable school
in England, that he was deliberately of opinion that the red
children learnt quicker than those of the same age at home.
The honesty of the Indian is sufficiently evinced by the uni-
versal custom of our fur- traders to sell to him almost all their
goods upon credit. Beads, trinkets, and paint, gun-powder,
whiskey, and many other perishable articles, are willingly made
over to him, under the mere promise that when the hunting season
is ended he will pay the number of skins that has been settled as
their price. The Indian then darts away into his recesses, as the
dolphin dives through the ocean from a vessel's side, and before
a month or two have elapsed he is lost in space, beyond the con-
trol of anything but his own honour ; nevertheless, as the • busy
bee ' faithfully returns to its hive, and as the eagle affection
ately revisits its young, so does the red debtor reappear before
his creditor, silently to liquidate the debt of honour he had in-
curred.
The religion of the red man in both continents of America
consists universally of a belief in a Great and Good Spirit, and in
a ' Manito,' or Evil Genius. They address themselves to both,
and accordingly the young modest Indian girl, with her arms
folded across her bosom, as fervently entreats the Fiend ' to lead
her not into temptation' as her parents, under every affliction, pray
to the Great Spirit ' to deliver them from evil.'
The various nations have different notions of the origin of their
race: — it is nevertheless an extraordinary fact, vouched for by
Mr, Catlin, that of all the tribes he visited there was no one
which did not by some means or other connect their origin with
* a big canoe/ which was supposed to have rested on the summit
of some hill or mountain in their neighbourhood. The Mandan
Indians carry this vague Mount Ararat impression to a very
remarkable extent, for Mr. Catlin found established among them
an annual ceremony held round *a great canoe,' entitled in their
language ' the settling of the waters,' which was held always on
the day in which the willow trees of their country came into
blossom. On asking why that tree out of all others was se-
lected, IVIr. Catlin was informed that it was because it was fr())n
it that the bird flew to them with a branch in its mouth : and
when it was inquired ivhat bird it was, the Indians pointed to
the dove, which, it appears, was held so sacred among them,
that neither man, woman or child would injure it ; indeed, the
Mandans declared that even their dogs instinclively respected that
bird.
In
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The Red Man.
397
In a few of the tribes there exists a tradition that they are the
descendants of people born across * the great salt lake,' but most
believe that their race was originally created on their own con-
tinent. Some conceive that the Great Spirit made them out of
the celebrated red stone, from which, out of a single quarry, from
time immemorial, they have made their pipes. Others say they
were all created from the dust of the eaiih; but those who have
become acquainted with white peojjle modestly add, 'The Great
Spirit must have made you out of the fine dust, for you know
more than we.'
In the year 1821, ' Big Elk,' chief of the O'Mahars, and some
other sachems, who had come to Washington, were examined by
Dr. Morse, to whose queries they g.ave the following replies: —
' Q. \^ ho made the red and the white people? — A. The same Being
who made tlie white people made the red people, but the white people
are better than the red.
' Q. From whence did your fathers come ? — A. We have u tradition
among us that our ancestors came to this country across the great water ;
that eight men were originally made by the Great Spirit ; and that
mankind of all colours and nations sprang from these.
' Q. Do you believe that the Great Spirit is present, and that he sees
and knows what you do? — A. Yes; wlien Ave pray and deliberate in
council, it is not ice that deliberate, but the Great Spirit.'
The following is from the report of an interview that look
])lace in 1821 between Major Cummings, of the U.S. army, and
a nation of Indians formed by the union of the three tribes,
Pottawattemics, Chippewas, and Ottawas : —
' Q. What ceremonies have you at the burial of your dead." — A,
These vary. We bury by putting the body under ground in a case, or
wrapped in skins ; sometimes by placing it in trees, or standing it erect
and enclosing it with a paling. This difterence arises generally from
the request of the man before he died, or from the dream of a relative.
We place with the dead some part of their property, believing that as
it was useful to them during their life, it may prove so to them when
they are gone.
' Q. Do you believe that the soul lives after tlio body is dead ? —
A. We do, but that it does not leave this world till its relatives and
friends feast, and do brave actions, to obtaiii its safe support. Q. Do
you believe there is a place of happiness and of misery ? — A, We do.
The happy are employed in feasting and dancing; the miserable wander
through the air. Q. What entitles a person to the place of happiness,
and what condemns a person to the place of misery? — A. To be entitled
to the i)lace of happiness, a man must be a good hunter, and possess
a generous heart. The miser, the envious man, the liar, and the
cheat ari^ condcnnied to the place of misery.'
In rocky regions, where it would be impossible to dig a grave,
the Indians arc in the habit of laying out their dead on the Hat
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398
The Red Man.
rock. The son places a bow and arrow, or even a rifle with
powder and shot, by the corpse of his lather, who, with his
mysferi/ or medicine-hag on his chest, is then covered over with
loose stones, merely sufficient to keep off the wild beasts. We
have more than once had occasion to sleep upon the ground, in
the open air, among these simple sepulchres, which are so reli-
giously respected by the Indians, that scarcely anything would
induce them to violate their sanctity. A hunter starving from
having exhausted his powder or shot, will occasionally, sooner than
die, borrow ammunition from the dead, but though no human being
has witnessed the act, the red man's conscience tells him it was
seen by the Great Spirit. His mind, therefore, is never at rest
until, bending in solitude over the mouldering skeleton he has
once again uncovered, he honourably repays, perhajjs by moon-
light, the debt he has incurred : —
• He thought as he took it, the dead man frown'il ;
But the glare of the sepulchral light
Perchance had dazzled the warrior's sight.'
About a year or two ago, an English female tourist, whose
name — though it does not deserve our protection — we are not
disposed to mention, happening to pass some of these graves,
uncovered one, and in presence of two or three Indians, viiy
coolly carried off the sleeping tenant's skull, with as little ap-
pearance of feeling, as if it had been a specimen of quartz or
granite. The red witnesses of the act looked at each other in
solemn silence, but on imparting the extraordinary scene they had
witnessed to their chief, councils were held — the greatest possible
excitement was created — and to this day, these simple people
(or * savages,' as we term them) speak with horror and repug-
nance of what they consider an uncalled-for and an unaccount-
able violation of the respect which they think is religiously due to
the dead. For our parts, we can safely say, we have often felt
that we would not be haunted by the possession of that skull, for
all the blue-stockings that ever were knit, or for all the accla-
mations that phrenologists can bestow.
People who commit these sort of acts, little think of the
serious consequences they may entail upon travellers who have
the misfortune to follow them. The headless skeleton we have
mentioned may yet be revenged, and, certainly, if in the neigh-
bourhood of bis violated grave, the body of a white man should
be found,
' Cold, and drench'd with blood,
His bosom gored with many a wound,
Unknown the manner of his death ;
Gone his br&nd both sword and sheath,'
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The Red Man.
399
ii!
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it might reasonably be noted down, that he had, most probably,
been made to pay the penalty of the thoughtless deed of a sen-
timental English spinster.
An Indian mourns for the loss of near relations from six to
twelve months, by neglecting his personal appearance, and by
blackening his face.
• A woman,' says Dr. Morse, * will mourn for the loss of her husband
at least twelve months, during which time she appears to be very soli-
tary and sad, never speaking to any one, unless necessary, and always
wishing to be alone. At the expiration of her mourning, she will paint
and dress as formerly, and endeavour to get another husband.'
We believe this process is not peculiar to red-skins.
The * births ' and ' marriages,' which, according to the fashion-
able regulations of the * Morning Post,' ought to have been
noticed by us before the ' deaths,' are very easily described.
The red infant j:enerally first opens his eyes, or, rather,
utters his first squa 1, in a very small, low hovel, or den, made
expressly for the occasion of his birth, and, from feelings of
delicacy and propriety, purposely removed some distance from
the great wigwam of the family. In a very few hours after his
arrival, his mother walks with him to her tribe, where he gene-
rally finds plenty of brothers, sisters, and young cousins ready to
receive him.
On suddenly approaching an Indian family in summer, they are
generally found grouped together under the shade of some great
tree ; and the first observation which strikes the white-faced
stranger, is the wholesale superabundant stor': of health which
the children possess. It is evident at a glance, that their consti-
tutions must be impervious to the elements, and there is a plump-
ness in their faces, a firmness in their flesli, and a deej) ruddy
bloom on their cheeks, which it is very pleasing to behold.
