LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN X 970.1 H13h c.a HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING THE INDIANS NORTH AMERICA: REMARKS ON THE ATTEMPTS MADE TO CONVERT AND CIVILIZE THEM. ' " Savages we call them, because their manners differ from ours, which w, perfection of civility : they think the same of theirs. Perhaps, if ? e would c the manners of different nations with impartiality, we should find no people so ruT to be wxthout any rules of politeness ; nor any so polite as not to have some rem" ms rudeness.--.Dr. Franklin's Essay on the North African Savages. BY JOHN HALKETT, ESQ. * LONDON: PRINTED FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO. EDINBURGH AXD minST, nOBINSOK, ANT) CO. 90, CWRAPSIDE, AX,, 8, PAT.I. MAT.!.. 182.5. 70. \ LONDON: PRINTED BY J. MOYES, GREVILLE STREET. CONTENTS. CHAPTEK I. PAGE GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHARACTER OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS OPINIONS OF VARIOUS WRITERS ON THIS SUBJECT .................................................................. CHAPTER II. EARLY CONDUCT OF THE FRENCH WITH RESPECT TO THE INDIANS DANGERS AND DIFFICULTIES EXPERIENCED BY THE MISSIONARIES IN NEW FRANCE ...................................... 27 CHAPTER III. INJUDICIOUS SYSTEM ADOPTED BY THE FRENCH IN IMITATING AND RETALIATING THE BARBARITIES OF THE INDIANS 50 CHAPTER IV. TREACHEROUS CONDUCT OF THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT WITH REGARD TO THE INDIAN NATIONS ABSURD ACCOUNTS OF THE JESUIT MISSIONARIES RELATIVE TO THEIR SUCCESS IN CONVERTING THE HEATHEN -\ CHAPTER V. FRIENDLY CONDUCT OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS TO- WARDS THE EARLY EUROPEAN SETTLERS KINDNESS SHEWN BY THEM TO THE DUTCH COLONISTS UPON THE HUDSON- SIMILAR CONDUCT TOWARDS THE ENGLISH SETTLERS IN VIR- GINIASTORY OF POCAHONTAS VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. KINDNESS OF THE INDIANS TO THE EARLY COLONISTS IN NEW ENGLAND IMPRUDENT CONDUCT OF THE ENGLISH HOSTILI- TIES IN WHICH THE SETTLERS WERE ENGAGED WAR WITH THE PEQUOTS 120 CHAPTER VII. WAR WITH PHILIP THE CELEBRATED CHIEF OF THE POKANO- KETS DESTRUCTION OF THE NARRAGANSETS HOSTILITIES WITH THE EASTERN INDIANS CHAPTER VIII. BANEFUL EFFECTS ARISING FROM THE PRACTICE OF SUPPLYING THE INDIANS WITH SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS 164 CHAPTER IX. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED 187 - CHAPTER X. CONDUCT OF THE FRENCH IN THEIR ENDEAVOURS TO CONVERT THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS TO CHRISTIANITY 206 CHAPTER XI. ATTEMPTS OF THE ENGLISH, PRIOR TO THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR IN NORTH AMERICA, TO CONVERT THE INDIANS. SIMILAR k MEASURES SUBSEQUENT TO THAT PERIOD ATTEMPTS OF A LIKE NATURE BY THE AMERICANS OF THE UNITED STATES 239 CHAPTER XII. RITE OF BAPTISM PROMISCUOUSLY ADMINISTERED TO THE INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA BY THE EARLY FRENCH MIS- SIONARIESQUESTION RESPECTING IT SUBMITTED TO THE . DOCTORS OF THE SORBONNE SENTIMENTS OF NATURAL RELIGION ENTERTAINED BY THE INDIANS OBSTRUCTION TO THEIR CONVERSION ARISING FROM THE RELIGIOUS DIFFER- ENCES AND DISPUTES AMONG THE EUROPEANS 27 CONTENTS. Vll PAGE CHAPTER XIII. INJUDICIOUS CONDUCT OF THE PROTESTANT SETTLEMENTS IN NORTH AMERICA WITH REGARD TO THEIR CONVERTED IN- DIANSGENERAL RELUCTANCE OF THE INDIANS TO RECEIVE THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES 295 CHAPTER XPV. DIFFICULTY OF RECONCILING THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS TO EUROPEAN HABITS AND EDUCATION UNFOUNDED ASSER- TIONS OF SOME WRITERS AS TO THE ALLEGED NATURAL INCAPACITY OF THE INDIANS WITH REFERENCE TO THE ATTEMPTS MADE TO CIVILIZE THEM 316 GKNE CHAPTER XV. RAL REMARKS ON THE CIVILIZATION OF THE INDIANS .... 349 ff ^ CHAPTER XVI. GENERAL REMARKS ON THE ATTEMPTS MADE TO CONVERT THE INDIANS, AND ON THE CAUSES OF FAILURE OBSTACLES ARISING FROM THE INFLUENCE OF THE NATIVE JUGGLERS- BENEFITS WHICH WOULD FOLLOW FROM THE AID OF MEDICAL SKILL EXTENDED TO THE INDIAN NATIONS INJUDICIOUS VIEWS, AND INTOLERANT SPIRIT, TOO OFTEN ENTERTAINED BY SOME OF THE MISSIONARIES CONCLUSION 367 ERRATA. Page 31, Note for vi 36, Notef, line 5 not 51, Line 20 ., leader .... 96, Note xiii 101, Note 5 134, Note-j- Narrative Hist, of New Eng- land, ch. 51. RESPECTING THE . INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA. CHAP. I. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHARACTER OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS OPINIONS OF VARIOUS WRITERS ON THIS SUBJECT. THE manners and customs of the Indians of North America have often furnished matter of curious and interesting inquiry. From the period when that portion of the Western hemisphere was first dis- covered, or rather from that in which the earliest European settlers established themselves upon its shores, the attention of various authors appears to have been drawn towards the delineation of those peculiar qualities v which so strongly marked the native tribes by whom that continent was inhabited. Nor was the attention of those writers less directed, perhaps, to the discovery of the pro- bable root from whence the American population had originally sprung. This question, indeed, has given rise to much discussion; and history, both sacred and profane, has been ingeniously referred B 2 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. I. to for the purpose of supporting the respective theories of those who have taken an active part in the controversy. The valuable researches, made of late years in North America, regarding the languages spoken by the Indian nations in that quarter of the globe, promise, if followed up, to throw more light upon this subject than is likely to arise from any other species of investigation. But, however much writers of eminence have differed respecting the source from which America may have been peopled, they will be found to have generally agreed with regard to the peculiar customs, disposition, and pursuits, of its aboriginal inhabitants. It is not proposed to enter into any minute delineation of the habits and manners of the North American Indians. These have been so often and so accurately described, by writers of different coun- tries and various periods, that any description of them now would contain little more than a repetition of details to which there is every where easy access and reference. The principal object of these Notes is to give a concise view of facts drawn mostly from the early authors who resided in North America ; by which it will probably be seen, that in every quarter a very erroneous system was pursued with regard to the Indian population. In addition to the observations upon the early proceedings respecting the Indians and upon the results which flowed from them it is also intended to submit such remarks and suggestions CM. I. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. as appear more immediately applicable to the attempts made in the present day to effect their civil and religious advancement. If, by pointing out the errors of former times, it can at all serve as a beacon in future attempts at Indian civilization or conversion, one important step towards success is likely to be attained. These errors are obvious from an examination of the works of the earliest writers, as well as those of later periods, who had much communication with the Indians. Travellers, who from curiosity traders, who from views of commercial enterprise military officers, who in the call of their professional duty and the missionaries, who from religious motives, were led to explore the interior of that continent, have fur- nished ample materials for reflection on this sub- ject ; and by laying before the reader extracts from their works, it will no doubt enable him, by refer- ence to the most authentic sources, to judge of the real nature of those endeavours which were made during the course" of two centuries and made in vain to ameliorate the condition of the Indians of North America. It may be satisfactory, in this place, to notice the recorded opinions of some of those writers, most of whom had long resided in that country ; and to describe, in their own words, the favourable sentiments which their experience had taught them to entertain respecting the Indian character. These opinions, indeed, are directly opposite to what has 4 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. I. been so strenuously asserted by some celebrated authors, particularly by the Count de Buffon and Monsieur de Pauw ; both of whom laboured to paint the natives of the New World as despicable, vicious, and brutal ; pronouncing them far inferior to those of the Old, both in mental and corporeal qualities. But there cannot be required a more sa- tisfactory refutation of the assertion made by these writers, than what is conveyed in the numerous and concurring statements of those who, from a long residence among the Indians, had fully qualified themselves to judge of their real character and en- dowments.* The celebrated Lafitau, the Jesuit, who resided a considerable time as a missionary in North America about the beginning of the last century, and who states, that to his own experience he added that of Gamier, another 1 ^ Father of his order, who had lived sixty years among the Indians, has given the following description of them in his learned and curious work, " The Manners of the American Savages compared with the Manners of Ancient Times." " They are possessed," says he, " of sound judg- ment, lively imagination, ready conception, and * Mr. Jefferson, the late President of the United States, in his Notes on Virginia, and the Abbe Clavigero, in his History of Mexico, have ably combated the opinions main- tained by Buffon in his Histoire Naturelle, and of De Pauw in his Recherches Philosophiques sur les Am6ricains. CH. I. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 5 wonderful memory. All the tribes retain at least some trace of an ancient religion, handed down to them from their ancestors, and a form of govern- ment. They reflect justly upon their affairs, and better than the mass of the people among ourselves. They prosecute their ends by sure means; they evince a degree of coolness and composure which would exceed our patience; they never permit themselves to indulge in passion, but always, from a sense of honour and greatness of soul, appear mas- ters of themselves. They are high-minded and proud ; possess a courage equal to every trial, an intrepid valour, the most heroic constancy under torments, and an equanimity which neither misfor- tune nor reverses can shake. Towards each other they behave with a natural politeness and attention, entertaining a high respect for the aged, and a con- sideration for their equals which appears scarcely reconcileable with that freedom and independence of which they are so jealous. They make few professions of kindness, but yet are affable and generous. Towards strangers and the unfortunate they exercise a degree of hospitality and chanty which might put the inhabitants of Europe to the blush."* Lafitau, indeed, qualifies the character he thus * Moeurs des Sauvages Americains, comparees aux Moeurs des Premiers Temps. Par le Pere Lafitau. Vol. i. chap. 3. Paris, 1724. 6 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. I. gives of the Indians, by contrasting with these praises their defects and vices. He describes them as idle, suspicious, vindictive and the more dan- gerous, as they well know how to conceal their intentions of revenge. Cruel to their enemies, gross in their pleasures, vicious through ignorance : " but," adds he, " their simplicity and penury give them one advantage over us, that they remain unacquainted with those refinements of vice which have been introduced by luxury and abundance." Pere le Jeune, another of the celebrated Jesuit missionaries, who resided in Canada at a very early period, also remarks : " I think the savages, in point of intellect, may be placed in a high rank ; educa- tion and instruction alone are wanting. Being well formed in their persons, and having their organs well adapted and disposed, the powers of their mind operate with facility and effect. Their reasoning faculties resemble a soil naturally fertile, but which has continued choked up with evil weeds since the beginning of time. These Indians I can well compare to some of our own villagers who are left without instruction ; yet I have scarcely ever seen any person who has come from France to this country, who does not acknowledge that the sa- vages have more intellect or capacity than most of our own peasantry."* * Relation de ce qui s'est passe en la Nouvelle France en 1'annee 1634. Par le Pere le Jeune, de la Compagnee de Jesus. Chap. 5. Paris, 1635. CH. I. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 7 Mons. Boucher, who, about the middle of the seventeenth century, held the situation of governor of Three Rivers, in New France, makes a similar obser- vation. " In general all the Indians possess a sound judgment; and it is seldom that you find among them any who have that stupid and heavy intellect which we perceive among some of our French peasantry. They stand more in awe of a simple reprimand from their parents or chiefs, than in Europe they do of wheels and gibbets."* Pere Jerome Lallemant, who about the same period resided long as a missionary among the Hurons, thus writes : " Many are disposed to despair of the conversion of this people, from their being prejudiced against them as barbarians; be- lieving them to be scarcely human, and incapable of becoming Christians. But it is very wrong to judge of them in this sort ; for I can truly say, that in point of intellect they are not at all inferior to the natives of Europe ; and, had I remained in France, I could not have believed that, without instruction, nature could have produced such ready and vigorous eloquence, or such a sound judgment in their affairs, as that which I have so much admired among the Hurons. I admit that their * Histoire Veritable des Moeurs et Productions de la Nouvelle France, &c. par Pierre Boucher, chap. 9. Paris, 1664. 8 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cn. I. habits and customs are barbarous, in a thousand instances ; but, after all, in matters which they con- sider as wrong, and which the public condemns, we observe among them less criminality than in France, although here the only punishment of crime is the shame of having committed it." * Pere Vivier, another of the Jesuits, thus de- scribes the Illinois Indians, among whom he resided for a long period, about the middle of the last century. " The Indians are of a character mild and sociable. They appear to have more intelli- gence than most of our French peasantry ; which is probably owing to the liberty in which they are brought up. Respect never renders them timid ; and as they have no degrees of rank nor dignity among them, every man appears to be on an equal footing. An Illinois would speak as boldly to the king of France as to the meanest of his subjects." f Le Clercq, who belonged to one of the early Recollet or Franciscan missions, gives the following general description of those Indians with whom he had long resided near the mouth of the river St. Lawrence. " As I took great pains to become thoroughly acquainted with their manners, maxims, and reli- * Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1645, par le Pere Jerome Lallemant, p. 153. f Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, ecrites des Missions Etrangeres, vol.vit. p. 82. Ed. 1780-81. CH.I. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 9 gion, I think I am able to give to the public a true and faithful idea of them ; and happy shall I be if the reading affords to them the same pleasure as the writing has given to me, of those details which I have selected as the most curious and agreeable, in the missions I had the honour of belonging to during the twelve years I resided in New France. There exists in Europe a very prevailing error which it is proper to remove from the mind of the public, who suppose that the natives of Ame- rica, in consequence of their never having been educated according to the rules of civilized society, possess nothing human but the name ; and that they have none of those good qualities, either corporeal or mental, which distinguish the human race from that of brutes : imagining that they are covered with hair like bears, and more savage than tigers and leopards." " Nature has endowed them \vith too much kindness towards each other, to- wards their children, and even towards strangers, to have ever given cause for comparing them to wild beasts. This fact it will not be difficult to establish in the course of the following History ; in which I shall exhibit, with fidelity, the Indian of this country in every view in which I can con- sider him."* * Nouvelle Relation de Ja Gaspesie, par le P&re le Clercq, Missionaire Recollet, chap. 1. Paris, 1691. 10 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cu. I. Lescarbot, who published his History of New France in 1618, and who had visited that country from curiosity, makes the following remark respect- ing the Indians. " I cannot avoid confessing that the people whom I have to describe are possessed of many good qualities. They are valorous, faith- ful, generous, and humane ; and their hospitality so great, that they extend it to every one who is not their enemy. They speak with much judg- ment and reason, and when they have any im- portant enterprise to undertake, the chief is atten- tively listened to for two or three hours together, and he is answered, point to point, as the subject may require. If, therefore, we call them savages, it is an abusive appellation, which they do not de- serve, as will be proved in the course of this History."* In the Report transmitted in 1656 from the Jesuit mission among the Iroquois, that celebrated people are thus noticed. " Among many faults caused by their blindness and barbarous education, we meet with virtues enough to cause shame among the most of Christians. Hospitals for the poor would be useless among them, because there are no beggars ; for those who have, are so liberal to those who are in want, that every thing is * Histoire de ia Nouvelle France, par Marc Lescarbot, Avocat en Parlement, liv. i. chap. 1. Paris, 1618. CM.I. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 11 almost enjoyed in common ; the whole village must be in complete distress before any individual is left in necessity."* " When they talk in France of the Iroquois," writes La Potherie, who resided in Canada about the end of the seventeenth century, " they suppose them to be barbarians always thirsting for human blood. This is a great error. THe character which I have to give of that nation is very dif- ferent from what these prejudices assign to it. The Iroquois are the proudest and most formidable people in North America, and, at the same time, the most politic and sagacious. This is evident from the important affairs which they conduct with the French, the English, and almost all the people of that vast continent."t The Indian confederacy, generally .called the Iroquois, or Five Nations, is supposed to have existed from times of very remote antiquity. It was composed of the Mohawks, Oneydas, Cayugas, Onondagas, and Senecas. These were joined, about the beginning of the last century, by the Tuscaroras; but the confederacy still continued to be known by the name of the Five, although sometimes of the SLv Nations. Loskiel, in his History of the Missions among the Indians, notices * Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1656-57, chap. 12. t La Potherie, Histoire de 1'Amerique Septentrionale, vol. iii. Preface. 12 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. I. the political constitution of this singular people, as described by one of the Moravian missionaries about the middle of the last century. He states that it resembled a republic, each of the six nations being independent of the other, or, as they expressed it, having their own^/zre, round which their chiefs and elders assembled to deliberate on the affairs of their nation. They had also at Onondago a large common jire, to which the great council of the confederacy resorted. None in general were admitted into the council house but the re- presentatives of the nations. All public business between the Iroquois and any other tribe, was brought before the great fire in Onondaga; at the same time they had agents among other nations to watch over their interests.