While these children, gambolling nearly naked, are proclaiming
pretty plainly by their outlines what a f{uantity of sou]) and food
they have just been enjoying, the elder ones with their parents
are generally seen ruminating in silence, in a semicircle, in the
centre of which are to be observed, also seated (m the ground, the
grandfathers great-grandfathers, and grcat-grandmotliers of the
tribe. Nothing can be move patriarchal^ — more free from care
or suffering of any kind, than the group W(; have delineated,
which might justly be termed 'a picture of health.'
The naming of an Indian is a serious act, which is always pur-
posely involved as much as possible in mystery. His name is to
be the leading letter in the alphabet of his life, and, accordingly,
as in the case of the Sliandy family, it frequently happens that
a considerable time is suffered to elapse before it can be agreed
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on ; during which period of doubt, the child is often made to
last, until something has lieen observed or recollected either in
the elements which have assailed him, or in the difliculties he
has overcome, or in the circumstances which attended his birth,
or in his dispositi(m, to solve the problem, by suggesting an ap-
propriate appellation, which is then solemnly bestowed. And
yet, proud as an Indian is of his own name, it is ncveitheless
most singular, that he can never be induced to lUler it. We
have often pressed them to do so, but always in vain ; for they
avert their minds from the question with the same curious atti-
tude ill which a dog turns his head away whenever a clean, empty
wine-glass is presented at him. ' Oh ! no, we never mention him !'
is the modest reply of his countenance, and the most an Indian
will ever do, Avhen hard j)re'?sed, is to look full into the lace of
some red brother at his side, who, without the slightest reluct-
ance, relieves him from his embarrassment, by smilingly j)r()-
nouncing his cc.nrade's name ; although if his own were to be
asked of him, he would, in like manner, be suddenly confounded.
Among the Indians in both continents of America, marriage is
considered as a civil contract, rather than as a religious ceremony.
Polygamy is the exception rather than the rule, and it is £rono-
rally confined to the chiefs, and to men whose situations entail
upon them the necessity of entertaining a number of guests, and
who therefore absolutely require more female assistance than ho
who has only his own family to provide for.
One of the prime objects which a young Indian hunter has in
marrying is to obtain a person who will work for him ; that is
to say, who will cook his meals, make his clothes, repair his
wigwam, gum his canoe, dress the skins he procures, &c. One
of the great objects Avhich an Indian girl, in marrying, has ia
view, is to obtain a friend who will protect her in war as well as
in peace, and who will procure' for her food and covering. The
connexion, therefore, is one not only of natural and mutual benefit
and haj)piness, but almost of necessity ; for as there is no such
thing known among them as a hired servant, the greatest warrior
can only get his dinner by marrying a woman to cook it ; and,
on the other hand, the young Indian girl, (according to Mrs.
Glasse's receipt of ' first catch vour hare ') cannot become a
professed cook until she has managed to engage a husband to
procure her the game.
Under these two simple principles of attraction they marry vci-y
early; the young inen being gcmerally about 18 years of age, the
girls from 12 to 14. If an Indians possessions in(;rease, he does
not hesitate to add to them another wife, and accordingly, men are
occasionally found who are worth six or seven wives ; in whicli
case.
I
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401
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case,
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case, we are very sorry intleod to say, the ladies usually rnnk in
his affection, inversely as the dates oi" their commissions !
That improvident marriages are occasionally contracted will be
evident, from the following anecdote of a young Indian of about
18, whose picture is to be seen in Mr. Catlin's gallery: —
The father of this lad having beciueathed to him nine horses
and a wigwam, he naturally enough determined to marry : and in
the operation of reconnoitring for a wife, he found so many
who exactly suited him, that his nuptials were appointed with-
out delay. On the tribe being assembled to witness the cere-
mony, an old Indian stepped forward, and, delivering over to the
man of i <rtune his young blooming daughter, received from
him in return a couple of horses. But before the ceremony
could be proceeded with, three other Indians, with thiee other
equally blooming daughters, successively presented to the young
bridegroom a wife, for each of whom they received, according to
his previous promise, a couple of horses ; and yet each of the
four fathers, all having separately been bound to secrecy, had con-
ceived that his daughter alone was to be the ' wedded wife.' While
the improvident young man, whose patrimony had thus suddenly
dwindled into nothing but one horse, four wives, and a wigwam, with
perfect calmness was leading away his partners, two in each hand,
to his lent, the spectators, left in the circle in which they had ranged
themselves, remained for a few moments in mute reilection. The
act they had witnessed was so unexpected, so improvident, and so
unusual, that, not knowing how to digest it, on our old ' omne-
ignotum-pro-magnifico' principle, they voted it a mystery ; and at
once, pronouncing the bridegroom to be ' a mystery, or medicine
man,'
' They left him alone in his glory ! '
As the anecdote we have just related does not sound very cha-
racteristic of the purity of Indian women, we feel it proper to
observe that, degraded as their condition certainly is, wherever
they have been contaminated by the vices of the old world, yet
in their natural state, they are often distinguished by an innate
modesty, and by a propriety of conduct, to which even the tradets
among them have borne ample testimony. Although these
peo])le are always furnished with trinl^ets, of inestimable value to
the Indians, to be given to them as presents, for the sole object of
conciliating the tribe, and though they have too often endea-
voured to misapply these presents, yet the traders do not hesitJite
to confess how constantly they have found themselves bafHed.
While the red woman is attending to her baUv, making mo-
cassins for her husband, collecting gum for his canoe, c^cc , he is
infinitely more actively employed, either in the prairies, in j)ur-
suing
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The Red Man.
suing the buffalo, or in the forest, in tracking the deer and the
bear; and during the hunting season the Indians usually wander,
with their families, over an immense region of country, to many
parts of which they must unavoidably be total strangers.
On leaving the wigwam which contains his children, and which,
in the recesses of the interminable desert, can scarcely be seen
twenty yards off, the hunter pursues his course in whatever direc-
tion he thinks most likely to lead him to game. After travelling
for many hours, he at last comes up with foot-marks, upon which,
from th(ur freshness, he determines to settle ; he accordingly fol-
lows them throughout their eccentric course ; wherever the animal
has turned, he turns ; and in this way, for a considerable time,
and with his mind highly (excited, he prosecutes his game, until
he actually has it in view. With unerring aim he then fires his
rifle or his arrow ; and when his victim, having fallen, has been
despatched by his knife, leaving the carcase on the ground, and
without deigning to retrace his own footsteps, he instinctively dives
into the forest, and proceeds to his wigwam, as straight as an amiw
to the target !
This astonishing recollection, even under the excitement of the
chase, of the carte-du-pays through which he hunted, may ha
offered as another proof against the assertion that the Indians are
our inferiors in mental power.
When a red man enters his wigwam after hunting, it is the cus
torn of his wife to say nothing ; she does not dare to ask what
success he has had ; for anxious as she is, and as he has been, on
the subject, she knows he is too tired to talk, and that he wants
not conversation, but rest and refreshment. Accordingly, she
presents to him dry mocassins, and, as quickly as possible, his food,
which, in dead silence, he pertinaciously devours. While he is
thus engaged, it may easily be conceived that female curiosity is
almost ready to burst the red skin that contains it. If the Indian
happens to draw out his knife, the wife's dark eyes eagerly glance
upon it, to see if she can discover welcome blood, or a single hair
of an animal upon its blade. If he gives her his pouch, with an
arbitrary motion of his hand to lay it aside, in obeying the silent
mandate, she peeps into it, to see if the red tongue-string of the
deer, which the hunter cuts out as a trophy, is there. She looks
at the lock of his rifle, to see if it has been often fired ; or at
his quiver, to count if any of his arrows are missing ; in short,
she endea^ours, by every means in her power, to find out, just
as fine London ladies do, what the husband has been doing when
from home — at ' the club,' or elsewhere.
While the Indian is occupied at his meal, we may take the op-
portunity of observing that these people pride themselves in
holding
m
4 \ i
The Red Matt.
403
ing
holdinp^ all sorts of food in equal psteom. A Mohawk chief told
Dr. Morse, ' that a man eats evei ythinjj without distinction —
bears, cats, dogs, snakes, frojjs.' 6ic. ; addinjj, that ' it was woman-
ish to have any delicacy in the choice of food.' Tlicy will take a
turkey, pluck off the feathers, and then, without any farther
operation, roast it and eat it, just as we nianas:e with oysters. In
some tribes, there is no doubt, they even eat the bodies of their
prisonert. Colonel Schuyler told Dr. Morse, that durinj^ their
war with the French, ho was invited to cat broth with them, which
was ready cooke<l. He did so ; until, as they were stirring the
ladle into the kettle, to give him some more, they lifted up a
Frenchman's hand, which, as may easily l)e conceived, put an end
to his appetite.
As soon as the hunter we have just left is refreshed and full, of
his own accord he begins to relate to the partner of his wigwam
where he has been, and what he has done. He tells her where
he first found the track, where it turned, and how it dodged. He
crouches down, as he describes where he first got a view of his
game, and it is again apparently within his savage grasp, as,
starting from his seat, he exultingly shows the manner and the
vital part in which he stabbed it.
When this domestic scene in the picture gallery of an Indian's
fire-side is concluded, it is the duty of the wife to go and bring the
dead animal home — an act which a thorough-bred hunter considers
would degrade him. Accordingly, from the description which
has been given to her of the spot on which it fell, by retracing
her husband's footsteps, wherever it is possible to do so, and by
attentively looking out to the right and left for the hanging twigs,
which, she knows, in iciurning to the wigwam, he will have
broken, as evidence to her of his path, she manages to arrive at
the slaughtered game, of which, it may fairly be said, she earns
her share, by bringing it on her shoulders to the den.
If our limits could admit them, endless are the sketches that
might be offered to our readers of the simple habits and domestic
scenes of the red denizens of America ; but it is necessary that
we should now turn our thoughts to the more important and more
painful consideration of the fatal results which their intercourse
with the civilised world has already produced, and must inevit-
ably, we fear, consummate.
It is melancholy to reflect in what different colours Columbus
may be painted by the inhabitants of the New and Old World.
His philosophical calculations, his shrewd observations, his accu-
rate deductions from a few simple facts, which, by the dull mul-
titude, had remained almost unnoticed, his unalterable deter-
mination to bring his theory into practice, his unilinching perse-
verance.
i 1,
!if
:i
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404
The Red Man.
vcranro, his victory ovor thn ijjnornnt projudico nnil supcrstilion
which ' like envious clouds seemed bent to dim his fflory and check
his brijfht course to the Occident.' his personal courajje. his tact in
propel linfj his crew, his artifices in supporting; their droopinsf
spirits, the eventual accomplishment of his {jreat object, and the
accurate fulfilment of his prophecy, combine in makinif nv con-
sider him as one of the most distinjfuished men that the Old World
has ever j)roduced. On the other hand, by the red aborip:ines he
may justly be depicted as the personification of their ' manito or
evil spirit — in short, of that serpent which has broujjht ' death into
their world and all its woe.' Most certainly, however ?w? may bless
the name of Columbus, accursed to them has been the hour when
the white man's foot first landed on their shore, and when his
pale hand, in friendshij), first encountei'cd their red fjrasp !
The vast Indian empires of Mexico and Peru have, as we all
know, been as completely depopulated by the inhabitants of the
Old World as the little cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii were
smothered by the lava and cinders of Vesuvius.
In less populous, though not less hap]>y regions, by broadsides
of artillery, by volleys of musketry, by thn bayonet, by the ter-
rific aid of horses, and even by the savage fury of dogs, the
Christian world managed to extend the lodgment it had effected
among a naked and inoffensive people.
In both hemispheres of America the same horrible system of
violence and invasion are at this moment in operation. The most
barbarous and unprovoked attempts to exterminate the mounted
Indians in the neighbourhood of Buenos Ayres have lately been
made. In the Ignited States upwards of thirty-six millions of
dollars have been expended during the last four years in llie
attempt to drive the Seminoles from their hunting-grounds.
What quantity of Indian blood has been shed by this money is
involved in mystery. The American general in command, it is
said, tendered his resignation unless he were granted, in this dread-
ful war of extermination, the assistance of bloodhounds; and it has
also been asserted that on a motion being made, in one of the State
legislatures, for an inquiry into this allegation, the proposition
was negatived and the investigation suppressed. At all events the
aggression against the Seminoles still continues ; a pack of blood-
hounds /my already been landed in the United States from the
island of Cuba ; and while the Indian women, with blackened faces,
are mourning over the bereavement of their husbands jnd their
bons, and trembling at the idea of their infants being massacred
by the dogs of war which the authorities of the state of Florida
have, it appears from the last American newspapers, determined
to let loose, the republic rejoices at the anticipated extensicm ol
its
h
p-
The Red Man.
405
its territory, and, as usual, oxultinjjly Itoasts that it is 'going
ahead ! '
In the Ohl Workl, war, like every other j)estilence, rages here
and there lor a certain time only ; hut the graduid extinction of
the Indian race h;is unceasingly heeu in operation from the first
moment of our discovery of America to the present hour; for
whether we come in contact with our red brethren as enemi(?s or
as friends, they everywhere melt before us like snow l)eft)re the
sun. Indeed it is difficult to say whether our friendship or our
enmity has been most fatal.
The infectious disorders which, in m(Mnents of profound pe.ace,
we have unfortunately introduced, have proved infinitely more
destructive and merciless than our engines of war. l)\ the small-
pox alone it has been computed that half the Indian population of
North America has been swept away. There is something par-
ticularly affecting in the idea of the inhabitants even of a wigwam
being suddenly attacked by something from the Old World which,
almost on the self-same day, has rendered them all incapable of
providing for each other or even for themselves; and it is dread-
ful to consider in how many instances, by the simultaneous death
of the adults, the young and helpless must have been left in the
lone wilderness to starve !
But not only Avhole families, but whole tribes, have been al-
most extinguished by this single disease, which is supposed to
have proved fatal to at least seven millicms of Indians. The
Pa^\•nee nation luue been reduced by it from 2a,0(J(J to lO.OCXJ.
When Mr. Catlin lately visited the Mandan tribe, it consisted of
2000 people, particularly distinguished by their handsome ap-
])earance and by their high character fen* courage and probity.
They received him with affectionate kindness, and not only
admitted him to all their most secret mysteries, but installed
him among the learned of their tribe, and afforded him every
possible assistance. He had scarcely left them Avhen two of the
fur traders unintentionally infected them with the small-pox,
which caused the death of the whole tribe I Not an individual
has survived; and had not Mr. Catlin felt deep and honourable
interest in their fate, it is mcne than j)robable it never wouhl have
reached the coast of the Atlantic, or been recorded in history.
And thus, by a single calamity, has been swept away a v> hole
nation, respecting whom it was proverbial among the traders, ' that
never had the Mandans been known to kill a white mai: !'
or our destructi(m of the Indians by the small-pox, it may at
least be said that the affliction is soon over. There is, however,
another importation by which we have destroyed them — which,
though it has been almost as fatal, has been so by a lingering and
most
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400
The Rrd Man.
most iTvoltinsf prorrss — wo nlludc to the introduction of anient
sjiirit. or, hs it is jxcnernlly cnllcd in Amrricn. of wlsiskpy.
In our own country wo sue all onrly tnupflit, and we every dav
SCO bolore oin- ryes, the miserable effects of drunkenness, but the
poor Indian has received no such lesson or experience : on the
contrary, the traders tell him the draught will increase his valour
an»l add to his strenfj^th. He accordingly raises it to his lips,
and from that moment ho becomes, almost without metaphor,
• a fallen man.' The exhilarating effect which it at first produces
ho never forgets, and when he has been once intoxicated, there is
nothing he possesses which is not within the easy grasp of the
trader. The women and the chihlren equally become victims
to this thirst for poison ; and it is melancholy to think, that
exactly in proportion as the wigwam is denuded by the trader of
the furs, skins, and coverings it contains, so inversely are its sim-
ple tenants made physically less competent than they were to
resist the cold, the inclemencies, the hardships, and the vicissi-
tudes of a savage life.