* The writers of later times give similar accounts of the Indians among whom they resided. Hecke- welder, the celebrated Moravian missionary, who lived upwards of thirty years among them, makes the' following observations. " My long residence among these nations, in the constant habit of unrestrained familiarity, has enabled me to know them well, and made me intimately acquainted * Loskiel's History of the Missions among the Indians, '* quins. * Upon the renewal of hostilities, however, the Iroquois were generally too prudent to allow the return of the missionaries to their countrymen ; and hence it was that Pere Milet was detained (a captive as the French said) for five years, in addi- tion to the long period he had voluntarily resided among them. But while the Iroquois thus thought they were outwitting the French in detaining the missionaries as hostages, the French returned the compliment by employing these missionaries as spies during such detention. In the case of Milet, it is admitted by Charlevoix himself, that the go- vernor of New France did so employ him ; and the consequence was, that upon one occasion he was put to the torture ; and had he not been unexpect- edly adopted by an Oneida matron, he would have been burnt alive. Pre Jogues also, when detained among the same people, (by whom he was afterwards put to death,) acknowledged that he found means of informing the governor-general of the military movements of the Iroquois ; and that in order to avoid the risk of the contents of his letters being discovered, they were partly written in Latin, French, and Spanish.')* * La Potherie, Hist, de 1'Amer. Sept. vol. i. let 11. t See Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1642-43, ch. 12. 218 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. X. In noticing the influence of the early French missions of Canada, La Potherie asserts, that " In proportion as the Holy Spirit expanded itself in the hearts of the Indians, they repaired in crowds to the missionaries, and threw themselves at their feet, in order to be instructed in those truths, of which till now they had been kept in ignorance. Their principal chiefs came and demanded the rites of baptism for themselves and their children. This fervour increased from day to day, and entire villages adopted the pious ordinances so zealously prescribed by the church."* The accounts, how- ever, of many of the most celebrated missionaries themselves do not warrant this statement; their want of success being admitted both by the Recol- lets and the Jesuits. " There are many obstacles," says Hennepin, the Recollet, " to the conversion of the savages ; but in general the difficulty proceeds from the indifference they have to every thing. When we speak to them of the creation of the world, and of the mysteries of the Christian re- ligion, they say we are right; and they commonly assent to all that we advance on the subject of sal- vation. They would think themselves guilty of great incivility to shew the least appearance of in- credulity with respect to what is asserted. But, after having approved all our discourses on these * La Potherie, vol. i. let. 10. CH. X. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 219 matters, they require likewise that we should pay all possible deference to what is said on their part. And when we answer that what they tell us is false, they reply c We have acquiesced in all that you stated, and it is from want of knowing what is right, to interrupt a man who speaks, and to tell him that he advances a falsehood. All that you have taught respecting those of your nation is as you say : but it is not the same as to us, who are of another country, and who inhabit the land on this side of the Great Lake.' "* Charlevoix, the organ of the Jesuits, not only , admits the want of success of their missions in New France, but also of those .in the extensive territory of Louisiana. He observes, in one of his letters from the Missisippi, that an ecclesiastic from Canada had remained for a considerable time with the celebrated Indian nation of the Natchez, but without gaining any proselytes. That missionary having been killed by some Indians, " since then all Louisiana below the Illinois," says Charlevoix, " has remained without a missionary, except the Tonicas, among whom an ecclesiastic (named Da- vion) has resided for several years, so much beloved by them that they even wished to make him their chief but he has not been able to gain a single convert."t * Hennepin, ii. ch. 30. f Charlevoix, Journal Historique, let. 31. 220 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. X. These Tonicas were visited by Charlevoix, and bating always their dislike to conversion he found them a well-disposed and hospitable nation. In the year 1718, when Monsieur du Pratz travelled up the Missisippi, he also paid a visit to them, and found the missionary Davion then residing among them. " I asked him," says Du Pratz, " if his great zeal for the salvation of the Indians was attended with success. He answered, with tears in his eyes, that notwithstanding the great respect they shewed him, it was with difficulty he could get leave to baptize a few children at the point of death; that those who were grown up excused themselves from em- bracing our holy religion, saying, they were too old to accustom themselves to rules so difficult to be observed ; that their grand chief, since he put to death the physician who had attended his only son in a distemper of which he died, had taken a reso- lution, in consequence of Davion's reproaches, to fast every Friday during his life ; that this old chief attended at church both morning and evening, the women and children likewise assisting; but as to the men, they did not come often, and when they did, they took more pleasure in ringing the church- bell."* When we consider the harassing and fatiguing duty which was generally imposed upon the young * Du Pratz, Hist, of Louisiana, part. i. ch. 8. Cn.X. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 221 Indians by the French in their attempts to make them Christians, we may well doubt the reality of that zeal and fervour ascribed by La Potherie to their catechumens and converts. Pere Rasles, who was long a missionary among the Wapanacki In- dians or the men from the rising sun who then inhabited the eastern countries bordering upon New England and the Atlantic, gives the following account, in a letter to his nephew, of their church discipline: " During the thirty years which I have spent in the forests and among the savages, I have been so occupied in teaching them the Christian virtues, that I have not had leisure to write many letters, even to those who are the most dear to me : but as you have requested it, I cannot refrain from transmitting to you a short account of my occupa- tions among them." After some other preliminary remarks, he then proceeds " All my converts repair to the church regularly twice every day ; first, very early in the morning to attend mass ; and again, in the evening to assist in the prayers at sun- set. As it is necessary to fix the imagination of savages, whose attention is easily distracted, I have composed prayers calculated to inspire them with just sentiments of the august sacrifice of our altars ; they chant, or at least recite them aloud during the mass. Besides preaching to them on Sundays and Saints' days, I seldom let a working day pass 222 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cir. X. without making a concise exhortation for the pur- pose of inspiring them with horror at those vices to which they are most addicted, or to confirm them in the practice of some particular virtue." * Pere Marest, in writing from the country of the Illinois, says "The following are the rules we follow in this mission : Very early in the morning we assemble the catechumens in the church, when they say prayers, listen to our instructions, and sing some canticles. When they have retired, we per- form mass, at which all the Christian Indians assist, the men being placed on the one hand, and the women on the other. Prayers are again said, and then another exhortation. After this every one follows his own occupation. We then employ our- selves in visiting the sick, giving them medicines, and consoling them on the subject of their afflic- tions. In the afternoon the catechism is said, when every one attends, Christians as well as catechu- mens, men and women, old and young; and every one, without distinction, answers to the questions put by the missionary. As these people have no books, and are naturally indolent, they would soon forget the principles of our religion, if they were not thus continually recalled to their recollection. In the evening they all again assemble in the church to hear another exhortation, to say prayers, * Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, vol. vi. p. 127. CH.-X. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 223 and to sing some more canticles. On Sundays and fast-days, we add to these exercises an exhort- ation after evening prayers."* In general, however, it was only with the aged and the children that the missionaries succeeded in performing the rites of their religion. The Baron de la Hontan, in writing from the interior, observes, " Almost all the conquests gained to Christianity by the Jesuits, are those infants who have received the rites of baptism, and those old men who, at the point of death, find no inconvenience in dying baptized. "f This corresponds with what was long before stated by Pere Lallemant, in the account of his early mission among the Hu- rons. " We have this year baptized more than a thousand, most of them afflicted with the small- pox ; of whom a large proportion have died, with every mark of having been received among the elect. Of these there are more than three hundred and sixty infants under seven years of age, without counting upwards of a hundred other little children, who, having been baptized before, were cut off by the same malady, and gathered by the angels as flowers in paradise. With respect to adult persons in good health, there is little apparent success : on * Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, vol. vi. p. 337. f La Hontan, let. 14. 224 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. X. the contrary, there have been nothing but storms and whirlwinds in that quarter."* The chief cause of these whirlwinds among the adults may be traced in several of the Reports trans- mitted from New France by the Jesuits. In one of these Pere le Jeune, the superior of that order in Canada, states his doubts whether the young Indians ought to be baptized on their going to be married. " When a young unconverted Indian wished to marry a female convert, he in general addressed himself to the priests, requesting to be instructed and bap- tized, previous to his asking the woman's consent ; or, if she was attached to him, she informed him that she would not marry without the concurrence of her Catholic instructors." " But I am per- suaded," continues Le Jeune, " that storms will arise among them respecting these marriages made in the Christian manner. The savages have for many ages been in full liberty of changing their wives when they choose ; but now that they are made Christians, they must submit the neck to the yoke, however burdensome."! Pere Vimont, a few years afterwards, has given a detailed account of one of these storms, which appears to have increased in his day to a perfect hurricane : " There are many of our Indians/' * Relation de la Mission des Hurons, 1641. t Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1639-40, ch. 4. CH. X. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 225 says, he, " who give us every satisfaction on these points ; but two of them have this year caused much scandal in this matter, and thereby troubled the peace of our little church. Of these apostates one was named Etienne Pigarowick, who before his baptism was a famous sorcerer in his nation, giving much trouble to those who laboured to convert him ; but after his scruples were removed, he pro- fessed much ardour in the faith, assembling the other converts in the Indian villages, and preaching in our churches with a fervour and eloquence which savoured nothing of the barbarian. His zeal con- tinued while he remained with the Christians at St. Joseph's; but having left them to go up to Three Rivers, where some of his Algonquin country- men and other dissolute and debauched Indians had assembled, he and his companion soon allowed themselves to be corrupted by bad company, so much so that they both quitted their lawful wives, and the exercise of the faith, taking each of them unto him a concubine." The Report then proceeds to state, that Pigaro- wick was severely admonished by Pere Brebeuf, who succeeded in prevailing upon him to return to his Christian duties : but having again set off with some of his comrades for Sillery, all his good reso- lutions were forgotten. " In short, Pere Bressani, having proceeded some days afterwards on his way to Quebec, met the party, and was informed that Q 226 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. X. Etienne had again associated with his concubine. The wickedness of this man, as well as that of some other bad Christians in the band infidels and sorcerers, who had behaved insolently at Three Rj vers m ade the governor determine to give them a bad reception, in order to convince them of their faults, as well as of the horror we felt at their conduct." Some time afterwards, famine, and the dread of their Iroquois enemies, compelled them to go down to Quebec, where they hoped to receive that pro- tection and charity they had hitherto experienced from the French. On their arrival, however, they found themselves treated with coldness and insult, the inhabitants shutting their doors against them as against persons excommunicated. ' In this state," continues the Report, " they presented themselves at our house at Siller} 7 , but we reprimanded and drove them away. They then repaired to the Mothers of the Hospital, where they were dismissed without receiving assistance. They next applied to the establishment appropriated for the sick; but ad- mittance was refused them. They then begged at the houses of the inhabitants ; no aid was given to them. They attempted to enter the church, but were prevented. They resorted to the keepers of the public stores, who drove them off' without relief. They exclaimed they were dying of hunger; no- thing was given them to eat. They presented their CH. X. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 227 beaver-skins, collars of wampum, and every thing of value they possessed, in order to procure a morsel of bread ; but their offerings were rejected. They began to build huts in the neighbourhood of the French ; the governor prevented their approach, and prohibited all communication with them, until they should have first driven away from them the two apostates, and given satisfaction for what was done at Three Rivers." The account then adds, that even the converted Indians at Sil- lery did not give them a better reception than the French had done ; nor would their own country- men admit them into their cabins. " A Christian woman, who after a legitimate marriage had been abandoned by one of these apostates, having learned that her husband wished to visit her, retreated to a corner of her cabin, armed herself with a knife, and determined to kill him if he approached her." " This rigorous treatment," adds the Report, " had an excellent effect, and caused the two apostates to be abandoned by all the Indians, who made a public declaration of the wickedness of these two men." The two Indians were now doomed to wander about, shunned by every one. " What," exclaimed Pigarowick to Pere Dequen, who had repulsed him, " what is there no mercy for me? Do you wish me to roam about like a wild and solitary vagabond, abandoned by God and man ? I have 228 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cn. X. sinned, it is true ; but am I therefore to be thrown into despair ? Do not the French themselves com- mit faults ? You preach to us that God is merciful to those who repent and confess their sins. Here am I ready to confess mine, and to expiate them by any penance you may require why, therefore, do you refuse to me what you grant to others?'* What the subsequent fate of this Indian polygamist was, it is not very material to notice. He appears to have been handed over like a pauper from parish to parish, running the gauntlet of almost the whole Jesuit mission in Canada. From Pere Bressani he was turned over to Pere Dequen ; from Dequen to Pere Brebeuf: from Brebeuf to Pere Buteux under whose paternal direction the unlucky Pigaro- wick made ample confession and lamentation, performing penance in the church at Montreal, and publicly scourging himself in the presence of the faithful.* This absurd mode of working out the conversion of an Indian, is scarcely credible ; and yet at least half a dozen of the Jesuit fathers were jointly and severally employed in the process : and Vimont, the superior at that time of all the Canada missions, officially transmitted the account, as above related, to the head of his order in France. The missionaries must have known, that however much * Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1643-44. Cn. X. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 229 polygamy is inadmissible in advanced society and civilized life, the adoption of it among the North American tribes did not originate from profligate or debauched habits, which alone could have sanc- tioned even the slightest of those acts of severity which the French priests, as well as the civil autho- rities, thus resorted to.* * " Marriages among the Indians," says Heckewelder, " are not, as with us, contracted for life. It is understood, on both sides, that the parties are not to live together any longer than they shall be pleased with each other." Account of the Indians, fyc. chap. 1 6. Dr. Morse observes, " Polygamy, limited principally to their chiefs, and to the wealthy, is allowed generally among the Indians." Indian Report, p. 73. Mr. Hunter states, that " The Indians in general have but one wife ; though they, as well as the chiefs and distinguished warriors, may have more, according to their inclination and ability to support their different families." " They construct lodges at a short distance one from another for the accommodation of their different wives, who fulfil their respective duties separately, occasionally visit each other, and generally live on the most friendly terms." On the subject of divorce, he observes : " An Indian, when about to leave his wife, conducts himself very distantly towards her ; maintains a sullen silence towards his own connexions, but most generally hints his dissatisfaction to those of his wife. During this time, if a separation should be dis- agreeable to his companion, she appears exceedingly solicitous to atone for any misconduct of her own, and uses every possible means to conciliate her husband and regain his affections, which very frequently are attended with the sought-for result ; but should she fail in her endeavours, her 230 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. X. That it was the duty of the French missionaries to endeavour, as far as they could, to make the Indians relinquish polygamy, as well as every other error adopted by them, cannot be doubted ; but for this purpose they could not have chosen more ineffectual instruments than penance and persecu- tion. And although the Indian Pigarowick was so hardly dealt with for recurring to a practice per- mitted by his nation, it does not appear why the French gave a dispensation to their own coun- tryman, the Baron de Castin, to hold, at one and the same time, a plurality of Wapanacki wives, besides the daughter of their principal chief Mado- kawando.* La Hontan, indeed, if he be serious, denies this ; observing that De Castin, " in order to make the Indians believe that Heaven was offended with men who were inconstant, never changed his wife."f Perhaps he meant, that with- out literally changing his helpmates, the baron husband, after burying the pledge he received at their marriage, deserts her altogether, and never after is heard to mention her name.". " When a female is disposed to leave her husband, she burns or destroys the pledge she received at her wedding, deserts his lodge, and returns with her family and effects to her parents, or some of her near relations." These separations, however, very rarely occur. Hunter's Memoirs of his Captivity, chap. 7. * Belknap's History of New Hampshire, vol. i. chap. 10. f La Hontan, Memoires de 1'Amerique, p. 30. CH. X. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 231 only, as fancy prompted him, added to their numbers during their lifetime ; an ancient practice in the Indian country, which appears too often followed in more modern times. We read, in the account given by a missionary of the United States, that when reproving an Indian chief for taking a second wife, his first being still alive, " Look," replied the Indian, " there is A B (naming a white trader who resided among them), a great man he has Jive wives, why may not I have two ?" * And the Reverend Mr. Sergeant, another missionary of the same country, tells us, " that among the Indian tribes in the state of Indiana, there are white men who have half a dozen wives ." j" The early suggestion, therefore, of M. de Champ- lain, " to induce the Indians, by holding good examples before their eyes, to alter their customs," appears to have been but little attended to : and it has been well observed by Sir Alexander M'Kenzie, in mentioning the early missions of New France, that, " The Canadian missionaries should have been content to improve the morals of their own countrymen, so that, by meliorating their character and conduct, they would have given a striking * Hall's Brief History of the Missisippi Territory. Ame- rica, 1801. f Morse's Indian Report. Appendix, p. 117. 232 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. X. example of the effect of religion in promoting the comforts of life, to the surrounding savages ; and might, by degrees, have extended its benign in- fluence to the remotest regions of that country which was the object, and intended to be the scene, of their evangelical labours."* Without entering into any comparison between the Romish missions of the former and of the present day, or inquiring whether the latter have been more successful than were their predecessors of New France in their endeavours to convert the heathen, there is one point which cannot be dis- puted that the Indians of British North America are treated by their present Roman Catholic in- structors with great kindness and consideration. So far as benevolence, charity, and paternal care can afford comfort to the Indian, he receives it at their hands ; and to any one who feels an interest in the fate of that race, it must be satis- factory to observe the kindness of their Catholic teachers in Canada, and painful to contrast with it the barbarous conduct of the Spanish North Ame- rican missions, bordering upon the shores of the Pacific Ocean. It has not been thought necessary in these Notes to enter upon the subject of the treatment of the Indians by those early adventurers * M'Kenzie's Voyages. Preliminary Account of the Fur- trade. CH. X. THE NORTH AMERICA^ INDIANS. 233 from Old Spain who took possession of Louisiana, the Floridas, and those countries situated upon the Missisippi and its tributary waters. The narrative of the early progress of the Spaniards in North Ame- rica may be very brief. Wherever they advanced, their steps were marked with blood and desolation. Their object was not to convert or civilize the Indian, but to exterminate or enslave him. Nor has the lapse of centuries materially improved their treatment of him. He was formerly compelled to march in chains to the south, and forced to dig in the bowels of the earth to satiate the avarice of his Christian masters ; in some parts of Spanish North America he has since been compelled to cultivate its surface, and for the exclusive benefit of similar employers: a fact confirmed by the testimony of various travellers of different nations. When La Perouse visited California in 1786, there were then about twenty-five Spanish missions in that country. The Indians were stated to be about fifty thousand, and of these, almost ten thousand to have embraced Christianity. The enumeration of both was probably extremely vague. In one of these missions, Perouse thus notices the usual occupation of the Indian converts : " Every day they have seven hours of labour, two of prayers, and four or five on Sundays and feast- days, which are set apart for repose and Divine worship. Corporal punishment is inflicted upon 234 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. X. the Indians of both sexes who fail in their religious o exercises ; and several offences for which in Europe the punishment is left to the hand of Divine justice are punished here with irons. From the moment that a neophyte is baptized, it is the same as if he had taken perpetual vows ; and, if he should escape from the mission, and take refuge among his relations in their Indian villages, he is sum- moned three times to return. If he refuses, the missionaries apply for the authority of the governor,., who dispatches soldiers to drag him from the bosom of his family and take him back to the missions, where he is sentenced to receive so many lashes. These Indians are of so timid a character, that they never make any opposition to those who thus violate every human right : and this practice, against which reason cries aloud, is maintained because theologians have decided that the rite of baptism ought not, in conscience, to be admi- nistered to men of so inconstant a turn of mind : for whom the government must, therefore, in some degree, act as sponsors, and answer for their perse- verance in the faith." * Vancouver visited several of the California mis- sions in 1792. " The same horrid state of uncleanliness and laziness," says he, " seemed to pervade the whole. A sentiment of compassion * Voyage de la Perouse, vol. ii. chap. 11. Cn. X. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 235 involuntarily obtruded on the mind in contem- plating the natural or habitual apathy to all kind of exertion in this humble race. There was scarcely any sign in their general deportment of their having at all benefited, or of having added one single ray of comfort to their own wretched condition, by the precepts and laborious exertions of their reli- gious instructors; whose lives are sacrificed to their welfare, and seem entirely devoted to the Jbenevolent office of rendering them a better and a happier people."* * Kotzebue, also, in the course of his voyages of discovery a few years ago, landed at the Presidio of San Francisco, in New California, and at the time when the festival in honour of that saint was to be celebrated. Upon entering the church, which is spacious and handsomely fitted up, he found several hundred half-naked Indians kneeling, O' who are never permitted after their conversion to absent themselves from mass, although they neither understand Latin nor Spanish. " As the mission- aries," says Kotzebue, " do not trouble themselves to learn the language of the Indians, I cannot conceive in what manner they have been instructed in the Christian religion." " After dinner they shewed us the habitations of the Indians, consisting of long low houses, built of bricks, and forming * Vancouver's Voyage, book iii. chap. 1. 236 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. X. several streets. The uncleanliness in these barracks baffles description, and this is perhaps the cause of the great mortality." " Both sexes are obliged to labour hard : the men cultivate the ground. The harvest is delivered to the missionaries, and stored in magazines, from which the Indians receive only so much as is necessary for their support. It serves also for the maintenance of the soldiers of the Presidio, but they are obliged to pay a very high price for the flour." " Twice in the year they received permission to return to their native homes. This short time is the happiest of their existence, and I myself have seen them going home in crowds with loud rejoicings. The sick who cannot undertake the journey, at least accompany their happy country- men to the shore where they embark, and then sit for days together, mournfully gazing at the distant summits of the mountains which surround their homes. They often sit in this situation for several days without taking any food : so much does the sight of their lost home affect these new Christians. " Every time, some of those who have the permission to visit their homes run away ; and they would probably all do it, were they not deterred by their fears of the soldiers, who catch them, and bring them back to the mission as criminals." Langsdorff, who had visited the mission of San Francisco a few years before, made a similar obser- Cn.X. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 237 vation. " When the Indian is retaken, he is brought back to the mission, where he is bas- tinadoed, and an iron rod is fastened to one of his feet; which has the double use of preventing him from repeating the attempt, and of frightening others from imitating his example."* The timidity of those runaway converts is so great, says Kotze- bue, that " seven or eight dragoons are sufficient to overpower several hundred Indians." f This mode of dragooning the American heathen into Christianity and that, too, in the nineteenth century is scarcely to be credited; and yet the circumstance is confirmed by the united testimony of witnesses of various countries, and professing different religions by French, Russian, and British travellers and these of the Romish, Greek, and English Church. It was observed by the celebrated Eliot, known in New England as the " Apostle of the Indians," that in order " to Christianize the savages, it was necessary at the same time to civilize and make men of them ;" but the priests at San Francisco seem to have thought it more consonant with the mild precepts of Christianity that they should begin by enslaving them. " The savage," adds Kotze- bue, " comes unthinkingly into the mission, * Langsdorff's Voyages, part ii. chap. 7. | Kotzebue's Voyages of Discovery, &c. vol. i. chap. 9. 238 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. X. receives the food which is willingly offered him, and listens to their instructions. He is still free. But as soon as he is baptized, he belongs to the church, and hence he looks with pain and longing to his native mountains. The church has an unalienable right to her children,, a right which she exercises with rigour." 4 * Kotzebue, vol. iii. p. 43. CH. XI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 239 CHAPTER XI. ATTEMPTS OF THE ENGLISH, PRIOR TO THE REVOLU- TIONARY WAR IN NORTH AMERICA, TO CONVERT THE INDIANS SIMILAR MEASURES SUBSEQUENT TO THAT PERIOD ATTEMPTS OF A LIKE NA- TURE BY THE AMERICANS OF THE UNITED STATES. F^OM the observations contained in the preceding chapter, and from the authorities referred to on the subject of the general result of the early Roman Catholic missions in North America, the reader will probably be of opinion that the labours of their missionaries effected little towards the conversion of the Indians. We may now inquire how far the Protestants were more successful. Almost all the early royal charters and patents issued for British North America professed, among other things, the object of converting the Indians. King James I., in the Nova Scotia patent, (1621,) declared, in reference to those countries, " as are either inhabited or occupied by unbelievers, whom to convert to the Christian faith is a duty of great importance to the glory of God." In the pre- amble to the Pennsylvania charter/during a subse- 240 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cn. XI. quent reign, it is also stated to be a principal object " to reduce the savage natives by just and gentle manners to the love of civil society and Christian religion." And the first royal charter granted to the colony of Massachussets Bay (1628) declared, " And for the directing, ruling, and disposing of all other matters and things whereby our said people, inhabitants there, may be so religiously, peaceably, and civilly governed, as their good life and orderly conversation may win and invite the natives of the country to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour of mankind, and the Christian faith : which, in our royal intention, and the advan- turer's free profession, is the principal end of this plantation." The corporation which this charter established, bore, for its common seal, the figure of an Indian, erect, naked, a bow in one hand, an arrow in the other, and a scroll issuing from his mouth, with these words, Come over and help us* It may be curious to trace what followed this sym- bolical invitation. Fourteen years after the date of this charter, a resolution passed the house of commons in England, which in its preamble but in its preamble only adverted to the subject of Indian conversion: " Whereas the plantations in New England have, * Douglass's Summary, vol. i., part 2, sect. yiii. Cu.xr. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 241 by the blessings of the Almighty, had good and prosperous success without any public charge to this State, and are now likely to prove very happy for the propagation of the Gospel in those parts." The rest of this document related to the colonial trade only ; and it is not easy to conjecture upon what ground the resolution declared that the plantations were so likely to succeed at that time in the propaga- tion of the Gospel, for, in point of fact, they do not appear to have then attempted to propagate it at all. In the instrument of union, executed in 1643, by which the separate colonies of Massa- chussets, Plymouth, Connecticut, and Newhaven, became joined in confederacy, it was declared, ' That they all came into those parts of America with the same errand and aim, to advance the Christian religion, and enjoy the liberty of their consciences with purity and peace;" but, until the year 1646, it does not appear that any step was taken by them, either separately or collectively, to advance that religion by extending it to the Indians. In that year, however, the general court of Massa- chussets recommended to the elders to see what could be done on this subject; and four persons were appointed, by whom the first visit was made for that purpose among the Indian wigwams, under the direction of a native chief, called Wauban or The Wind. There were four meetings of this sort in the course of that year. An account of their * R 242 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XL proceedings was written by one of the resident ministers at the time ; and the first chapter of his work, under the head of " A true Relation of our Beginnings with the Indians," thus described the commencement of their visitation : " Upon October 28, 1646, four of us (having sought God) went unto the Indians inhabiting within our bounds, with desire to make known the things of their peace to them." " They being all of them assembled, wee began with prayer, which now was in English, being not so farre acquainted with the Indian language as to express our hearts herein before God and them, but wee hope it will bee done ere long, the Indians desiring it, that they also might know how to pray : but this wee began in an unknown tongue to them, partly to let them know that this dutie in hand was serious and sacred, partly also in regard of ourselves, that wee might agree together in the same request and heart-sor- rowes for them even in that place where God was never wont to be called upon. When prayer was ended, it was a glorious affecting spectacle to see a company of perishing forlorn outcasts diligently attending to the blessed word of salvation then de- livered, professing they understood all that which was then taught them in their owne tongue. It much affected us that they should smell some things of the alablaster box broken open in that darke and gloomy habitation of filthiness and un- CH. XI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 243 cleane spirits. For about an hour and a quarter the sermon continued, wherein one of our company ran through all the principall matter of religion, beginning first with a repetition of the Ten Com- mandments, and a briefe explication of them, the shewing the curse and dreadfull wrath of God against those who brake them, and so applied it unto the condition of the Indians present with much sweet affection," &c. After going on to detail the various points of doctrine which they inculcated to the Indians, they were proceeding " to propounde certaine questions" to them ; but " before wee did this, wee asked them if they understood all that which was already spoken, and whether all of them in the wigwam did under- stand, or onely some few ? And they answered to this question with multitude of voyces, that they all of them did understand all that which was spoken to them." The proceedings of this their first meeting concluded as follows : " Thus after three houres' time thus spent with them, wee asked them if they were not weary, and they answered, No. But wee resolved to leave them with an appetite. The chief of them seeing us conclude with prayer, desired to know when wee would come again ; so wee appointed the time, and having given the chil- dren some apples, and the men some tobacco, and what else wee then had in hand, they desired some more ground to build a town together, which wee 244 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XI. did much like of, promising to speake for them to the generall court, that they might possesse all the compasse of that hill upon which their wigwams then stood, so wee departed with many welcomes from them." Three similar meetings are stated to have taken place in the course of the same year, and the pro- ceedings of the whole were transmitted to England, and published in the work above alluded to under the title of " The Day-breaking, if not the Sun- rising of the Gospel with the Indians of New Eng- land."* The sun indeed must have risen very rapidly ; because if an act of parliament is to be credited more progress was made by the English in this respect in the short space of about two years than was effected by the French in one hundred and fifty. " Whereas the commons of England assembled in parliament," says the act (of 1649), " have received certain intelligence from divers godly ministers in New England, that divers of the heathen natives, through the pious care of some godly English who preach the Gospel to them in their own language, not only of barbarous are become civil, but many of them forsake their accus- tomed charms, sorceries, and Satanical delusions, do now call upon the name of the Lord, and give great testimony of the power of God drawing them * Published in London, 1647, 4to. Cii.XI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 245 from death and darkness to the light and life of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, which appeareth by their lamenting with tears their misspent lives; teaching their children what they are instructed themselves ; being careful to place them in godly families and English schools; betaking themselves to one wife, putting away the rest ; and by their constant prayers to Almighty God, morning and evening, in their families, expressed in all appear- ance with much devotion and zeal of heart. All which considered, we cannot but, in behalf of the nation we represent, rejoice and give glory to God for the beginning of so glorious a propagation of the Gospel among those poor heathens; which cannot be prosecuted with that expedition as is de- sired, unless fit instruments be encouraged and maintained to pursue it, schools and cloathing be provided, and many other necessaries. Be it there- fore enacted," &c.* By this act a corporation was established, con- sisting of a president and fifteen other members, who were authorised to make a general collection throughout England and Wales, for the furtherance of the object proposed ; and it was recommended that the clergy should exhort their respective con- gregations cheerfully to contribute to so pious a work. The universities of Oxford and Cambridge * Hutchinson's History of Massachussets, ch. 1. 246 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XI. also circulated letters throughout the whole country, suggesting to the members of the church to exert themselves in obtaining liberal contributions for the same purpose. A considerable opposition appears to have been made in the mother country to this collection, but a sum was realized, producing, at the time of the Restoration, an annual amount of five or six hundred pounds. The charter of the corporation was at that time pronounced void ; but a new one was granted by Charles II. for the propagation of the Gospel in New England and adjacent parts of America. The number of its members was increased. By the former charter the Commissioners of the four United New Eng- land colonies were appointed to be the agents in America for the corporation in England, for the disbursement of the funds ; and they continued in that capacity as long as the union of these colonies lasted. From what has been thus stated, it appears that, until about the middle of the seventeenth century, no step of any consequence was taken by the English to promote the conversion of the North American In- dians ; who were left, as before, under the influence of those " charms, sorceries, and Satanical delusions," which were so solemnly denounced by the commons in parliament assembled. Is it therefore to be wondered at that Governor Hutchinson, in alluding to the original charter which directed the Gospel CH.XI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 247 to be taught to the heathen, should have asserted that " the Indians themselves asked how it hap- pened, if Christianity was of such importance, that, \ ^ for six-and-twenty years together, the English had said nothing to them about it?"