In populous civilised communities, where, by the divisicm of
hibour, each man's attention is directed to one minute object, the
loss of health and strength is only of comparative importance ;
but it is dreadful to rellect upon the situation of a poor Indian
hunter, when he finds, he knows not why, that his limbs are daily
failing him in the chase, that his arrow ceases to go straight, and
that his nerves tremble before the wild animals it was but lately
his pride to encounter I
The variety of demoralising effects produced in a wigwam, by
selling a gallon or two of whiskey to an Indian family of men.
women, and children, could not with propriety be described, and
must be w itnessed to be conceived. 1 1 may easily, however, be
imagined, that they end in tiie destruction of their noble constitu-
tions — in their sickness — in their infamy — and very rapidly in
then' death. J3y this licpiid fire, whole families and whole nations
have boon not only ccmsumed, as by a conflagration, but they
have ended their days in the most squalid misery and woe — in
long-protracted anguish. The horrid system has not, however,
we regret to say, shared the fate of those it has desti'oyed ; on
the contrary, every year it has become better organised, and from
the subtlety of the traders it is now more impossible than ever
to be prevented. For whatever object a body of Indians is
assend)led, whether for peace, for war, or even to listen to the
d(!Ctrines of our revered religiim, the traders like wolves conic
skulking arovuid thcni, and, like eagles in the neighbourhood of a
field of battle, they hover out of the reach of gun-shot, confident
of the enjoyment of their prey. In the vast regions of the
Prairies
The Red Man.
407
Prairies alcnn, it has boon accurately eslimatcil that llicro arc at
tills moment from (JOO to HOO traders (many of wiioin have fled as
outlaws I'rom the civilised world, tor the moil horriUle crimes)
daily employed in delugin<»' the poor Indians with whiskey.
There is another mode in which the red man is madi? to lade
away before the witherinj; progress of civilisation ; w*; alhuh? to
the rapid destruction of the game necessary for his subsistence.
In j)roportion as the sword, small-pox, and whiskery, hiivc* de-
populated the country of the Indians, the settlement of the whites
has gradually and triumphantly advanced ; and their demand lor
skins and furs has proportionally increased. In th(! sph-ndid
regions of the 'far-west' which lie between the Missouri and th«'
Rocky Mountains, there are living at this moment on the Prairies
various tribes, who, if left to themselves, would continue for ages
to subsist on the bud'alo which cover the plains. 'J'he skins of
these animals, however, have become valuable to the whiles, and,
acc(ndingly, this beauliful verdant country, and thes(! brave and
independent people, have been invaded by white traders, who, by
paying to them a pint of whiskey for each skin (or * robe,' as they
are termed in America), which sells at New Vork for t'Mi or
twelve dollars, induce them to slaughter these animals in im-
mense numbers, leaving their flesh, the food of the Indian, to rot
and putrefy on the ground. No admonition or caution can arrest
for a moment the propelling powx-rof the whiskey; accordingly, in
all directions these j)oor thoughtless beings are seen furi«)usly
riding under its inllueuce in pursuit of their game, or in other
words, in the fatal exchange of food for poison. It hns been
very attentively calculated by the traders, who manage to collect
per annum from 130,000 to 200,000 buffalo-skins, that at the
rate at which these animals are now disposed of, in ten years
they will be all killed off. Whenever that event happens, Mr.
Catlin very justly prophesies that 230,000 Indians, now living
in a plain of nearly three thousand miles in extent, must die
of starvation and become a prey to the wolves, or that they
must either attack the powerful neighbouring tribes of the Rocky
Mountains, or in utter phrenzy of despair rush u])on the white
population on the forlorn hope of dislodging it. In the two
latter alternatives there exists no chance of success, and we have
therefore the appalling reflection before us, that these 250,000
Indians must soon be added to the dismal list of thoaC who
ft
have already withered and disappeared, leaving their country
to bloom and flourish in the possession of the progeny of another
world !
Among the noblest of the tribes whose melancholy fate has
been
ilul
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1 1
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408
The Red Man.
been so painfully anticipated, are the ' Crows,' saitl by Mr. Catlin
to be the handsomest Indians he ever visited. As they stand,
their jet black hair touches the ground, while in riding alier the
buffalo it full speed, it is seen streaming behind them in the
most beautiful form. In their war dress the j)luine of eagles'
feathers ornaments their brows — a lance fourteen feet in length,
giving a wild finish to the picture. Their wigwam villages are
situated on the verdant prairies, tlie surface of which is in some
places as flat as the ocean, in others beautifully diversified by
undulating hills, which, covered with pasture to their very sum-
mits, form a striking contrast with the bright shining snow which
everlastingly caps the Rocky Mountains, and with the dark deej)
blue sky which reigns ab;Ae them.
The same operation is at this moment going on in detail, but
quite as fatally, throughout the whole continent of North Ame-
rica; including our British North American cohmies. Even
where the lands of the Indians are faithfully secured to them,
and where every attempt to encourage them to ruin themselves
has been, and still is, discountenanced, still their eventual ex-
tinction, by almost starvation, appears unavoidable. Even in
Canada, however justly their hunting-grounds may be maintained
inviolate, yet, in consequence of the white population settling
around them on lands belonging to the British crown, their sup-
ply of ibod is rapidly cut off, until the poor Indian finds, he
knows not why, that it has become almost vain to go in search of
it : for the game of America is not like that in England, the
produce of the land on v.hich it is found, but, migi'ating and
wandering through the forest, it is easily scared from its haunts.
The last of the means we shall mention by which white people
have i)rosecuted, and are still prosecuting, their desolating march
over the territory of the Indians, is either by persuading them to
sell their lands, as the British government has occasitmally done,
or by forcuu) them to do so, as we regret to say has been too
often the case in other parts of America.
Of all the title-deeds recorded in 'the chancery of heaven,'
there surely can be no one more indisputable than the right
which the red man of America has to inhabit his own hunting
grounds ; nevertheless, in Dr. Morse's Report to the Secretary
at War, he states —
'The relation which the Indians sustain to the u;ovennnent of tlic
United States is peculiar in its natun-. Their indopciulence, tlicir
rights, their title to the soil which they occupy, are all impvrfert in tlicir
kind
' Indians have no other properly to the soil of their respective ter-
ritories
The Red Man.
409
ell
to
one.
too
tcv-
orics
ritories than the* of mere occupancy. . . . The complete title to their
lands rests in the (jovcmnicnt of the United States ! /'
The opinion of the Honourable John Quincey Adams on the
subject was thus expressed : —
' There are moralists who have questioned the right of the Europefins
to intrude upon the possessions of the aboriginals in any case, and tmder
any limitations whatsoever; — but have they maturely considered the
whole subject? The Indian right of possession itself stands, with regard
to the greatest part of the country, upon a questionable foinidation.
Their cultivated fields, their constructed habitations, a spjice of ample
i-ufficiency for their subsistence, and whatever they had annexed of
themselves by personal labour, was undoubtedly, by the laws of nature,
theirs. But what is the right of a huntsman to the forest of a thousand
miles, over which he has "cidentally ranged in quest of prey ? Shall
the liberal bounties of j)rovidence to the race of man be monopolised hy
one of ten thousand for whom they were created ? Shall the exuberant
bosom of the mother country, amj/iy adequate to the nourishment of
miUions, be claimed exclusively by a few hinidrods of her offspring ?
Shall the lordly savage not only disdain the virtv.es and enjoyments of
civilization himself, but shall he control the civilization of the world i*
Shall he forbid the wilderness to blossom liUe the rose ? Shall he forbid
the oaks of the forest to fall before the a^ c of industry, and rise again,
transformed into the habitations of ease and elegance ? Shall he
doom an immense region of the globe to perpetual desolation, and to
hear the bowlings of the tiger and the wolf silence for ever the voice of
human gladness? Shall the fields and the valleys, which a beneficent
God has framed to teem with the life of innumerable multitudes, be
condemned to everlasting barreiniess ? Shall the mighty rivers, poured
out by the hands of Nature, as channels of communication between
numerous nations, roll their waters in sullen silence and eternal solitude
to the deep ? Have hundreds of commodious harbours, a thousand
leagues o*" coast, and a boundless ocean, been spread in the front of this
land, and shall every purpose of utility to which they coidd apply, be
prohibited by the tenant of the woods? No, generous philanthropists I
Heaven has not been thus inconsistent in the works of its hands !
Heaven has not thus placed its moral laws at irreconcilable strife with
its physical creation ! '
The decision of the Supreme Court of the United Slates on
the subject of Indian titles was as follows : —
' The nuijority of the Court is of opinion that the nature of the Indian
title, wiiich is certainly to be respected by all courts, until it l)e leiiiii-
mately extinguished , is not such as to be absolutely repugnant to seisin
in fee on the part of the State.' ! ! !
However the foregoing extracts may fail to explain satisfactorily
to our readers the tenure of Indian lands, they will at least
show the lamentable position in which the red native stands
on his hunting-grounds in the United States. The poor crea-
ture is between white law on the one side, and white whiskey
on
:1
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410
The Red Man.
i
on the other ; — the one disputes his title — the other obliterates it
by ' (lr()j)])ing a tear on the word, and blottinEf it out for ever;'
and thus, by the co-operation ot" both, without even the assistance
of the bayoMct, is the tenant finally ejected.
In several instances, indeed, the Indian tribes, instead of con-
senting: to sell their lands and abandon the homes of their an-
cestors, have unburied the hatchet of war, and fought against the
regular troops with a desperation and' a courage which have
proved almost invincible : thus it has lately been officially an-
nounced to Congress, that, notwithstanding the enormous ex-
penses of the attack upon the Seminolcs, no sensible effect has
been produced. But these are rare cases — and even in these
the ultimate result is quite clear. In many more instances,
the red tenantry, seeing their inability to resist, have obediently
consented to retire, in which case the government of the United
States has agreed to pay them one and a half cent (the hundredth
part of a dollar) per acre for their lands — which lands have been
often immediately re-sold by the Static for a dollar or a dollar and
a half per acre. But besides this profit, the government lias
taken very good care always to exact from the white ]>urchaser
prompt jKiyment hi silver : whereas the Indian is not only at
best paid his pittance in paper money, or in goods, but the
government, when it is convenient, claim as their right that the
purchase-money need not be paid by them until thirty years, by
which time the poor Indians, who reluctantly surrendered their
land, will probably all be dead ! In short, these sales of land
amount so very nearly to an ejectment, that it may easily be
conceived the Indians only consent to them where either the
power of the law or the strength of whiskey proves greater than
they can withstand.
Their attachment to their soil and to their own habits .<f life,
are alw.iys afl'ectingly evinced in their various answers to those
whose official duty it has been to advocate the government recom-
mendation that they should contract their dominions.
The President, about twenty years ago, recommended to a
Pawnee chief who came to Washington on purpose to see him,
that he and his tribe should, under the superintendence of
Missionaries, till their land like white people. The unlettered
'savage,' after having listened with the gravest attention, made
the following speech, translated by a sworn reporter, and which
we present to our readers as a fair spec en of unpremedit. ted
oratory : —
* Ml/ great Father, I have travelled a long distance to see you. I
have seen you, and my heart rejoices: I have heard your words: tliey
have entered one ear and shall not cscajje out of the other : I will carry
them to mv j)eople as pure as they came from your mouth,
'My
'My
a'-
Tlie Red Man.
411
' Mji qrcal Father, I am going t*. speak the truth; the Great Spi'lt
looks flown upon us, and I call Him to witness all that may pass between
us on this occasion. The Great Spirit made us all : He made my skin
red, and yours white. He placed us on this earth, and intended we
t-hould live differently from each other. He made the whites to cultivate
the earth and feed on tame animals, but He made us red men to rove
through the woods and plains, to feed on wild animals and to dress in
their skins. He also intended that we should go to war to take scalps,
steal horses, tritimph over our enemies, ])romotc peace at home, and
the happiness of each other. I believe there are no peo])le of any
colour on this earth who do not believe in the Great Spirit — in rewards
and punishments. We worship Him, but not as you do. We differ
from you in religion as we differ in appearance, in manners, and in
customs. We have no large houses as you have, to worship the Great
Spirit in. If we had them to-day, we should want others to-morrow,
because we have not, like you, a fixed habi'^^ation, except our villages,
where we remain but two moons out of twelve. We, like animals, roam
over the country, while you whites live between us and Heaven, but still,
my Father, we love the Great Spirit.
' My (jreat Father, some of your chiefs liave proposed to send good
people [Missionaries] among us to change our habits, to teach us to
work, and live like the white people. I will not tell you a lie. Vou
love your country, you love your people: you love the manner in which
they live, and you think your people bravo. I am like you, my great
Father! / love my country, / love my people, / love the life we lead,
and think my warriors brave.
' Spare me then, my Father. Let me enjoy my country, lot me
])ursue the buffalo, the beaver, and the other wild animals, and I will
trade the skins with yrur people. It is too soon, my great Father, to
send your good men among us. Let us exhaust our j^resent resources
before you interrupt our happiness and make us toil. Let me coiitimie
to live as I have lived, and after I have passed from the wilderness of
i:iy ])resent life to the Good or Evil Spirit, my children may need and
embrace the offered assistance of your good people.
' Here, my great Father, is a pipe which I offer you, as I ani accus-
tomed to present pipes to all Red-skins who are in peace with us. I
know that these robes, leggins, mocassins, bears'-claws, &c , are (.f little
value to you ; but we wish them to be deposited and preserved, so that
when we arc gone, and the earth turned over upon our bones, our chil-
dren, should they ever visit this place, as we do now, may see and recog-
nise the deposits of their fathers, and reflect on the limes that are past.'
It will readily be conceived, that if the Indian sachems were
not afraid Jo avow to 'their great father' their disinclination to
remove from tlielr lands, they would with less hesitation ex-
press the same reluctance to subordinate authorities. I?y every
possible argument, on hundreds of occasions, the officers of the
United States' Indian department have zealously endeavoured
VOL. LXV. NO. CXXX.
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412
The Red Man.
to persuade the tribes to evacuate their lands; and the fol-
lowinjf extract from a speech of Dr. Morse himself to the
Ottawas at L'Arbre Croche on the 6th of July, 1H20, will suffi-
ciently show in what proportion truth, sophistry, and well-dis-
guised threats, have been mixed in these sort of official appeals
to the doubts, hopes, and fears of the Indian race.
Their attention to the important subject of his communication
is thus invoked : —
' Children, Your father, the President, thinks that a great change
in the situation of his red children has become necessary, in order to
save them from ruin, and to make them happy.
' Children, Listen attentively to what I am now about to say to you.
It is for your life, and the life of your posterity.'
The title of the whites to the lands they had already culti-
vated, the especial favour shown to them from heaven^ the inferi-
ority of the red man, and the desperate dilemma in which he is
placed, are thus explained : —
• Children, Your fathers once possessed all the country, east and
south, to the great waters. They were very numerous and powerful,
and lived chiefly by hunting and fishing. They had brave waviiors,
and orators eloquent in council.
* Two hundred years ago, a mortal ])estilence spread wide among the
Indians on the coast of the great ocean to the east, and swept away a
great part of them. In some villages, all died — not one was left. Just
after this great desolation, the white people began to come across the
great waters. They settled first on lands where no Indians lived —
where they all had died. Other white people, about the same time,
settled at the south.
' These white people came not as enemies, but as friends of the
Indians. They purchased of them a little land, to support them and
their children by agriculture. They Avanted but little while they were
few in number. God prospered the white people. They have since in-
creased and multiplied, and become a great and powerful nation. They
are now spread over a wide extent of the country of your fathers ; and
are spreading still more and faster over other parts of it, purchasing
millions of acres of your good land, leaving for you and your children
reservations here and there, small indeed, compared with the extensive
hunting-grounds you once possessed. What your brothers, the Osages,
said to one of our missionaries is true : — " Wherever v)hile man sets
down his foot, he never lakes il up again. It grows fast, and spreads
wide." You have been obliged either to go back into the wilderness,
and seek new hunting-grounds and dwelling-places, or to live on your
small reservations, surrounded with white people. Indians cannot asso-
ciate with the white people as their equals. While they retain their
present language and dress, and habits of life, they will feel their inferi-
ority to the white people. Where they have no game to hunt, to furnish
them
The Red Man.
413
them with furs for trade, and with food to cat, they become poor, and
wretched, and spiritless, dei)endcnt on the white people for their support.
They will give themselves up to idleness, ignorance, and drunkenness ;
and will waste away, and by-and-by have no posterity on the face of
the earth. Already, many tribes who live among the whites can never
more gain renown in war or in the chase. If this course continues, it
will soon be fo Avith the whole body of Indians, within the territories of
the United States. Indians cannot go to the west, for the great ocean
would stop them ; nor turn to the north or south, for in either course are
the hunting-grounds and dwelling-places of other tribes of your red
brethren ; no, nor can you go to any other country, for all the countries
on the globe, where Indians can live as they now live, are already in-
habited.*
It will appear by the following extract, that the Indians next
received a kind hint that their distress might proceed from their
having offended the Great Spirit ; and, though it has been a
subject of constant regret among many very estimable people in
the United States, with what heartless disrespect the ancient
burial-places of the aborigines have been treated — with what
shameless unconcern the sculls and bones of their ancestors are
every day to be still seen turning over and over under the Ameri-
can plough — we cannot but admire the crocodile's tears which the
paternal mfent condescends to drop on that subject : —
' Children^ Things being so, the wisest men among Indians know not
what to advise, or what to do. They imagine that the Great Spirit, of
whose character and government they have but very imperfect ideas, is
angry with the red people, and is destroying them, while he prospers
the white people. Aged and wise men among Indians, with whom I
have conversed, think and talk of these things, till their countenances
become sad. Our countenances are also sad, when we think and talk
of them. Hereafter, when tl ese things shall have come to pass, Chris-
tian white people, who loved Indians, and wished and endeavoured to
save them, will visit their deserted graves, and with weeping eyes ex-
claim, " Here Indians once lived — Yonder were their hunting-grounds.