* It may perhaps be advanced, in exception to this charge, that Mr. Eliot, usually designated " the Apostle of the In- dians," was at this time labouring in New England to convert them ; but although he arrived in that country in the year 1631, it does not appear that he held any religious communication with the natives till 1646; nor was it until 1651 that he gathered them together at the first church esta- blished for them at Natick, in Massachussets. It was from about that period when these and other of the natives were brought together, with similar views but in different quarters ; and they received the name of the Praying Indians, to distinguish them from the mass of their unconverted country- men. The fund which had been obtained in Eng- land from the collection sanctioned by the act of parliament (of 1649), was evidently the ground- work of this the earliest of the Indian churches. At the same time it should be noticed that Mr. Eliot had been long preparing for his evangelical labours, by his perseverance in making himself master of the Indian language ; in which his success * Hutchinson's History of Massachussets, ch. 1. 248 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XI. must have been great, having translated the whole Bible, besides other pious and useful works, into the Indian tongue.* As Eliot was certainly the most eminent, and probably the most earlyf of the English Protestant ministers who laboured in endeavouring to convert the Indians, it would have been very desirable to have ascertained distinctly what the extent and real nature of the changes were, which he is stated to have effected in their religious sentiments and belief. The accounts given by himself and others of his success, have all the appearance of being extremely exaggerated : but admitting, for a moment, that these statements were accurate, how melan- choly is the reflection that not a vestige remains of the good effect arising from his labours ! The memory of this Indian evangelist may long conti- nue to be an object of veneration, but it cannot be justly asserted that any real or solid benefit has accrued to the savages from his zeal, or that he even laid the foundation for a permanent conversion of the native population. " Mr. Eliot," says * Eliot's translation of the Bible into the Indian language was printed at Cam bridge (Massachussets) in the year 1664; and, after his death, it was republished by the Rev. Mr. Cotton of Plymouth, in that province. f It appears, however, from Hubbard's General History, that Mr. Mayhew began in the year 1645 to preach to the Indians at Martha's Vineyard. Ch. 76. Cu. XL THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 249 Dr. Douglass, " with immense labour translated and printed our Bible into Indian. It was done with a good and pious design, but it; must be reckoned among the otiosorum hominum negotia. It was done in the Natick language. Of the Naticks, at present, there are not twenty families subsisting, and scarce any of these can read. Cui bono?"* We ought not, in the present day, to be blinded by the flattering accounts, or sanguine views, of Eliot's biographers, many of which appear more calculated to afford amusement than information. It is in one of these eulogies, where Dr. Mather hit upon a novel mode of settling the knotty point which has puzzled so many theorists, with respect to the question of how America was originally peopled. Of these, some had ascribed it to the remnants of the antediluvian inhabitants who had escaped the general Deluge, or to a band of emi- grants from the Old World, soon after the disper- sion of the grandsons of Noah. Some attributed it to the Japanese, by the way of the Pacific Ocean ; others to the Carthaginians, by the way of the Atlantic. Some say it was peopled by the Greeks, * Douglass's Summary, vol. i. part i. sect. 3. In a subse- quent part of his work, Dr. Douglass notices " the Indian plantation of Natick, with a minister and salary from the English Society for propagating the Gospel among the In- dians in New England ; he officiates in English, and his con- gregation are mostly English.'" 250 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XI. and some by the Jews. Some assert that its original inhabitants had moved from the north- eastern coasts of Asia ; others, that they had mi- grated from the north-western shores of Europe. A learned Dutchman conjectures, that during the three years' voyage made by the Tyrian fleet which King Solomon sent in search of elephants' teeth and peacocks' tails, the Phoenicians proved to be the fortunate discoverers of America. In short, Phoenicians, Scythians, Tartars, Chinese, Spaniards, Swedes, Norwegians ail lay their claim to the first discovery and peopling of that continent ; and last, though not least, " the most probable Historic in this kind is, in my minde, that of Madoc ap Owen Guyneth, who, by reason of civill conten- tions, left his countrey of Wales, seeking adventures by sea ; and, leaving the coast of Ireland north, came to a land unknowne, where he saw manie strange thinges."* But the reverend biographer of Eliot cuts the Gordian knot at once. " The natives of the country," says he, " had been forlorn and wretched heathen ever since their first herding here ; and tho' we know not when or how the Indians first became inhabitants of this mighty continent, yet we may guess that probably the devil decoyed those miserable salvages hither, in hopes that the Gospel would never come here to * Purchas his Pilgrimes, vol. v. book viii. ch. 2. CH. XI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 251 destroy or disturb his absolute empire over them. But our Eliot was in such ill terms with the devil as to alarm him with sounding the silver trumpets of heaven in his territories, and make some noble and zealous attempts towards outing him of his ancient possessions here. There were, I think, twenty several nations of Indians upon that spot of ground, and our Eliot was willing to rescue as many of them as he could from that old usurping landlord of America."* Whether the ancient landlord has, amidst revolutionary changes in that country, recovered possession of any part of his former dominions, need not at present be inquired into ; but with respect, at least, to " our Eliot," Dr. Mather himself acknowledges that " the Indian church at Natick, which was the first Indian church in America, is, since blessed Eliot's death, much diminished and dwindled away."f The lapse of years, indeed, has completed its downfal ; and it is now a long time since there has been at Natick either an Indian church or an Indian to attend it. A few years before Eliot's death, a letter was addressed by Mr. Increase Mather, minister at Boston, to Professor Leusden of Utrecht, on the subject of Indian conversion, in which there is * Mather's Magnalia, book iii. part iii. t Ibid, book vi. Postscript. 252 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XI. an account given of the numbers of the churches and religious meetings of the Indians in New Eng- land at that time. It concludes thus : " In short, there are six churches of baptized Indians in New England, and eighteen assemblies of catechumens professing the name of Christ. Of the Indians, there are four-and-twenty who are preachers of the Word of God ; and, besides these, there are four English ministers who preach the Gospel in the Indian tongue."* Upon this part of the letter, Dr. Cotton Mather, in whose work it is inserted, observes, " At the writing of my father's letter (in 1687) there were four, but the number of them increases apace among us. At Martha's Vineyard, the old Mr. Mayhew, and several of his sons, or grandsons, have done very worthily for the souls of the Indians : there were, fifteen years ago, by computation, about fifteen hundred seals of their ministry upon that one island. In Connecticut, the holy and acute Mr. Fitch has made noble essays towards the conversion of the Indians ; but, I think, the prince he has to deal withal being an obstinate infidel, gives unhappy remoras to the successes of his ministry. And godly Mr. Pierson has in that colony deserved well, if I mistake not, upon the same account. In Massachussets, we see at this day the pious Mr. Daniel Gookin, Magnalia, book iii. part iii. CH. XI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 253 the gracious Mr. Peter Thatcher, the well-accom- plished and industrious Mr. Grindall Ravvson, all of them hard at work, to turn these poor creatures from darkness unto light, and from Satan unto God. In Plymouth, we have the most active Mr. Samuel Treat laying out himself to save this generation ; and there is one Mr. Tupper who uses his laudable endeavours for the instruction of them. 'Tis my relation to him that causes me to defer unto the last place the mention of Mr. John Cotton, who hath addressed the Indians in their own language with some dexterity. He hired an Indian, after the rate of twelve pence per day, for fifty days, to teach him the Indian tongue, but his knavish tutor having received his whole pay too soon, ran away before twenty days were out; how- ever, in this time he had profited so far, that he could quickly preach unto the natives."* These, and many similar accounts, were recorded by the ministers who resided in various parts of New England in the course of the seventeenth cen- tury, and who, from their situation, were the most competent persons to obtain information upon the subject. They also stated the number of schools they had established at which the Indian youth were taught. Their accounts of the beneficial result of these measures may have been exaggerated, * Magnalia, book iii. part. iii. 254 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XL but there is sufficient to shew that, about that period at least, there was no want of zeal among them to promote the conversion and improvement of the Indians. In the year 1665, the commissioners appointed by the king to inquire into the state of the New England colonies, were, among their other duties, di- rected " to make due enquiry what progress had been made towards the foundation and maintenance of any college or schools for the education of youth and conversion of Infidels ; the king having taken abundant satisfaction in the accounts received of the designs of the colony herein, which he hoped would draw a blessing upon all their other under- takings." The answer given by the general court of the colony to this interrogatory, as far as related to the Indians, was " that there was at Cambridge a small fabrick of brick for the use of th,e Indians, built by the corporation in England, in which there were then eight Indian scholars, one of which bad been admitted into college ; that there were six towns of Indians in the jurisdiction, professing the Christian religion ; and they had schools to teach the youth to read and write, and persons appointed to instruct them in civility and religion, who had orders to wait upon the commissioners and shew them the towns, and manners of life of the Indians, if it should be desired."* If any reasonable doubts, * Hutchinson's History of Massachussets, chap. 2. Cu. XI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 255 therefore, existed at that time as to the exertions made in New England for the conversion of the savages, the king's commissioners had full means of ascertaining the truth upon the spot. About the commencement of the last century, some additional public institutions were formed in Great Britain, which, among other objects, directed their view to the propagation of Chris- tianity abroad. A society was established in Eng- land, by royal charter, in the year 1701, for pro- pagating the Gospel in foreign parts; and, in 1709, a similar one was formed in Scotland : which, in its operation, was subsequently extended to the conver- sion of the Indians in several of those parts of Ame- rica to which it was supposed the act of 1649 did not locally apply. Dr. Douglass states, that under the patronage of this latter society a missionary was employed for the purpose of converting the Narra- gansets, but with what success does not appear. It was by the same society that the celebrated Brainerd was appointed a missionary among the Indians, and in zeal he equalled any one who ever engaged in their conversion. " Mr. Eliot, Mr. Mayhew, and others," says Douglass, " spared no fatigue, and were of great service in civilizing our intermixed Indians, though their faith was not strong enough to carry them out among the tribes of the adjacent wilderness :" but Brainerd, he adds, rode no less than four thousand miles in the course 256 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XI. of one year among the Indians in the interior, during which time it frequently happened that he did not see a white person for five or six weeks together.* " Of all the missionaries," writes Mr. Smith, in his History of New York, " Mr. David Brainerd, who recovered these Indians (of New Jersey) from the darkness of Paganism, was most successful. He died in Oc- tober 1747, a victim to his extreme mortification, and inextinguishahle zeal for the prosperity of his mission." t But has Brainerd, any more than Eliot, or Mayhew, left behind him any permanent trace of the real conversion of the American Indian? We read, indeed, of " the excellent Brainerd, who at Crossweeksung converted by his preaching so far as the human eye can judge seventy-five Indians out of one hundred, to the faith and obedience of the Gospel, within twelve months :" J but it is to be feared that this "judging by the eye" too often misleads us with respect to Indian con- version ; and we may, therefore, fairly hesitate in giving credit to the same writer, who, adopting the accounts given by Gookin, says, '' we learn with certainty," tliat in his time there were in Massa- * Douglass's Summary, part ii. sect. 10. t Smith's Hist, of New York, part i. Dr. Douglass says, that Brainerd only preached to the Indians in English, which, of course, the latter did not understand. t Dwight's Travels in New England, vol., iii. let. 9. CH. XI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 257 chussets colony eleven hundred praying Indians in fourteen villages ; in Plymouth colony, nearly six thousand ; in Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, perhaps fifteen hundred more ; and when to these were to be added those in Connecticut, he makes the total number " not far from ten thousand." But Gookin himself, in his account of the whole Indian population in New England at their most prosperous period, does not calculate them to exceed eighty thousand souls (a number which Dr. Dwight even admits to be probably overrated by at least ten thousand); so that we are thus desired to believe, that at the time alluded to, one-sixth or one-seventh part of the Indians in that part of America was converted to Christianity ! The assertion is wholly incredible. In the time of Queen Anne, attempts were made to establish missionaries among the Iroquois. Go- vernor Hunter, at a grand council held at Albany with some of the Indians of that confederacy, after distributing presents among them, told them, " The queen had not only provided fine clothes for their bodies, but likewise intended to adorn their souls by the preaching of the Gospel, and that some ministers should be sent to instruct them. When the governor had finished his speech, the eldest chief rose up, and, in the name of all the Indians, thanked their good mother the queen for the fine clothes she had sent them ; but that, in regard s 258 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cii'.XI. to the preachers, they had already had some of them, who, instead of preaching the Gospel, taught them to drink to excess, and to cheat and quarrel among themselves ; and they entreated the governor to take from them the preachers, and a number of Europeans who came among them : for, before their arrival, the Indians were an honest, sober, innocent people, but now most of them were rogues ; that they formerly had the fear of the Great Spirit, but they hardly now believed in his existence."* The heavy charges thus made against these preachers must have applied to the native Indians who were employed by the Europeans as teachers of the Gospel among the tribes. This unfortunately was too common a practice both among the French and British settlers in North America. There were in New England, about the year 1687, (as already noticed,) not fewer than twenty-four of these native preachers ; and if we are to judge of them from the sample presented by Dr. Mather, in his Ecclesiastical History of that colony, we cannot be much surprised at the Indians of the Five Nations entreating their good Mother to remove them from their country, f * Long's Travels of an Indian Interpreter, page 32. f In the year 1694 an Indian was executed for a murder committed by him when he was drunk. Dr. Mather states, that after his condemnation, the Indian said, " The thing that undid him was this. He had begun to come and hear CH'.XI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 259 Dr. Golden states, that a missionary was sent over by Queen Anne, with an allowance from her privy purse, to reside among the Mohawks. " The Common Prayer," says he, " or at least a consi- derable part of it, and some other pieces, were translated for the minister's use, viz. an Exposition of the Creed, Decalogue, Lord's Prayer, Church Catechism, and a discourse on the Sacraments ; but as that minister was never able to attain any tolerable knowledge of their language, and was naturally a heavy man, he had but little success, and, his allowance failing by the queen's death, he left them."* From that period a long time elapsed without any teacher going among the Mohawks. At length a young man voluntarily repaired to their country, and set up a school to teach the Indian children. He soon afterwards went to England, where he took orders, and returned as a missionary. Golden has inserted in his History a letter which the preaching of the Gospel among the Indians ; but he minded the Indian preacher how he lived, and he saw plainly that the preacher minded his bottle more than his Bible. He loved r/ium too well, and when his rhum was in him, he would quarrel with other people, and with himself par- ticularly. This," said he, " prejudiced him against the Gospel, so he lived a Pagan still, and would be drunk too ; and his drunkenness had brought all this misery upon him." Magnolia, book vi. Appendix. * Colden's History of the Five Nations. Introduction, p. 18. 260 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Ca. XI. he received from this missionary some time after- wards, in which he gives a very flattering account of his success in converting and improving the Indians ; but as he admits in his letter his own want of the Mohawk language, and that he could not procure an interpreter, one cannot help sus- pecting, in some degree, the accuracy of his state- ments. In the year 1734, an Indian mission (under the patronage, also, of the Scottish Society for promoting Christian Knowledge,) was commenced at Stock- bridge, in Massachussets. The first missionary was Mr. John Serjeant, a zealous and pious minister, who translated for the use of the Indians most of the New, and parts of the Old Testament, into the Mohe- kanew language. He instituted a school for the Indian youth, and benefactions were procured both in England and America for its support. Two masters were appointed, one to teach them in the school, the other to superintend their lessons of husbandry in the field ; there was also a matron to direct the female children in pursuits of a domestic nature. The death of Mr. Serjeant appears, in a great measure,- to have put a stop to the benefits expected from this institution. His immediate successor was a minister who was obliged to preach to them through the channel of an inter- preter. He was succeeded by the son of the original missionary, and, under his zealous ministry^ Cli.XL THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 261 the Stockbridge Indians were invited by the Onei- das (one of the Five Nations) to reside with them in the Oneida Reservation, in the western part of the state of New York. This invitation was accepted, and they removed from New England to that quarter, where their few descendants now continue, under the government of the United States. A similar attempt to that at Stockbridge was made in the year 1754, when another Indian school was established in New England, and contributions for its support obtained in Great Britain and America. The funds collected in England were put in the hands of a board of trustees, at the head of whom was the Earl of Dartmouth : and those collected in Scotland were committed to the Society established in that country for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. From this institution arose Dartmouth College, which was established in 1760, in Hanover township in New Hampshire, and Dr. Wheelock, its founder, was made president. The school was united to the college, but the institution, as far as the Indians were concerned, did not succeed. " Experience had taught Dr. Wheelock," says Belknap, " that his Indian youths, however well educated, were not to be depended upon for instructors of their countrymen. Of forty who had been under his care, twenty had returned to the vices of savage life; and some, 262 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XI. whcJm he esteemed subjects of Divine grace, had not kept their garments unspotted."