Here they died — In these mounds of earth the bones of many genera-
tions lie buried together — No Indian remains to watch over the bones
of his fathers — Where are they? — Alas ! foor Indians! " But I for-
bear to purs\ie these sad reflections. The prospect must fill your minds
with sad apprehensions for yourselves and your children, and sink your
spirits, as it does my own ! ! ! '
The hearts of the auditory having been sufficiently depressed^
the only means of relief is at last pointed out to them : — •
' Children, I would not have presented this painful prospect before
you, had I not another to present, that I hope will cheer your hearts,
raise your spirits, and brighten your countenances. I have made you
sorry, I will now endeavour to make you glad.
' Children, Be of good cheer. Though your situation and prospects
are now gloomy, they may change for the better. If you desire to be
2 F 2 happy,
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414
The Red Man.
happy, you may be happy. The means exist, Tliey are freely offered
to you. Siifl'er them to be used.
' Children, Listen. I will tell you iu few words what your great
Father, and the Christian white people, desire of you. We iitipnfn?
nothing on you. We only lay before you our opinions for you to con-
sider. We do not dictate, as your superiors, but advise you as vour
friends. Consider our advice.
* Your father, the ])resident, wishes Indians to partake with his white
children in all the blessings which they enjoy ; to have one country,
one government, the sanic laws, equal rights and privileges, and to l)e
in all respects on an equal footing Avith them.
' To accomplish these good purposes, your great father, the President,
and your Christian fathers, will send among you, at their own expense,
good white men and women, to instruct you and your children in every
thing that pertains to the civilised and Christian life.'
Tiie case and the predicament in \Aliich they stand bavins:
been pretty clearly stated, the pocn- Indians are finally summoned
to surrender in the following significant words : —
' Children, ot\\ei' tribes are listening to these ofters, and, we expect,
will accept them. All who accept them will be in the way to be sfaved,
and raised to respectability and usefulness in life. Those who persist
in rejecting them must, according to all past experience, gradually waste
away till all are gone. This we fully believe. Civilisation or ruin
are now the only alternatives of Indians ! '
The alternatives thus offered may be illustrated by the follow-
ing anecdote. Once upon a time a white man and an Indian,
who had agreed that, while hunting together, they would share the
game, found at night that the bag contained a fine turkey and a
buzzard, which is carrion. ' Well !' said the white man to the red
one, ' we must now divide what we have taken, and therefore, if you
please, /will take the turkey, and you shall take the buzzard; or
else, you may take the buzzard, and 1 will take the turkey !'
* Ah,' replied the native hunter, shaking his black shaggy head,
' you no say turkei/ for poor Indian once !'
The cruel manner in which the unsuspecting Indians have in-
variably been overreached has, to a certain degree, planted in
their bosoms suspicion which is not indigenous to their nature.
* Your hearts seem good outside noiv,' said an Indian to a party
of white people who were making to his tribe violent professions
of friendship ; ' but we wish to try them three years, and tlien we
shall know whether they are good inside.'
Dr. Morse, in his report to the Secretary at War, says, ' Dis-
trust unfortunately exists already extensively among the Indians.
In repeated interviews with them, after informing them what
good things their great fathe»" the President was ready to bestow
on them, if they were willing to receive them, the chiefs signi-
ficantly
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fitantly shook their heads and said, ' // may he so, or it may be
not : we doubt if : we know not what to beliei-e /'
NoWj surely there is something: very shocking as well as very
humiliating in the idea of our liavir;^ ourselves implanted this
feeling against our race, in the minds of men who, when any
treaty among themselves has l)een once ratified, by the delivery of
a mere string of wampum shells, will most confidently trust their
lives, and the lives of their families, to its faithful execution !
In order to assist the officers of the Indian department in their
arduous duty of persuading remote tribes to quit their lands,
it has often been found advisable to incur the ex])ense of inviting
one or two of their chiefs JOOO or 4000 miles to Washington, in
order that they should see with their own eyes, and report to their
tribes the irresistible power of the nation with whom they are
arguing. This speculation, has, it is said, in all instances, more
or less effected its object; and one of jNIr. Catlin's pictures is a
portrait of a Sachem, whose strange hisiory and fate may be
worth recording.
For the reasons and for the object we liave stated, it was
deemed advisable that he should be invited from his remote
country to Washington ; and accordingly in due time he appeared
there. After the t.oops had been made to manoeuvre before
him ; after thundering volleys of artillery had almost deafened
him ; and after every department had displayed to him all that
was likely to add to the terror and astonishment he had already
experienced, the President, in lieu of the In<lians clothes, pre-
sented him with a colonel's uniform, in which, and with many
other piesents, the bewildered chief took his departure.
In a pair of white kid gloves, tight blue coat, with gilt buttons,
gold epaulettes, and red sash, cloth trousers with straps, high-
heeled boots, cocked hat and scarlet feather, witii a cigar in his
mouth, a green umbrella in one hand, and a yellow fan in the
other, and with the neck of a whisky-bottle jH'olruding out of each
of the two tail-pockets of his regimental coat, this ' monkey that
had seen the world ' suddenly aj)peared before the chiefs and
warriors of his tribe, and as he stood before them, straight as a
ramrod, in a high state of perspiration, caused by the tightness of
his finery, while the cool fresh air of heaven blew over the naked
unrestrained limbs of his spectaUn's, it might, perhaps, not unjustly
be .said of the tAvo costumes, * Which is the sava(je?'
In return for the presents he had received, and with a desire
to impart as much real information as possible to his tribe, the
poor jaded traveller undertook to deliver to them a course of lec-
tures, in which he graphically described all that he had witnessed.
For
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For a while he was listened to with attention ; but as soon as
the minds of his audience had received as much as they could hold,
they began to disbelieve him. Nothing daunted, however, the
traveller still proceeded. He told them about wigwams, in which
1000 people could at one time pray together to the Great Spirit ;
of other wigwams five stories high, built in lines, facing each
other, and extending over an enormous space ; he told them oi
war-canoes that could hold 1200 warriors. Such tales, to the
Indian mind, seemed an insult to common sense. For some time
he was treated merely with ridicule and contempt — but when,
resolutely continuing to recount his adventures, he told them that
he had seen white people, who, by attaching a great ball to a
canoe, could rise in it into the clouds, and travel through the
heavens, the medicine, mystery, or learned men of his tribe pro-
nounced him to be an impostor, and the multitude vociferously
declaring, ' that he was too great a liar to live,' a young \varrior,
in a paroxysm of anger, levelled a rifle at his head, and blew his
brains out.
Before, however, the civilised world passes its hasty sentence
upon this wild tribe for their obdurate incredulity, injustice, and
cruelty, we feel it but justice to these red men merely to whisper
the name of James Bruce, of Kinnaird !
Although we cannot approve either of the extent to which, or
of the manner in which the Indian tribes have been obliged to
quit their lands in the republican states of America, yet, in spile
of all our regard for this noble and injured race, we cannot l)ul
admit, that, to a certain degree, the government even of this
country ought to effect their removal. We have painfully and
practically reflected on the subject ; and to those who may object
to our opinions, we can truly say, that they cannot be more anxious
than we have been to arrive at an opj)osite conclusion : but our
judgment has reluctantly surrendered to facts which it found to be
irresistible, and to impending circumstances, which, when con-
sidered upon the spot, appeared to be inevitable.
Where the white inhabitants of both continents of America are
in possession of infinitely more land than they can cultivate, it is
of course an act of cruelty, and of greedy injustice, to provide and
speculate for the future by taking forcible possession of remote
Indian territory, upon which the Aborigines are happily exist-
ing. But it occasionally happens, from rapid settlement caused
by emigration from the old world, that a considerable tract of
Indian land, which has long been in the immediate neighbour-
hood of whites, becomes absolutely surrounded, or, in military
language, invested by agriculturists ; in which case, it is as much
a stumbling-
The Red Man.