* In British North America, there are at present besides the Roman Catholic establishments appropriated to the use of the Indians three Pro- testant missionaries among the Esquimaux on the coast of Labrador. In Canada the're is only one regular Protestant Indian mission, but several of the missionaries of the British settlements in the Upper Province, act as occasional visitors for the religious instruction of the Indians ; and there are likewise schoolmasters appointed to teach them. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel is taking steps to extend and improve these esta- blishments. The Church Missionary Society also nominated, a few years ago, the chaplain of the newly-formed British settlement on the Red River of Lake Winnipic, to be their missionary in that quarter; who, among his other duties, has to super- intend the religious and school education of the neighbouring Chippewa and other Indians, both of the pure and the mixed breed. A regular schoolmaster and schoolmistress have also been sent out by the same society, who have appro- priated a liberal allowance for these benevolent purposes. After the revolutionary contest which terminated * Belknap's Hist, of New Hampshire, vol. ii. chap. 24. CH.XI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 263 in the separation of Great Britain from those of her North American colonies with which she had been at war, the Indian missions in that country con- tinued, and were extended under the management of the general government of the United States, as well as of individual states within the Union. It is unnecessary in these Notes to enter into detail as to their exertions in this respect. The subject has often occupied the attention of their executive government, and of Congress, and the difficulties attending it have been apparent. There has been no want of zeal in those who have been employed in this object; it appears to have received every reasonable encouragement on the part of the Ame- rican government; and has called forth the exer- tions and liberality of various societies, which have established themselves in different parts of the Union for the promotion of this important object. President Monroe, in his inaugural speech (March 1821), adverted to the subject of those Indians who are placed under the protection of the United States. He observed, that the care of them bacl long been an essential part of the American system, but that unfortunately it had not been executed in a manner to accomplish all the objects intended by it. That they had been treated as independent nations, without their having any substantial preten- sion to that rank ; this distinction flattering their 264 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XL pride, retarding their improvement, and, in many instances, paving the way to their destruction. That the progress of many of the American settle- ments had constantly driven the Indians back with almost the total sacrifice of the land, which they have been compelled to abandon. " They have claims," says he, " on the magnanimity, and, I may add, on the justice of the nation, which we must all feel. We should become their real benefactors ; we should perform the office of their Great Father, the endearing title which they em- phatically give to the chief magistrate of our Union. Their sovereignty over vast territories should cease, in lieu of which the right of soil should be secured to each individual and his pos- terity in competent portions ; and, for the territory thus ceded by each tribe, some reasonable equi- valent should be granted, to be vested in per- manent funds for the support of the civil govern- ment over them, and for the education of their children ; for their instruction in the arts of husbandry, and to provide sustenance for them until they can provide it for themselves. My earnest hope is, that Congress will digest some plan, founded on these principles, with such improvements as their wisdom may suggest, and carry it into effect as soon as it may be prac- ticable." Shortly before this period, the government of CH. XI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 265 the United States had appointed the Reverend Dr. Morse to make a visit of observation and inspection among various Indian tribes, and to report to the President upon their circumstances and condition. Dr. Morse was at that time acting in some degree in a similar situation under commissions from the Scottish Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, and from the Northern Missionary Society of the State of New York. His attention was now particularly directed to ascertain, as distinctly as possible, the actual state of the Indians in a moral, religious, and political view ; the nature and climate of the countries occupied by them ; and' the cus- toms, manners, and institutions of the native in- habitants. His Report was laid before Congress in the spring of 1822, and was published in America in the course of the same year, with all its nume- rous accompanying documents. Dr. Morse states, that a great deal has been already done, and is now continuing to be effected, in several parts of the Union, for the benefit of the Indians ; and he recommends various measures as connected with their future civilization and improvement. The details contained in the Report are much too voluminous to be particularly remarked upon here : some parts of the work have already been ad- verted to, and a few others shall be afterwards 26C HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cu. XI. noticed. Among other suggestions, Dr. Morse recommended the formation of a society on a very extended scale a plan which appears to have been since adopted under the name of the " American Society for promoting the Civi- lization and general Improvement of the Indian Tribes within the United States." Cn.XII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 267 CHAPTER XII. RITE OF BAPTISM PROMISCUOUSLY ADMINISTERED TO THE INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA BY THE EARLY FRENCH MISSIONARIES QUESTION RESPECTING IT SUBMITTED TO THE DOCTORS OF THE SORBONNE SENTIMENTS OF NATURAL RELIGION ENTER- TAINED BY THE INDIANS OBSTRUCTION TO THEIR CONVERSION, ARISING FROM THE RELI- GIOUS DIFFERENCES AND DISPUTES AMONG THE EUROPEANS. IN remarking upon the labours of the early Jesuit missionaries in the interior of North America, Charlevoix observes : " The fruits which they gathered in the first season were inconsiderable - five or six baptisms of grown persons but they consoled themselves with the happiness of having secured the eternal salvation of a great many chil- dren, who received the rites of baptism immediately before their death." * The accounts from the early Recollet missions are similar. Pere le Caron, of that order, states, in 1624, " We continue to send to heaven a great number of infants, and some dying adults whose hearts God seems to touch at their end, and whom we baptize without * Charlevoix, Hist, de la Nouvelle France, liv. 5. 268 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cn.XlI. difficulty : but as to the others, there is little suc- cess."* This sacrament, however, was afterwards frequently extended to the savages, of all ages and descriptions ; the Roman Catholic missionaries appearing to have been more anxious about the number than the selection of those whom they bap- tized. What Dr. Robertson, in his History of America, remarks on the subject of baptizing the Indians of Mexico, applies, in a considerable de- gree, to the more northern countries of that con- tinent : " In the course of a few years after the reduction of the Mexican empire, the sacrament of baptism was administered to more than four mil- lions. Proselytes, adopted with such inconsiderate haste, and who were neither instructed in the nature of the tenets to which it was supposed they had given their assent, nor taught the absurdities of those which they were required to relinquish, retained their veneration for their ancient supersti- tions in full force, or mingled an attachment to its doctrines and rites with that slender knowledge of Christianity which they had acquired." f Pere Dablon, in one of the annual Reports transmitted by the Jesuit missions in Canada, ob- serves, " Thus we may say that the torch of the faith now lights up the four quarters of this New * Premier Etablissement de la Foy dans la Nouvelle France, vol. i. chap. 8. Paris, 1691. t Robertson's Hist, of America, book 8. CH. XFI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. World ; upwards of seven hundred barbarians have this year consecrated our forests ; more than twenty missions constantly occupy the fathers of our church, among at least twenty different nations ; and the chapels, erected in the most distant regions, are almost every where filled with these poor bar- barians ; in some of which they have ten, twenty, and thirty baptisms in a day." * It would appear that the Jesuits and the Recol- lets did not agree upon the propriety of these nu- merous baptisms. While the former set almost no limits to the administration of this sacrament, the latter entertained great doubts respecting it, con- ceiving that it ought not to have been so generally and promiscuously extended to the savages. Hen- nepin, the Recollet, in describing the Illinois Indians, among whom he had resided, observes, " They will readily suffer us to baptize their children, and would not refuse it themselves ; but are incapable of any previous instruction concerning the truth of the Gospel, and the efficacy of the sacraments. Were I to have followed the example of some other missionaries, I could have boasted of many conver- sions ; for I might have easily baptized all these tribes, and have said, as 1 fear they do without any reason, that I had converted them." | * Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1670-71. t Hennepin, vol. i. ch. 33. 270 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XII. The Recollet Le Clercq mentions that they de- puted one of their order to go from Canada to France, for the purpose of consulting the doctors of the university of Paris upon this subject. " For such," says he, " is the disposition of these Indian nations, that they profess no religion, and appear incapable of that ordinary degree of reflection which would lead other men to the knowledge of a Divinity, either true or false. These poor blind creatures listen to what we say of our sacred mys- teries as they would to idle tales : they comprehend or assent to nothing that is not palpable or obvious to the senses. Their superstitions are unmeaning, their customs are savage, barbarous, and brutal ; and they would consent to be baptized ten times a day, for a glass of brandy or a pipe of tobacco. They willingly offer us their children to be baptized, but not from the slightest sentiment of religion; and even those who have been instructed during the whole winter, do not evince any better know- ledge of the faith. The few adults who had been baptized, even after they had received instruction, again relapsed into their usual indifference to every thing that regards their salvation : and the children to whom baptism had been administered follow the example of their fathers, all of which is a profana- tion of this sacrament." u This case," continues Le Clercq, " was fully stated and discussed ; and it was even carried into CH. XII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 271 the Sorbonne. The decision upon it was as fol- lows : That, with respect to dying infants and adults, the missionaries might risk the sacrament of baptism when asked for, presuming that God would give to the adults some ray of light, such as it was believed had already occurred in several cases : that, as to the other savages, it ought not to be administered, unless where, by a long trial, it appeared that they were instructed, and detached from their own barbarous customs, or where they had habituated themselves to the manners of the French ; and the same with respect to their chil- dren. A formulary and species of canon was com- posed, for the regulation and guidance of our mis- sionaries on this subject." * Upon what grounds, however, Hennepin asserted the incapacity of the Indians to receive instruction concerning the truths of the Gospel, or upon what grounds Le Clercq pronounced them incapable of that degree of reflection which would lead to a knowledge of the Divinity, it is not easy to con- jecture : for there appears to be scarcely any writer who has carefully and impartially investigated this subject, who does- not admit that the North Ame- rican tribes almost universally entertain rational, although rude, notions of natural religion, accom- panied by the belief of a future state. There were, * Premier Etablissement de la Foy, &c., vol. i. ch. 5. 272 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XII. as might naturally be expected, considerable dif- ferences among the numerous nations with regard to their particular traditions, ceremonies, and faith, but they every where acknowledged the Great Spirit, the Disposer of all good, their supreme Guide and Protector. " It is an insult to an Indian," says Hunter, " to suppose it necessary to tell him he must believe in a God." From the earliest disco- very of North America, the belief in the existence of a Supreme Power, and of a future state, was ob- servable among the Indians, and the same opinions prevail among them at the present day. In "The briefe and true Report of the New-found Land of Virginia," &c., by Thomas Hariot, who was employed 'by Sir Walter Raleigh in that infant colony, we find, as far back as the year 1587, the following remark made upon the Indians in that part of North America : " Theye beleeve that there are many gods, which theye call Mantaoc, but of different sorts and degrees : one onely chief and great God which hath been from all eternitie, who, as theye affirme, when hee proposed to make the world, made first other gods of a principall order, to bee as means and instruments to bee used in the creation and government to folow ; and after, the sunne, moone, and starres as pettie gods, and the instruments of the other order more principall."* * Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. iii. p. 276. CH. XII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 273 In the first of the Jesuit Missionary Reports, transmitted from Canada by Pere le Jeune, we read : " It is a great mistake to suppose that the Indians acknowledge no Deity. I admit that they have no prayers in public, or in common, nor any worship ordinarily rendered to the Being whom they consider as their God, and that their know- ledge of him is mere darkness; but it cannot be denied that they believe in a Superior Power. Having no laws nor police, so they have no or- dinance which relates to the service of this Deity : every one does in that respect as he chooses. I do not know their secret sentiments ; but to me it is evident they believe in a Divinity. They say that there is a Being whom they call Atahocan, by whom every thing was created ; and one day, when I was conversing with them about God, they asked me what God was? I answered, that it was He who could perform all things, and who had made the heaven and the earth. They immediately said to one another, Atahocan, Atahocan, Atahocan ! " * In Heckewelder's Report concerning the Indians, he observes that " the Indian considers himself as a being created by an all-powerful, wise, and bene- volent Manito : all that he possesses, all that he enjoys, he looks upon as given to him, or allotted for his own use, by the Great Spirit who gave him * Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1633, p. 76. T 274 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XII. life. He therefore believes it to be his duty to adore and worship his Creator and Benefactor ; to acknowledge with gratitude his past favours ; thank him for present blessings, and solicit the continuation of his good will." * Mr. Hunter states that, as far as his information extended, the Indians acknowledge one supreme, all-powerful, and intelligent Being, the Great Spirit, who created and governs all things. That in general they believe that, after' the hunting grounds had been formed and supplied with game, he created the first red man and woman, who were very large in their stature, and lived to a great age ; that he often held councils and smoked with them, taught them how to take game and cultivate corn, and gave them laws to be observed ; but that in consequence of their disobedience, he withdrew his favour, and abandoned them in some measure to the vexations of the Bad Spirit ; that, notwith- standing the offences of his red children, they believe he continues to shower down on them all the blessings they enjoy ; that, in consequence of this parental regard for them, they are truly filial and sincere in their devotions, praying to him for such good things as they need, and returning thanks for those they receive, f * Heckewelder's Account of the Indians, ch. 6, t Memoirs of Hunter's Captivity, ch. 6. Cir. XII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 275 On the other hand, he states that, when in af- fliction from some great calamity, they pray with equal fervency to the Evil Spirit, whom they con- ceive to be directly the reverse of the Good Spirit, to whom he is inferior; but who, at the same time, is^constantly employed in devising means to torment the human race. By the term Spirit, the Indians have an idea of a Being which can at pleasure be present and yet invisible ; they think the Great Spirit possessed, like themselves, of corporeal form, though endowed with a nature infinitely more ex- cellent than theirs, and which will endure for ever without change. " Although they believe in a future state of existence," says Hunter, " they associate it with natural things, having no idea of the soul, or of intellectual enjoyments ; but expect at some future time after death to become, in their proper persons, the perpetual inhabitants of a de- lightful country, where their employments, divested of pain and trouble, will resemble those here ; where game will be abundant, and where there is one continued spring and cloudless sky." * Similar to this, in some respects, is the remark of Pere le Jeune : " The Indians having never heard of any thing purely spiritual, they represent the soul of man as an obscure and sombre image like the human shadow, with head, hands, feet, and * Memoirs of Hunter's Captivity, ch. 6. V 276 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XII. all other parts of the human body. Hence they say that the souls eat and drink, and they therefore set apart provisions for them after death. I often conversed with them on this subject, asking them where their souls went to after death : * They go,' said they, * a far way off, to a great village in the region where the sun sets.' " * In Hunter's Memoirs, there are also various in- teresting traditions connected with the Indian belief of a future state. Having gone with some of his Indian companions upon an expedition of curiosity across the Rocky Mountains, they at length unex- pectedly reached the shores of the Pacific Ocean. " Here," says he, " the surprise and astonishment of our whole party was indescribably great. The unbounded view of waters, the incessant and tre- mendous dashing of the waves along the shore, ac- companied with a noise resembling the roar of loud and distant thunder, filled our minds with the most sublime and awful sensations ; and fixed on them, as immutable truths, the tradition we had received from our old men, that the great waters divide the residence of the Great Spirit from the temporary abodes of his red children. We here contemplated in silent dread the immense difficulties over which we should be obliged to triumph after death, before we could arrive at those delightful hunting grounds * Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1634, p. .58. CH. XII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 277 which are unalterably destined for such only as do good, and love the Great Spirit. We looked in vain for the stranded and shattered canoes of those who had done wickedly : we could see none, and we were led to hope that they were few in number. We offered up our devotions ; or, I might rather say, our minds were serious, and our devotions continued all the time we were in this country ; for we had ever been taught to believe that the Great Spirit resided on the western side of the Rocky Mountains, and this idea continued throughout the jpurney, notwithstanding the more specific water boundary assigned by our traditionary dogmas." * This tradition, of the Indians being admitted after death into a delightful country in the west, cor- responds with what is said by Charlevoix : " After death, the Indians believe, that the souls go into a region which is destined for their eternal dwelling, which they say is situated far in the west; that they take many months to reach it, having numerous difficulties to surmount in their journey, and par- ticularly a great river to pass, where many are cast away."f In Hakluyt's account of Jaques Carder's discovery, in 1535, of the Island of Hochelago on the St. Lawrence, (now the Island of Montreal,) he relates of the Indians in that quarter : " They * Hunter's Memoirs, p. 69. f Charlevoix, Journal Historique, let. 24, 278 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cii. XII. believe that, when they die, they goe into the stars, and thence by little and little descend down into the horizon, even as the stars doe : and that then they goe into certain greene fields full of goodly, fair, and precious trees, flowers, and fruits." * And the early Franciscan missionary Sagard, who resided among the Hurons, says of them : " They believe in the immortality of the soul, and that when it leaves the body, it goes rejoicing along the road of the stars, (the milky way,) which they call the path of souls." t The Indians, according to Hunter, have no fixed days set apart for devotional purposes, but offer up their joint prayers upon particular occasions, such as the declaration of war, the restoration of peace, and upon extraordinary natural visitations. They have also rejoicings which assume a pious form, as the time of harvest, the return of the new moon, &c. " In general, however," says he, " a day sel- dom passes with an elderly Indian, or others who are esteemed wise and good, in which a blessing is not asked, or thanks returned to the Giver of Life ; sometimes audibly, but more generally in the de- votional language of the heart." Was it therefore to be wondered at that numerous * Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. iii. p. 223. f Le Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons, par Frere Sagard, ch. 18. Paris, 1632. I Hunter's Memoirs, ch. 6. C. XII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 279 tribes, entertaining such views of religion, and car- rying into practice its simple but sincere precepts, as handed down to them from their ancestors, should have been perplexed by the modes in which new religious doctrines were attempted to be taught to them by the Europeans ? Little or no inquiry was made as to their existing notions of natural religion, or of the worship of a Deity. However much the early missionaries of the Romish and the Reformed Churches disputed about the right road by which the Indian was to be sent to heaven, they cordially joined in the cry of " infidel sal- vage," " impious heathen," &c. &c., unanimously pronouncing him for the present at least to be under the sole and exclusive dominion of the devil. " These parts," says the Rev. Dr. Mather, " were then covered with nations of barbarous Indians and Infidels, in whom the prince of the power of the air did work as a spirit ; nor could it be expected that nations of wretches, whose whole religion was the most explicit sort of devil-worship, should not be acted by the devil to engage in some early and bloody action for the extinction of a plantation so contrary to his interests as that of New England was."* Again: " Satan," writes the superior- general of all the Jesuit Canadian missions to the head of his order in France, " Satan has made * Mather's Magnalia, book vii. ch. 6. 280 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XII. every effort to recover the ground which Jesus Christ had gained from him, and to maintain pos- session of a country where he had reigned peaceably for so many ages." * By Roman Catholic and Protestant the Indian was called upon, with frightful denunciations, to relinquish the worship of the Great Spirit, as taught him by his forefathers, and to adopt in its place the religion of the Whites. But what did the shrewd Indian perceive in these his new religious instructors, that was calculated to incline him to listen to their exhortations ? Their morality he could not respect, and their conduct towards his countrymen had never been such as to merit his confidence and esteem. Besides, what was he to think of the dif- ferences and distinctions which appeared to exist among the Europeans themselves on the subject of the religious doctrines which they inculcated ? " The different methods," says Hennepin, "that are used for the instruction of the Indians retard much their conversion. One begins by the animal part, another by the spiritual. There are diversity of beliefs among the Christians ; every one believes his own faith to be the purest, and his own method the best : there ought therefore to be a uniformity in belief and method, as there is but one Truth * Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1643-44, par le Fere Vimont, ch. 8. CH. XII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 281 and one Redeemer; otherwise these barbarians will not know what to resolve upon." * If, how- ever, the account given by Dr. Mather of the colony of Rhode Island be correct, its red aborigines must have been somewhat bewildered with the variety even of Protestant sectaries who had planted them- selves among them : " It has been," says the Doctor, " a colluvies of Antinomians, Familists, Anabaptists, Antisabbatarians, Arminians, Soci- nians, Quakers, Ranters every thing in the world but Roman Catholics and real Christians, (though of the latter I hope there have been more than the former among them,) so that if a man had lost his religion, he might find it at that general muster of Opinionists." f But, intolerant as was Dr. Ma- ther in his prose, Governor Dudley, of the same colony, was no less so in his poetry. When the governor died, there was found in his pocket a copy of verses of his own composing, the concluding lines cf which shew that to the last gasp his Excel- lency denounced all freedom of opinion and liberty of conscience : Farewell, Dear Wife, Children, and Friends, Hate Heresie ; make Blessed Ends : Let Men of God in Courts and Churches watch, O'er such as do a Toleration hatch, * Hennepin, ii. ch. 30. t Mather's Magnalia, book vii. ch. 3. 282 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XII. Lest that 111 Egg bring forth a Cockatrice To poison all with Heresie and Vice. If Men be left, and otherwise Combine, My Epitaph's I BB*D no But the religious differences which had the most baneful effect in some parts of the Indian countries, were those which existed between the missions of the Roman Catholic and of the Reformed persua- sion. These missions had pushed their way into various parts of the interior, and, in their rivalship, seemed often disposed to imbibe that rancorous spirit of which their respective governments too frequently set them the example. At one time it was made a capital offence for a Protestant to settle in New France; and in New England they re- taliated by enacting a law in Massachussets, that if a Roman Catholic priest found his way into the colony, (after having been once turned out of it,) he should be hanged. Pere Charlevoix himself is far from being exempt from this spirit of intole- rance. In noticing the country of the Iroquois, he observes, " As I had the happiness of being intimate with most of those missionaries who laboured in that vineyard, which, notwithstanding their care, has remained an unproductive soil, I frequently inquired of them what had prevented the seed from taking root among a people whose good sense and generous * Mather's Magnalia, book ii. ch. 5. Cu. XII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 283 sentiments they had so often praised ? They all replied, that the great obstruction was the near vicinity of the English and Dutch, whose want of piety, although they profess to be Christians, had made these Indians look upon Christianity as an optional religion."* Charlevoix, however, does not always complain of the seed being unproductive ; for, in another part of his work, he states that " the Dutch, who were in the neighbourhood of the Mohawks, thought proper to dogmatize our neophytes, first addressing themselves to the women, whom they supposed it would be more easy to prevail upon. They attacked them chiefly on the subject of their devotions to the Mother of God, on the worship of the saints, of the cross, and of the images ; but they found these female converts well instructed, and firm in their belief of what we had taught them on these articles. The Dutch ministers then endeavoured to inspire them with a distrust of the French mis- sionaries, but they succeeded still less in this at- tempt. These good women answered them in a manner which covered them with confusion : re- marking, that they observed in them neither that piety, good conduct, nor disinterestedness which rendered our priests so respectable, and which had * Charlevoix, Hist, de la Nouvelle France, liv. ix. 284 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XII. always prepossessed them in favour of their doc- trines." * In these religious disputations the governors of the English and of the French colonies often par- ticipated. When Lord Bellamont was governor of the province of New York, and the Count de Frontenac of New France, they had frequent and sharp altercation in their correspondence, on the subject of their respective missionaries among the Iroquois : " To convince you," writes the former, in one of his letters to the count, " of the little estimation in which our Five Nations hold your Jesuit and other missionaries, they have repeatedly entreated me to drive them out of their country : and they requested that I should send, in their room, some of our Protestant ministers to instruct them in the Christian religion. This I have pro- mised to do, and you have acted right in prohibiting your missionaries to interfere, unless they wish to undergo the punishment ordained by our law, which I shall certainly execute if they fall into my hands, the Indians having promised to bring them to me."f Charlevoix, in observing upon this letter, says that " it is very well known that these Indians despise very much the Protestant ministers, * Charlevoix, Hist, de la Nouvelle France, liv. ix. t Ibid. liv. xvii. CH.XH. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 285 and that they have often reproached the inhabitants of New York with having no religion at all : it is therefore more probable that, if they wished to make themselves Christians, they would not have chosen to be like the English ones. In truth, the Iroquois who have become converted to Christianity have all embraced the doctrines of the Romish church." And La Potherie, in noticing some of their Iroquois converts, who had been taken pri- soners and carried to Albany by the English, boasts that " they were so well acquainted with the doc- trines of their religion, that they confuted and con- founded the heretics of Albany, on the subject of the invocation of saints and other articles of the faith."* Lord Bellamont, however, kept his word, and despatched Dellius, a Protestant missionary, among the Mohawks. "Sieur Dellius, indeed, did not incommode, himself over much with the duties of his mission," says Charlevoix, " al- though his salary amounted to twelve hundred livres per annum : he almost always resided at Albany, where he had the children brought to him to be baptized. An Iroquois woman, who lived in his house, and who accompanied him in his short and rare excursions, served him as interpreter to instruct the adults ; but he had very few proselytes, nor did * La Potherie, vol. iii. let. 1. 286 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CR. XII. he appear anxious to increase their number. I do not exactly know how long this mission lasted, but I find, in my memoranda, that Dellius was some years afterwards driven away from Albany by M. de Bellamont.* The Protestant religion has cer- tainly not fared well among the Iroquois. It is not the first attempt of this sort : which ought to have convinced Messieurs les R6forme's that their sect possesses neither that fecundity, nor laborious zeal for the salvation of infidels, which forms one of the most distinguishing marks of the true church of Christ." t Messieurs les Re'forme's, it must be confessed, often shewed themselves, in their writings, to be as sarcastic and severe against the Catholics, as the latter were against the Protestants. " Bommaseen," says Mather, " was, with some other Indians, now a prisoner at, Boston ; and he desired a conference with a minister there, which was granted to him. Bommaseen then, with the other Indians assenting * Dellius, however, in a letter written in 1693, retorts upon the Jesuit missionaries. It concludes thus : " I am, under favour, of opinion that the Jesuit catechism, with the cases of conscience added thereto, writ by their own hands, which they teach the Indians, may be very serviceable to convince our proselytes, and other French that come here, of their pernicious principles; and I wish the same might be sent me." Mather's Magnolia, book vi. ch. 6. t Charlevoix, Hist, de la Nouvelle France, liv. xvii. CH. XII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 287 to it, told the minister that he prayed his instruction in the Christian religion inasmuch as he was afraid that the French, in the Christian religion which they taught the Indians, had abused them. The minister inquired of him what of the things taught 'em by the French appeared most suspicious to 'em? He said the French taught 'em that the Lord Jesus Christ was of the French nation : that his Mother, the Virgin Mary, was a French lady; that they were the English who murdered him ; and that all who would recommend themselves unto his favour, must revenge his quarrel upon the English as far as they can. He asked the minister, whether these things were so ? and prayed the minister to instruct him in the true religion. The minister, considering that the humour and manner of the Indians was to have their discourses managed with much of simi- litude in them, looked about for some agreeable object from whence he might, with apt resem- blances, convey the ideas of truth into the minds of salvages, and he thought none would be more agree- able to them than a tankard of drink, which hap- pened then to be standing on the table. So he proceeded in this method with 'em : " He told them that our Lord Jesus Christ had given us a good religion, which might be resembled unto the good drink on the table : that if we take this good religion, even that good drink, into our hearts, it will do us good, and preserve us from 288 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XII. death : that God's book, the Bible, is the cup wherein that good drink of religion is offered unto us : that the French, having the cup of good drink in their hands, had put poison into it, and then made the Indians to drink that poisoned liquor, whereupon they run mad, and fell to killing of the English : that it was plain the English had put no poison into the good drink, for they set the cup wide open, and invited all men to come and see before they taste ; even the very Indians them- selves,' for we translated the Bible into Indian. That they might gather from hence that the French had put poison into the good drink, inas- much as they kept the cup fast shut (the Bible in an unknown tongue), and kept their hands upon the eyes of the Indians when they put it into their mouths. " The Indians expressing themselves to be well satisfied with what the minister had hitherto said, prayed him to go on with shewing them what was the good drink, and what was the poison the French had put into it. He then set before them distinctly the chief articles of the Christian religion, with all the simplicity and sincerity of a Protestant : adding upon each, ' This is the good drink in the Lord's cup of life ;' and the Indians still professed that they liked it all. Whereupon he demonstrated unto them how the papists had, in their idolatrous popery, some way or other, de- CH. XII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 289 praved and altered every one of these articles with scandalous ingredients of their own invention ; add- ing upon each, this is the poison that the French have put into the cup" * There is a curious struggle recorded by Pere Rasles, the French Jesuit, as having occurred be- tween him and a Protestant minister of New England, on the subject of an attempt made by the latter to obtain scholars and converts among the Indians. Rasles had long resided as a missionary in the frontier country situated towards the Eng- lish settlements ; and he probably considered his residence of nearly thirty years upon the spot, as securing to him a prescriptive right against all heretical intruders. He therefore employed his leisure hours in instigating his flock to make inces- sant hostility against their Protestant neighbours of New England. Complaints were repeatedly made on this subject to the government of Canada by the governor of Massachussets, but no redress was obtained. At length the patience of the English being exhausted, a party was sent, which surprised the Indian village where Rasles resided. He escaped into the woods, but his papers were seized ; and his correspondence with Monsieur de Vau- dreuil, the governor of New France, distinctly shewed that Rasles, under the direction of his * Mather's Magnalia, book vii. art. 22. V 290 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XII. government (though the two powers were then at peace), was constantly instigating the Indians against the English colonists ; the consequence of which was, that the cattle of the settlers were often destroyed, their crops of corn wantonly injured, their houses burnt, and many of the inhabitants killed by the savages.* Matters continued in this deplorable state ; Ras- les still instigating hostility against the British settlers. At length a Protestant minister from Bos- ton was sent to that quarter, for the purpose, as complained of by Rasles, of gaining converts, and establishing a school for the instruction of Indian children, who were to be clothed and main- tained at the expense of the government. This minister appears to have omitted no means to pro- cure them : he went about among the Indians, encouraging them to have their youth educated by him, distributing presents among them : but all in vain ; not a child was sent to him. " This Protestant minister," says Father Rasles, " then addressed my Indians themselves. He put various questions to them respecting their belief, and, when they gave their answers, he turned into ridicule all the pious observances of our Romish church our purgatory, invocation of saints, images, crosses, beads, and tapers. I thought it Belknap's History of New Hampshire, vol. ii. page 45. CH. XII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 291 my duty to oppose these first seeds of seduction. I wrote a polite letter to the minister, in which 1 pointed out that my Christian Indians knew how to believe the truths inculcated by the Roman Catholic faith, but not how to discuss them ; that, not being themselves sufficiently skilful to resolve the difficulties he had started to them, he probably expected that these doubts would be communicated by them to me ; that I, therefore, seized with pleasure the opportunity thus offered either to con- fer with him personally, or by letter ; that for this purpose I sent him a Memoire to which I requested his serious attention. In this document which contained about a hundred pages I proved by the Scriptures, by tradition, and by argument, the truths he had attacked by his stale pleasantries; that if he was not satisfied with my proofs, I expected from him a precise refutation, supported by theological reasoning, and not by vague asser- tions which proved nothing; and least of all, by injurious observations, which neither suited the gravity of our profession, nor the importance of the subject." One would almost suppose that the Jesuit father, with his Memoir of a hundred pages, had laid a plot to convert the New England minister himself to the Roman Catholic faith. If so, he failed ; for " two days after receiving my letter, he set out on his return to Boston, sending me a short answer, 292 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cn.XH. which I was obliged to read over again and again in order to comprehend its meaning; so obscure was his style, and so odd his Latinity. I gathered from it, however, that he complained of my attack- ing him without cause; that zeal for the salvation of souls had led him to point out to the savages the road to heaven ; and, as to the rest, my arguments were ridiculous and childish. I sent a second letter to him, in which I pointed out the errors of his, and he replied, two years afterwards, without at all entering into the subject, but merely saying that I possessed a captious and peevish turn of mind which marked a temperament inclined to the choleric. Thus ended our dispute, and ren- dered abortive the project this minister had formed to seduce my converts." * Rasles appears to have continued his system of endeavouring to drive the Indians into hostility against the English. The governor of Canada, Monsieur de Vaudreuil, was directly charged with a full knowledge of these proceedings, and when he denied it, his own letters, addressed to Rasles, wece produced as a proof of his participation. Colonel Shute, the governor of the New England colonies, wrote to Rasles, stating, among other things, " We have found, by three score years' experience, that \ve had always lived in peace with * Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, vol. vi. p. 136. Cii. XII. THE NORTH AMEUICAN INDIANS. 