417
a stumblinp-block to civilisation as an ancient rock would be il'
left standinp^ in the midcUc of the (Queen's highway. At what
rate, and under what laws, civilisation outjht to advance, it might
be possible to prescribe ; but wherever the banks which arrested
it have given way, and wherever the torrent, under such circum-
stances, has rushed forwai.ls, whether it be right or whether it be
wrong, it becomes practically impossible to maintain anything in
the rear.
In the instances to which we have alluded, we have seen the
interests of a vast territory completely benuudjed by the interven-
tion between it and the caj)ital, of an Indian hunting ground,
which, like a tourniquet, has stopped the circulation that should
naturally have nourished it.
This large expanse of rich land is occasionally found to be in-
habited by perhaps only 100, or 120 Indians, the children of
whom are, without a single exception, half-castes ; the women
dirty, profligate, and abandoned; the men miserable victims of
intemperance and vice. A considerable portion of them are
half-breeds; but even those whose red faces, shaggy locks, beard-
less chins, and small beautiful feet, prove them to be Indians, are
so only in name ; for the spirit of the wild man has fled from
them, and, unworthy guardians of the tombs of their ancestors,
they wander among them dishonoured, —
' like Grecian ghosts
That in battle were slain, and unburied remain
Inglorious on the plain.'
.But besides their moral sufferings, they are often found almost
starving from hunger, in consequence of their game having in all
directions been cut off". Their country, like themselves, has ap-
parently lost its character, and however we may have failed to
describe it, nothing can be more miserable, more degrading, and
more affecting than the real scene. In the mean while, the mur-
mur of discontent uttered by the white j)opulation against the
miasmatical existence of such a stagnant evil, is yearly so increas-
ing in tone and in anger, that, unless their cry of ' Off, off! ' be
attended to, there can be little doubt that acts of violence will
be committed ; and yet, in spite of all these existing and im-
pending calamities, it is often almost imj)ossible to persuade the
Indians to consent to move away; for the more their minds are
degraded, the greater is the natural apathy they display : besides
which, they are almost invariably under a secret intangible in-
fluence, which, for some self-interested object or other, success-
fully induces them most obstinately to decline changing their
existence. Under these distressing circumstances, it therefore
must eventually become necessary for the government to exert
itself
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418
The Red Man.
itsell in ciri-ctinpf the removal of a set of bciiifrs who will neither
till the ground themselves, nor allow others, by the sweat of their
brow, to do so.
To \n\.y down to a squalid, degr.'ided, miserable set of I ndians, who
are evidently in the clutches of designing men, and from whom
anything could be abstracted by whisky, as much money as their
country is Avorth to white j)eoj>le for the purpose of cultivation —
to heap upon tliem the value of all the water-power, minerals,
&c., it may possess — appears not only unnecessary, but absurd.
On the other hand, it Avould be ungenerous, after all the game
has been cut off" from their country, to pay them no more for it
than, under such circumstances, it is actually worth to them.
Between these two extremes, it is, we humbly conceive, the
duty of a powerful nation and of a just government parentally
to jnake such arrangements for these poor people as shall mate-
rially better the condition of the remnant of any tribe that may
be removed ; and if this point be honourably effected, their mi-
gration is certainly one of those results of the white man's progress
of which they have the least reasoa to complain.
We have now concluded our imperfect outline or chart of the
main roads in both hemispheres of America, upon which the
civilised world has been, and still is, gradually, recklessly, cul-
pably and thoughtlessly pursuing 'its com'sc to the Occident,'
and certainly it must be impossible for any just man to wilnrss
the setting sun rest for a moment upon the country known in
America by the appellation of 'the far-west,' without feeling
that its blood-red brightness which, in effulgent beams is seen
staining every cloud around it, is but an appropriate emblem of
the Indian race, which, rapidly sinking from our view, will be
soon involved in impenetrable darkness ; and, moreover, that he
might as Avell endeavour to make the setting planet stand still
uj)on the summit of the Rocky Mountains before him, as
attempt to arrest the final extermination of the Indian race ; for
if, while the white population of North America, before it has
swelled into fourteen millions, has, as has actually been the case,
reduced an Indian population of nearly fourteen millions to three
millions, what must be the progressive destruction of these unfor-
tunate people now- that the dreadful engine which, like the car of
Jaggernaut, has crushed all that lay before it, has got its ' steam
vp,' and that consequently its pow er, as well as its propensity to
advance, has indefinitely increased ? From the Pacific Oc ean
towards the East the same irresistible power is in operation.
The white man's face along both the continents which are bor-
dered by the Pacific is directed towards those of his own race,
who, as we have seen, are rapidly advancing towards him from
the
Callln'.s Indian Gullenj,
419
m
llio regions of the Atlantic ; ami whenever the triuin])hnnt
moment of their collision shall arrive — whether the hands of the
while men meet in friendship or in war — Wiikri:. wi: ask, will
BK Tiiu Indian hack? echo alone will answer ' JVhere?
before wc cast aside our hasty sketch, we must offer a few
observations on the gallery of paintings now exhil)iting in Lon<lon,
at the Egyptian Hall — the catalogue of which is named at the
head of this paper.
Mr. Catlin, the American artist who has delineated tlicm, was,
we understand, intended by his jiarents to be ' aliml) of the law ;'
but the innate genius of the painter rebelled ; and accordingly,
after three years of the desk, abandoning parchment an<l the lu-
crative prospects that were opening to him, he devoted his mind
to canvass, the easel, and the brush.
His labours were soon rewarded by considerable success; as a
proof of which we may observe that ho was employed to paint
the likenesses of all the members of the senate of Virginia, of the
two ex-presidents Maddison and Munro, and of six ex-governors,
6 .'dl of whom sat to him for their pictures. Rut, alas! human
talent, like the temper of the pig, is often obstinate ; and though
Mr. Catlin's friends, with uplifted arms, endeavoured in a crowd
to drive him forwards on the broad professional road which he
himself had selected, yet nothing could prevent him from running
between their legs up a private path, which evidently led to
neither profit nor reward ; and so, bidding adieu to white wealthy
faces, he galloped headlong towards ' the far-west,' for the sole
object of obtaining likenesses of the penniless aborigines of
America, in whose fate and appearance he felt strangely interested,
notwithstanding that several of his mother's relatives had been
cruelly murdered l)y them, in the well-kiiown and well-sung
massacre of Wyoming.
The objects which Mr. Catlin had in view in undertaking the
dangers and hardships he thus incurred cannot be better or more
modestly ex])lained than by the following extract from the preface
to his catalogue.
' I wisli to inform the visitors to my gallery that, having some years
since become fully convinced of the rapid decline and certain extinction
of the numerous tribes of the North American Indians, and seeing also
the vast importance and value of which a full pictorial history of these in-
teresting but dying people might l:e to future ages — I set out alone, un-
aided and unadvised, resolved (if my life should be spared), by the aid
of my brush and my pen, to rescue from oblivion so much of their
primitive looks and customs as the industry and ardent enthusiasm of
one
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C.'atlin'.v fmlian Gallery/.
one lifetime could iiccompliBh, and set them up in a pallcry, unique and
inipcribhablc, for tlie use and benefit uf future a^c8.
' I have already devoted more than tseven years of my life exclusively
to the accompliiiiiment of my design, and that with more than expected
success. I have visited with great ditliculty, and some hazard to life,
forty-eight tribes (residing within the United States, and British and
Mexican territories), containing about 300,000 souls. I have seen them
in their own villages, have carried my canvass and colours the whole
way, and painted my portraits, &c., from the life, as they now stand and
are seen in the gallery. The collection contains (besides an immense
number of costumes and otlier nnmufacturcs) 310 jjortraits of distin-
guished men and women of the different tribes, and 200 other paintings,
descriptive of Indian countries, their villages, games, and customs;
containing in all above 3000 figures.
' As this immense collection has been gathered, and every painting
has been made from nature, by my own hand — and that, too, when I
have been paddling my canoe, or leading my pack-horse over and
through trackless wilds, at the hazard of my life — the world will
surely be kind and indulgent enough to receive and estimate them, is
they have been intended, as true and facsimile traces of indivi^'vial acd
historical facts ; and forgive me for their present unfinished and un-
studied condition, as works of art.'