293 our neighbouring Indians, had it not been for the instigation, protection, supply, and even personal assistance of the French ; so that, in case any unjust war should happen with the natives (which God forbid), we shall look upon the French, and particularly the Popish missionaries among them, as the main cause thereof."* Hostilities, in fact, soon afterwards did break out, and, in one of the actions of that sanguinary war, Father Rasles was killed, and his scalp borne away in triumph by the Indian confederates of the English. It is very evident, therefore, that the religious rancour and mutual recrimination of the Europeans were often productive of open hostility and blood- shed. As far, also, as the native tribes were con- cerned, the disputations alluded to could not fail to create a most serious obstacle in every attempt to convert them. When they perceived their Chris- tian instructors, French and English, thus disputing among themselves, it was not to be expected that they could weigh the respective merits of the matters in dispute ; and while the Romish and the Protestant missionaries reviled each other, the Indian lent a deaf ear to both. Hence Fr&re Sagard, at a very early period, was led to observe, " So the Catholics had their priest, and the Huguenots their minister, and while they occupied * Dwight's Travels in New England, vol. ii. let. 11. 294 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XII. themselves in disputes concerning different religions, the Indians were confirmed in their want of any. The latter perceived very clearly the violent wrangles produced by such discussions ; for the savages are not so blind as to be unable to see the distinction which exists between those who do, and those who do not, adopt the sign of the cross, as they them- selves have sometimes informed me." * * Histoire du Canada par !e Frere Sagard, liv. i. chap. 2. Paris, 1636. Cii.XIII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 295 CHAPTER XIII. INJUDICIOUS CONDUCT OF THE PROTESTANT SET- TLEMENTS IN NORTH AMERICA WITH REGARD TO THEIR CONVERTED INDIANS GENERAL RELUCT- ANCE OF THE INDIANS TO RECEIVE THE MISSION- ARIES. THERE is, perhaps, no subject connected with the Indians of North America, which gives rise to more melancholy reflection than that of the fruitless endeavours which were made to effect their conver- sion. It is evident that man)' causes concurred to produce this failure; but in general it may be traced to the imprudence, the folly, and the arro- gance of the Europeans. In the course of the preceding chapters, the rash and injudicious conduct pursued towards the na- tives by the early adventurers in that continent, has frequently been noticed. From the first, the In- dians #ere disposed to shew them hospitality and friendship. Many of the tribes, indeed, were pro- bably induced to assist the settlers from the hope that, by their alliance with the Europeans, they would obtain the more certain means of reducing their own Indian enemies to submission. But the interference of the colonists in the wars among the natives eventually proved a great obstruction to 296 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH.XIII. their acquiring the general good will of the Indians. If they had studied the character of the inhabitants of the country to which they had migrated, they would soon have observed that the Indians, with all their native generosity of disposition, seldom forgave a serious injury ; and the early and un- favourable impressions given to them by the con- duct of the Europeans were such as could not easily be forgotten. In New England, the very first act almost of the settlers towards the natives seems to have been a robbery. Several of the English, while exploring the country in November 1620, found the Indian houses deserted. Having examined these, " some of the best things wee tooke away with us, and left the houses standing still as they were."* The infamous conduct of the English captain who, a few years before, had trepanned on board his ship a party of friendly Indians, carrying them off as slaves to the Mediterranean, has already been noticed ; and this act in itself could not fail to raise the indignation of all the tribes in that part of the country. It may likewise be observed, that long before any attempts were made to persuade them to receive the religion of the Europeans, some of those sanguinary hostilities had taken place be- tween the English and the Indians, which caused * Purchds, part iv. book x. chap. 4. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 297 the latter to look upon the colonists as their inve- terate, and often as their treacherous, enemies. In New France, also, the folly of interfering in Indian wars was evident from the earliest period. In order to ingratiate themselves with the Algonquin and Huron nations, the French began their expe- ditions by carrying fire and sword into the heart of the country of the Iroquois a people who had never injured them. This was sufficient to fix that powerful confederacy in almost unceasing hostility to the French ; and the consequence was, that they received with doubt and distrust every subsequent attempt of that nation to civilize or convert them. But, even among the Indian tribes with whom the French were in alliance, the Roman Catholic missions did not succeed in effecting any real and general change in the religious sentiments of the native population. The harsh discipline and restraint inflicted upon the Roman Catholic converts by the civil and religious authorities in New France, has been pointed out in a former chapter; and unfortunately the same system appears to have been too often followed in the British Protestant colonies. Long before the end of the seventeenth century the European population had rapidly increased in New England. Even about the year 1673 it is stated to have exceeded 120,000 souls. Those who endeavoured in ihat country to convert the 298 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cn. XIII. Indians, continued generally resident in their own townships, supported by their own people, and living among their own counlrymen. Even the so much celebrated church of the Praying Indians, under the superintendence of Mr. Eliot, at Natick, was scarcely more than a dozen of miles from his own regular parish of Roxbury, near Boston ; and the other similar establishments, formed at a subse- quent period, were all surrounded by, or adjoining to, the English settlements. From their local situa- tion, therefore, and from other circumstances, these Indians were favourably situated for receiving every benefit which the Europeans could impart to them. But the conduct pursued with respect to them by the constituted authorities of New England, and the services in which they were often employed par- ticularly in being sent as spies among their own countrymen were such as not only to prevent their receiving any real advantage in consequence of the endeavours to teach them Christianity, but entirely to prevent conversion from spreading among the general mass of the native poputetion. The accounts given of these acts of treachery are every where to be met with among the details of the contemporary writers. In the war with Philip, it was already noticed that his chief counsellor, Sosoman, after betraying his master's secrets, was baptized by the English, and employed by them to preach among the Indians ; after which he was CH. XIII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 299 prevailed upon to go back as a spy among Philip's adherents. In the same war, Hubbard relates, that, " while our forces were out, a couple of Christian Indians were sent as spies into the Nipnet and Narraganset country, through the woods in the depth of winter, when the ways were impassable for other sort of people. These two, by name James and Job, ordered their business so prudently, as that they were admitted into those Indian habitations as friends."* It has been already observed that, in their wars, the English not only often engaged the Christian Indians thus to act as spies among their countrymen, but also to right against them in the field, and for these services they received marked encouragement and reward. But every reflecting Indian and of these there were many must have perceived that his conver- sion to the religion of the Whites, and his treachery to his own countrymen, went hand in hand; and he could not comprehend why an Englishman should be hanged for the same sort of conduct for which a converted savage was remunerated. " The scouts brought in one Joshua Tift, a renegade Eng- lishman, who, upon some discontent among his neighbours, had turned Indian, married one of the Indian squaws^ renounced his religion, nation, and natural parents, all at once, fighting against them. * Hubbard's Narrative, p. 76. 300 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cu. XIII. After examination, he was condemned to die the death of a traitor. As to his religion he was found as ignorant as a heathen, which no doubt caused the fewer tears to be shed at his funeral."* Nor can it be doubted, that in the English colonies the Indian proselytes were retained in their converted state more by fear than by attachment. In many cases, indeed, they were treated by their protectors as if they had been avowed enemies. Even Uncas himself, the chief Sachem of the Mohegan Indians, and the converted ally of the English^ did not meet with that treatment which a Christian confederate might have reasonably ex- pected from the public authorities of New England. " This Uncas and all his Mohegan subjects pro- fessing Christianity are called Praying Indians. The authority at Boston sent an express to him to come and surrender himself, men and arms, to the English. Whereupon he sent along with the mes- senger his three sons, and about sixty of his men, with his arms, to be thus disposed of; viz., his two youngest sons to remain as hostages (as now they do at Cambridge), and his eldest son to go captain of the men as assistants of the English against the heathens, which accordingly they did. And the English not yet thinking themselves secure enough, because they cannot know a heathen from a * Hubbard's Narrative, p. 59. Cff.XIII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 301 Christian by bis visage and apparel, tbe authority at Boston published the following Order," &c. &c.* By this order it was, amongst other things, com- manded, that none of the Praying Indians, under pain of being treated as enemies, should, unless in company with an Englishman, go above one mile from their own dwellings, a range, it must be admitted, somewhat contracted for an American Indian accustomed to roam at large through the forest, and who naturally looked upon himself as one of the lords of the soil. " This once great and renowned nation (says Heckewelder, alluding to the Mohegans,) has almost entirely disappeared, as well as the numerous tribes who had descended from them. They have been destroyed by wars, and carried off by the small-pox and other dis- orders; and great numbers have died in conse- quence of the introduction of spirituous liquors among them. The remainder have fled, and re- moved in separate bodies to different parts, where they now are dispersed or mingled with other nations."-]" And Dr. Morse, in his Report, says of them : " Those who remain have made few ad- vances in any thing which pertains to civilization, and are gradually wasting away, after the manner of other tribes now extinct."J * Present State of New England (1675), p. 7. t Heckewelder's Account of the Indian Nations, ch. 4. J Morse's Indian Report (Appendix L). 302 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XIH. If we turn our eyes also to the early English settlements in Virginia, we shall find that the Indians received no better treatment from the colonists in that quarter. After the death of the Indian sovereign Powhatan, the father of Poca- hontas, the natives became much exasperated at the conduct of the English settlers ; and in the year 1622 a sudden insurrection took place, when they put to death about three hundred and fifty English, or one half of the colony.* In retaliation, the English commenced hostilities : " They hunted the Indians," says Dr. Robertson, " like wild beasts rather than enemies ; and as the pursuit of them to their places of retreat in the woods was both difficult and dangerous, they endeavoured to allure them from their inaccessible fastnesses by offers of peace and promises of oblivion, made with such an artful appearance of sincerity, as deceived the crafty Indian chief, and induced the Indians to return, in the year 1623, to their former settlements, and resume their usual peaceful occupations. The be- haviour of the two people seemed now to be perfectly reversed. The Indians, like men acquainted with the principles of integrity and good faith, on which the intercourse between nations is founded, confided in the reconciliation, and lived in absolute security, without suspicion of danger, while the English with *Douglass's Summary, vol. i. part i. sect. 3. CH. XIII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 303 perfidious craft were preparing to imitate the savages in their revenge and cruelty. On the ap- proach of harvest, when a hostile attack would be most formidable and fatal, the English fell sud- denly on all the Indian plantations, murdered every person on whom they could lay hold, and drove the rest to the woods, where so many perished with hunger, that some of the tribes nearest to the Eng- lish were totally extirpated."* The neighbouring Indian tribes soon retaliated. The governor of the colony having encroached upon their lands, another massacre took place in 1639, when about five hun- dred of the English were put to death.f From what has been thus stated on the subject of the general conduct of the early European colonists, whether Protestant or Catholic, towards the Indians, can it be considered surprising that the latter should seldom have been disposed to listen with confidence to those who were employed to convert them ? Many, indeed, of the most sanguine missionaries themselves, have fully admitted the reluctance which the Indians have generally felt to receive the religious doctrines of the Whites ; and that such re- luctance originated in a great measure from the aversion felt by the former to the conduct and ap- parent principles of the latter. Even Brainerd * Robertson's History of America, book ix. f Douglass's Summary, vol. i., part i. sect. 3. 304 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XIII. himself has admitted this in a striking instance, which occurred to him among a tribe of the Delaware Indians, as thus narrated in his Diary : " With these Indians I spent some time, and first ad- dressed their king in a friendly manner ; and, after some discourse, I told him I had a desire to in- struct them in Christianity, at which he laughed, turning his back upon me, and went away. I then addressed another principal man in the same man- ner, who said he was willing to hear me. After some time I followed the king into his house, and renewed my discourse with him ; but he declined talking, and left the affair to another, who appeared to be a rational man. He talked very warmly, and inquired why I desired the Indians to become Christians, seeing that the Christians were so much worse than they. The Christians, he said, would lie, steal, and drink, worse than the Indians. It was they who first taught the Indians to be drunk, and they stole from one another to that degree that their rulers were obliged to hang them for it, but that was not sufficient to deter others from it ; and he supposed that if the Indians should become Chris- tians, they would then be as bad as these."* It cannot be doubted, indeed, but that the Indians, for successive generations, have looked upon the Whites as a fraudulent, unjust, and im- * Brainerd's Diary. CH. XIII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 305 moral race ; preaching what they did not practise, and overreaching their red brethren upon every occasion, and by all the means in their power. We need not, therefore, be surprised to find that the Indians do not scruple, even at the present day, to express, through their chiefs, their decided reluctance to receive the instructions of the missionaries : and this fact ought to operate as an indispensable ground for using the utmost caution in every endea- vour to convert them. There is a passage in Dr. Morse's Indian Report to the American Government, which appears closely connected with this subject. The zealous and benevolent feelings of that writer have naturally made him very sanguine with regard to the mea- sures he has suggested for the improvement of the Indians ; but can it escape observation, that in the very first speech which he addressed to them in consequence of his mission, (in June 1820,) while he was holding out to that unfortunate race his cheering prospects of the future, most melancholy may we not add most galling were the truths told to them of the past ! " Brothers, your father, the president of the United States, with whom I have conversed on the present state of the Indians who live under his jurisdiction, and with many pious Christians also, far and near, are thinking of you for good ; and are now engaged in devising together the best means to x 306 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XIII. promote your welfare. We perceive that your numbers and your strength are diminishing; that, from being a numerous and powerful people, spread over a wide and fertile country, in which was plenty of game for your support, you have become few and feeble ; that you possess but small tracts of land, compared with what your fathers possessed; and your game, on which you formerly depended for your support, is gone. We see that there is no place on earth where you and your brethren can go and dwell together, unmolested, in the state in which your fathers lived. We see that you cannot many years longer live in any part of the United States in the hunter-state. The white people will push their settlements in every direction, and de- stroy your game and take away your best lands. You have not strength to defend yourselves, were you disposed to make war with the white people : they have become too powerful to be resisted, or restrained in their course. "In these circumstances, your father, the president, and the good white people, extensively feel for you. We perceive that you are cast down and discouraged, that you are perplexed, and know not what to do. Your situation, and that of your red brethren gene- rally, has lately excited an unusual interest. I am authorised to say to you, that the American nation, the civil as well as the religious part of it, are now ready to extend to you the hand of sincere friend- CH. XIII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 307 ship, to aid you in rising from your depressed state ; and in the best ways which can be devised, to save you from that ruin which seems inevitable in your present course, and to cause you to share with us all the blessings, both civil and religious, which we ourselves enjoy. We fully believe, from the recent events of Providence, that God has great blessings in store for you and the rest of your red brethren in our country, if you will accept them; and that you may yet ' see good days, according to the days in which you have seen evil.' This is our most ardent desire. Let not then your spirits sink within you. Hope in God, who is able to save and to bless you. Trust in him and he will not leave you, but will be the health of your countenance, a refuge from all your troubles, a present help in time of need."