The portraits, landscapes, and groups which Mr. Catlln ex-
hibits, arc oflicially attested by a long array of United States'
officers, and other public functionaries, as being ' entitled to full
credit.' By our intelligent countryman, the Hon. C. A. Murray,
who gallantly travelled some thousand miles with Mr. Cat-
lin, as well as by several other English gentlemen who have
compared the pictures with the tribes and scenery they have
respectively visited, their accuracy is, we understand, vouched
for not less strongly ; and we have thus before us a faithful, pro-
fessional, and well-authenticated delineation not only of a most
interesting portion of the globe as it at present exists in a state of
nature, but of a race of innocent unoffending men so rapidly
perishing, that too truly may it now be said of them,
* Apparcvit rari nantes in gurgite vasto.'
Indeed, the whole Mindan race, whose chiefs and warriors are
now hanging in eitig) on the walls of the Egyptian Hall, are
already, as has been mentioned, extinct I The billows of civilisa-
tion have rolled over them — they have sunk for ever from our
view —
' Their country blooms a garden and a grave.'
Mr. Catlin's avowed object in visiting England is to sell his
collection to our Government, and we most sincerely hope that
his reliance on the magnanimity of the British people will not be
disappointed.
Crttlin's Indian (Unffrry.
4': I
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(lisappointod. As a mnii of science, of enterprise. !»n<l of true
philanthropy, he is justly entitled to he considered as a citizen
of the world ; and, althouffh he reflects especial honour upon tlu;
intelligent nation to which he is so proud to declar«^ that he owes
his birth, yet, for that very reason, we are confident, a generous
feeling will universally exist to receive him with liberality here.
The task he has undertaken has been heavy, and we believe
no one can have inspected the successful results of his labour, ov
listened to the eloquent lectures in which he expounds thoni.*
without f('(!ling that such an appeal to the civilised world in behalf
of the Indians ought not to be permitted to end in ruin ; for, as
his means are slender, it need not be ccmcealed that he himself
cannot long afford even house-room to his large family of picttires,
which, if r<'jected, would hang as a mill-st(me round his nock.
Rut, leaving the worthy artist's own interests completely out of the
({uestion, and in the cause of science casting aside all party feel-
ing, we submit to Lord Melbourne, to Sir Robert Peel, to Lord
Lansdowne, to Sir R. Inglis, and to all who are deservedly dis-
tinguished among us as the liberal patrons of the fine arts, that
Mr. Catlin's Indian collection is worthy to be retained in this
country, as the record of a race of our fellow-creatures whom we
shall very shortly have swept from the face of the globe. I3eforo
that catastrophe shall have arrived, it is true, a few of our country-
men may occasionally travel among them ; but it cannot be ex-
pected that any artist of note should again voluntarily reside
among them for seven years, as competent as Mr. Catlin, whose
slight, active, sinewy frame has peculiarly fitted him for the phy-
sical difficulties attendant upiMi such .an exertion.
Considering the melancholy fate which has befallen the Indian
race, and which overhangs the remnant of these victims to our
power, it would surely be discreditable that the civilised world
should, with heartless apathy, decline to preserve and to transmit
to posterity Mr. Catlin's graphic delineation of them ; and if any
nation on earth should evince a d(!sire to preserve such a lasting
monument, there can be no doubt that there exists none better
entitled to do so than the British j)eople ; for, w ith feelings of
melancholy satisfaction, we do not hesitate to assert that, through-
out our possessions on the continent of America, we have, from
the first moment of our acquaintance with them to the prescmt
hour, invariably maintained their rights; and at a very great
expense have honestly c<mtinued to pay them their annual
* Mr. Catlin litis, we think, been ill advised to deliver these interest in}j lectures
in the evenings. If he were to give them at lour or tivo o'clock, when the ladies
liave done with their drive, and it is not yet time to dress lor dinner, we are Ci!.-
tident the benches would no longer be empty.
presents.
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Catlin's Indian Gallery.
presents, for which we have received from them, in times of warns
well as of peace, the most unequivocal marks of their indelible
gratitude. Tiieir respect for our flag is unsullied by a reproach —
their attachment to our sovereign is second onl' in their breasts
to the veneration with which ihey regard their ' Great Spirit' —
while the names of Lord ])alhousie, of Sir i-'eregrine Maitland,
and of Sir John Colborne, who for many years respectively acted
townrds them as their father and as their friend, will be affec-
tionately repeated by them in our colonies until the Indian heart
has ceased to beat there, and until the Red Man's language
has ceased to vibrate in the British * wilderness of this world.'
Although European diseases, and the introducticm of ardent
spirits, liave produced the lamentable effects we have described,
and although as a nation we are not faultless, yet we may fairly
assert, and proudly feel, that the English Government has at least
made every possible exertion to do its duty towards the Indians ;
and that there has existed no colonial secretary of state who has
not evinced that anxiety to befriend them which, it is our duty to
say, particularly characterised the administration of the amiable
and humane Lord Glenelg.
Art. IV. — 1. L'Ecole des Jaurnalistes. Par Madame Emiie de
Gerardiu, Paris, 1839.
'2. Un Grand Homme de Province a Paris. Par H. de Ralzac.
Paris, 18.'39.
CHAM FORT said of the ancient government of France that
it was a monarchy tempered by songs. Tlie present
government is a monarchy tempered (or distempered) by ncns-
papcrs. The stanza is superseded by the paragraph : the chan-
.vo/i/^/pr gives phice to ihc fe lillctoniste ; and Reranger i« thrust
out of fashion by Janin.
Enter the Chamber of Peers when a new batch arc to take
their scats, and the odds are that every third jnan of them is
an editor or ex-editor. Attend the Chamber of Deputies on a
field-day, and the most influential speaker will be a gentleman
of the press. Dine at the Rocher de Cancale, and the chief
room is engaged by a redactiur en chrf: ask for a stall at the
Theatre Fraurais, when Mars or Rachel is to act, and the
best are secured for his contriljutors. That suite of rooms, bril-
liantly lighted, has been fitted up by the founders of a journal,
who give a ball to-night in honour of the undertaking : that grand-
cross of the legion of honour, who is just coming out, gained his
decorations
I
Esthonia.
4(J3
Wonderfully — nowhere her scene-shifting so inconceivably rapid. You
may literally see her movements. I have watched the bird's-cherry at
my window. Two days ago, and it was still the same dried-up spectre,
whose every form, during the long winter, the vacant eye had studiously
examined while the thoughts were far distant — yesterday, like the
painter's Daphne, it was sprouting out at every finger ; and to-day it
has shaken out its whole complement of leaves, and is throwing a verdant
twilight over my darkened room. The whole air is full of the soft-
stirring sounds of the swollen buds snapping and cracking into life, and
impregiiated with the perfume of the fresh oily leaves. The waters are
full and clear — the skies blue and serene — night and day are fast
blending into one continuous stream of soft light, and this our new
existence is one perpetual feast. Oh, winter! where is thy victory?
The resurrection of spring speaks volumes.'
Here ve slop, though with reluctance — but we feel Jhat vie
have already drawn on this rich new bank quite as deeply as we
could in fairness do. The writer's name will not long we sup-
pose remain a secret — and we trust no engagements in Esthonia
or elsewhere may prevent us from seeing it — or a quid pro quo —
on many a title-page hereafter.
Art. VII. — Letters of Mrs. Adams, the Wife of John Adams;
with an Introductory Memoir by her Grandson, Charles Francis
Adams. Second Edition. 2 vols. 12mo. Boston, 1840.
T^HE filial partiality of the introductory memoir raised in our
-*• minds expectations which th«^ v/ork itself has by no means
realised. The editor observes that in great political convulsions
the state of domestic manners, and the feelings and opinions of
women, have an important, though in general silent and unobtru-
sive influence : —
• If it were possible to get at the expression of feelings by women in
the heart of a community, at a moment of extraordinary trial, recorded
in a shape evidently designed to be secret and confidential, this would
seem to present the surest and most unfailing index to its general cha-
racter. Hitherto we have not gathered much of this material in the
United States The heroism of the females of tho Revo-
lution has gone from memory with the generation that witnessed it, and
nothing, absolutely nothing, remains upon the ear of the young of the
present day but the faint echo of an expiring general tradition. Neither
is there much remembrance of the domestic manners of the last century,
when, with more of admitted distinctions than at present, there was
more of general equality ; nor of the state of social feeling, or of that
simplicity of intercourse which, in colonial times, constituted in New
England as near an approach to the successful exemplification of the
democratic theory as the irregularity in the natural gifts of men will, in
all probability, ever practically allow.
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