* The speech, of which this extract formed the principal part, was formally read to a council of the Six Nations, Dr. Morse not being able per- sonally to attend. On his return, some time after- wards, he found the chiefs of these Indians assembled on some affairs of their own. They had no previous knowledge of his coming, but Dr. Morse thought it better to attend their council, and to learn if they were prepared to say any thing on the subject he had so submitted to them. " I found * Morse's Indian Report, Appendix, p. 1. 308 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XIII. them," says he, " convened in their council-house in very decent order, arranged in two parties, the Christian party on my right hand, Captain Pollard (a chief of the Senecas) at their head ; the pagan party on the left hand, with the celebrated Red Jacket (a chief of the same nation) at their head." Dr. Morse gives the substance of what was spoken by the two chiefs of these opposite parties. Pollard began first, and thus addressed him : " Father, we thank the Great Spirit for preserv- ing you during your journey. If we had had more notice of your coming, we should have been better prepared to answer the speech you left us to con- sider. We suppose our great father, the president, appointed you to come and see us, to inquire into our situation, because he had confidence in you. We readily give you all the information we can. " Father, we are convinced, such is our situation, that we must have the Gospel. Without it we shall fall to pieces, and come to ruin. The re- servation on which we live is small. We have no hunting grounds. We cannot live as we formerly did. It is grateful to our hearts, therefore, to hear the proposal of our father, the president, which you have made to us : we grasp it with eagerness. We have begun, and are now moderately advancing to the accomplishment of what he wishes, as you may see from a view of our fields and our cattle. As to dividing our lands into farms, and holding CH. XIII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 309 them as individual property, as among the white people, we think it will not do for us. Holding our lands in common, as we now do, keeps us together. As Indians want goods from white people, and buy them on credit, we fear difficulties would arise in collecting these debts according to your laws, and our lands would be taken to pay them. " Father, as to the plan of removing to some other part of the country and leaving our present habitations, we have no idea of it, and are at present determined to remain here. In this determination we and our brethren on the other* side are agreed. Houses for religious worship und for schools are built among us for our use; and when once built, they remain. Now listen to the pagans on the other side." The pagan chief, Red Jacket, whose Indian name is Saguoaha, was not well, and, having upon this occasion been called upon suddenly, was not prepared as he intended to have been, which was probably the reason why he made so short and abrupt a speech. The following was almost the whole of what he addressed to Dr. Morse: " I will be short. I understood that the time of your return would have been appointed, and that we should have had notice of it. But you have come unexpectedly. We have not yet made up our minds on the subject you proposed to us. We HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cii. XIII. intend to call a general council of our brethren from a distance, and to take up the subject sub- mitted to our consideration, which we think a great and serious one. We will send the result of our great council, when it is adopted, to the president. By this we mean no disrespect to you : we regard it as a favour that he has sent you to us."* What the result of the proposed council was, or whether it was transmitted to the president as in- tended, does not distinctly appear : but Red Jacket, only a few months after this meeting with Dr. Morse, seems to have been somewhat more explicit in a speech that he transmitted to the governor of the state of New York, in which, among other complaints, he detailed the following grievances : " The first subject to which we would call the attention of the governor, is the depredation daily committed by the white people upon the most valuable timber on our reservations. This has been a subject of complaint for many years; but now, and particularly at this season of the year, it has become an alarming evil, and calls for the immediate interposition of the governor in our behalf. " Our next subject of complaint is the frequent theft of our horses and cattle by the whites, and their habit of taking and using them when they * Morse's Report, Appendix, p. 5. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 311 please, and without our leave. These are evils which seem to increase upon us, and call loudly for redress. " Another evil arising from the pressure of the whites upon us, and our unavoidable communica- tion with them, is the frequency with which our Indians are thrown into jail, and that too for the most trifling causes. This is very galling to our feelings, and should not be allowed to the extent to which our white neighbours, in order to gratify their bad passions, now carry this practice. " In our hunting and fishing, too, we are greatly interrupted : our venison is stolen from the trees where we have hung it to be reclaimed after the chase; our hunting camps have been fired into, and we have been warned that we should no longer be permitted to pursue the deer in those forests which were so lately all our own. The fish which, in the Buffalo and Tonnewanto Creeks, used to supply us with food, are now, by the dams and other obstruc- tions of the white people, prevented from multiply- ing, and we are almost entirely deprived of that accustomed sustenance. " Our great father, the president, has recom- mended to our young men to be industrious, to plough, and to sow. This we have done, and we are thankful for the advice, and for the means he has afforded us of carrying it into effect : we are happier in consequence of it. 312 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cn. XIII. " But another thing recommended to us has created great confusion among us, and is making us a quarrelsome and divided people ; and that is the introduction of preachers into our nation. These Black-robes* contrive to get consent of some of the Indians to preach among us; and whenever this is the case, confusion and disorder are sure to follow, and the encroachment of the whites upon our land is the invariable consequence. The governor must not think hard of me for speaking thus of the preachers. I have observed their progress, and when 1 look back to see what has taken place of old, 1 perceive that whenever they came among the Indians, they were forerunners of their dispersion ; that they introduced the white people on their lands, by whom they were robbed and plundered of their property ; and that the Indians were sure to dwindle and decrease, and be driven back, in proportion to the number of preachers that came among them." After some other, and stronger, complaints on this subject, Red Jacket concludes by stating that " The great source of all our grievances is, that the white men are among us. Let them be removed, and we shall be happy and contented among our- selves. We now cry to the governor for help, and hope that he will attend to our complaints, and speedily give us redress." * The usual Indian appellation for the missionaries. CH. XIII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 313 Of the authenticity of this address there can be no doubt. It was dictated by Red Jacket, in the presence of several of his principal Indians, and regularly transmitted in writing through the accre- dited interpreter, in January, 1821, to Governor De Witt Clinton, at Albany, by whom it was deemed of sufficient importance to be officially laid by him before the legislature of the state of New York. The objections urged by this celebrated Seneca chief against the Christian missions, are by no means confined to one party or band of Indians ; and the same sentiments will generally be found still to prevail among the tribes, which were felt at a very early period by the Narragansets. When Mr. Mahew, about the middle of the seventeenth century, requested permission of a Narraganset sachem to preach to his Indians, the chief re- plied "Go and teach the English to be good first." It is but too probable that, throughout North America, the greater part of the Indian nations are little disposed to admit the religious inter- ference of the missionaries. A distrust actuates the Indian of the present day similar to that which was once expressed in so characteristic a style by the Delaware tribes, as recorded by Dr. Boudinot, a corresponding member of the Scot- tish Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge. Two missionaries had been edu- 314 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cii.XIII. cated and ordained for the purpose of being sent to convert that people: " When they were ready to depart," says Dr. Boudinot, " we wrote a letter in the Indian style to the Delaware nation, informing them that we had, by the good- ness of the Great Spirit, been favoured with a knowledge of his will as to the worship he re- quired of his creatures, and the means he would bless to promote the happiness of man, both jn this life and that which was to come. That, thus enjoy- ing so much happiness ourselves, we could not but think of our red brethren in the wilderness, and wished to communicate the glad tidings to them, that they might be partakers with us. We had, therefore, sent them two ministers of the Gospel, who would teach them great things ; and we ear- nestly recommended these missionaries to their careful attention." The two missionaries accordingly set out, and arrived in safety at the place of their destination in the Indian country. The Delaware chiefs imme- diately assembled, and said they would take the subject into consideration; that, in the meantime the missionaries might instruct the women, but were not to speak to the men. The chiefs spent fourteen days in council, and the result of their de- liberation was, that they very courteously dismissed the two strangers, with an answer to those by whom they had been sent. " This answer," continues CH. XIII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 315 Dr. Boudinot, " made great acknowledgments for ihe favour we had done them. They rejoiced ex- ceedingly at our happiness in thus being favoured by the Great Spirit, and felt very grateful that we had condescended to remember our red brethren in the wilderness ; but they could not help recollect- ing that we had a people among us who, because they differed from us in colour, we had made slaves of, causing them to suffer great hardships, and lead miserable lives. Now they could not see any rea- son, if a people being black entitled us thus to deal with them, why a red colour would not equally justify the same treatment. They, therefore, had determined to wait and see whether all the black people amongst us were made thus happy and joy- ful, before they could put confidence in our pro- mises ; for they thought a people who had suffered so much and so long by our means, should be entitled to our first attention : that, therefore, they had sent back the two missionaries, with many thanks, promising that when they saw the black people among us restored to freedom and happi- ness, they would gladly receive our missionaries." " This," adds the narrator, " is what in any other case would be called close reasoning, and is too mortifying a fact to make further observa- tions upon."* * Boudinot's Star in the West, ch. 8. 316 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XIV. CHAPTER XIV. DIFFICULTY OF RECONCILING THE NORTH AMERI- CAN INDIANS TO EUROPEAN HABITS AND EDU- CATION UNFOUNDED ASSERTIONS OF SOME WRITERS AS TO THE ALLEGED NATURAL INCA- PACITY OF THE INDIANS WITH REFERENCE TO THE ATTEMPTS MADE TO CIVILIZE THEM. THE same sentiments which prevented the North American Indian from placing confidence in the Europeans, made him extremely averse to entrust his children among them for their education. And it may also be observed, that whenever he was in- duced so to entrust them, the youths themselves took every opportunity of running away from the settlements, and joining their relations in the wil- derness. " Indian children," says Dr. Golden, " have been carefully educated among the English, clothed, and taught by them ; yet I think there is not one instance that any of these, after they had liberty to go among their own peoplPand were come of age, would remain with the English, but returned to their own nations, and became as fond of the Indian manner of life as those who knew nothing of a civilized manner of living."* Charlevoix, when treating on this subject, states that one of the first objects of the Chevalier de Montmagny, (Champlain's successor in the go- * Golden 's History of the Five Nations, vol. i. ch. 13. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 317 vernment of New France,) was to carry into effect the projected seminary for Indian youth in the col- lege of the Jesuits at Quebec. It was thought advis- able to commence the experiment with the Hurons, whose children, it was also supposed, would serve as hostages for the fidelity of their relations : they were therefore invited to send them, and to this they assented. The missionary Daniel was ap- pointed to convey these children to Quebec; but notwithstanding all his exertions, he could only succeed in collecting three or four, whose fathers were absent at the time. " Even these," says Charlevoix, " he could carry down no farther than Three Rivers, where their parents meeting them, they were taken back again, although they had already consented to their going to Quebec. This conduct, however, did not surprise the missionary, who was fully aware of the extreme attachment the Indians have for their children, and the in- vincible repugnance they feel in being separated from them. '* The same writer, in another of his works, laments very strongly the difficulties which occurred in New France, in their endeavours to assimilate the Indians to the habits of the French, and to make them educate their children in the European manner. " Many of the French," says he, " have resided among the savages, and have been so well pleased * Charlevoix, Hist, de la Nouvelle France, liv. v. 318 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XIV. with their manner of life, that, although they lived much at their ease in the colony, they could not be prevailed upon to return to it. On the other hand, there has been no instance of an Indian conform- ing himself to our mode of living."* It was like- wise observed by the Marquis de Denonville, when governor-general of Canada, in writing to the minister of France " It has been long imagined that the Indians might be brought near us in order to Frenchify them, {pour les Franfiser,) but there is every reason to believe that this is a mistake. Those of the savages who have been brought among us have not become French, and the French who have resided among the Indians have become savages. "f Dr. Golden also mentions, that after the peace of Ryswick, when all hostility had ceased between the English and the French, many of the European prisoners, who had long been captives among the Indians, would not be prevailed upon to return to their own country and friends. The commissioners did every thing in their power to prevail both upon the English and the French, who had been de- tained among the Indians, to leave them, but with little success; and " several of them who were persuaded by the caressings of their relations to come home, in a little time grew tired of our manner * Charlevoix, Journal Historique, let. 22. f Ibid., Hist, de la Nouvelle France, Hv. xi. CH. XIV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 319 of living, and ran away to the Indians, and ended their days with them."* These facts, among others, may be fairly pro- duced as forming a strong proof of the natural gentleness of the Indian character ; because it cannot otherwise be supposed that the Europeans would have thus voluntarily passed their lives among them, unless they had known from experi- ence that except perhaps in cases of intoxica- tion they had nothing to fear from Indian fe- rocity. While however they thus resided among them, although they met with a cordial treatment, the Indians shewed little desire to adopt their cus- toms, or have their children educated in the Euro- pean manner. But if we are to credit the works of various writers, and particularly the Recherches Philoso- phiques of Monsieur de Pauw, it is useless to at- tempt to civilize or educate the American Indian, who, according to that author, is " superior to animals only from having the use of his hands and his tongue ; and inferior to the meanest of the Europeans. Void of intellect, and incapable of improvement, he is only led by instinct. No idea of glory can penetrate his soul : his unpardonable debasement retains him in the slavery in which he is plunged, or in that savage state which he has not had the courage to abandon. It is almost three * Colden's Hist, of the Fire Nations, vol. i. ch. 13. 320 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cn. XIV. centuries since America was discovered ; from which time they have not ceased to bring over to Europe American Indians, upon whom they have tried every sort of cultivation; but not one of them could ever be taught to distinguish himself in science, arts, or manufactures." * Who these In- dians were, at what time brought over, how culti- vated, by whom taught, and where educated, he has not noticed ; and yet the unfounded calumnies of De Pauw had, in their day, the effect of raising a general and unjust prejudice against the Indians of the Western World. " A Lie," says the American adage, " will travel from Maine to Georgia, while Truth is pulling on his boots ;" and so it was with the assertions of that writer, who seems, in the middle of the eighteenth century, to have been as ignorant of the true character and qualifications of the American Indian, as Francis the First was, two hundred years before. To these unfounded and illiberal charges brought against the uninstructed Indians, in the Recherches Philosophiques, the most appropriate answer may be found in the anecdote recorded by the celebrated American philosopher. At a grand council held in 1744, between the British Commissioners from Virginia and the Ii> dians, the former, after the principal business was finished, stated that there was a college at Williams- * Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains, par De Pauw, vol. ii. partie v. i Cn. XIV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 321 burgh with a fund appropriated for the education of the Indian youth ; and that if the red chiefs would send some of their children to that place, they should be well provided for, and instructed in all the learning of the whites. One of the Indian orators answered by expressing the deep sense entertained of the kindness of this offer : " For we know," said he, " that you highly esteem the kind of learning taught in these colleges, and that the maintenance of our young men, while with you, would be very expensive to you. We are con- vinced that you mean to do us good by. your pro- posal, and we thank you heartily : but you, who are wise, must know that different nations have dif- ferent conceptions of things ; and you will therefore not take it amiss if our ideas of this kind of educa- tion happen not to be the same with yours. We have had some experience of it. Several of our young men were formerly brought up at the colleges in your northern provinces. They were instructed in all your sciences : but when they came back to us, they were bad runners ; ignorant of every means of living in the woods ; unable to bear either cold or hunger ; knew neither how to build a cabin, take a deer, nor kill an enemy ; spoke our language imper- fectly ; were neither fit for hunters, warriors, nor councillors : they were totally good for nothing. We are, however, not the less obliged by your kind offer, though we decline accepting it ; and, to shew Y i 322 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XIV. you our grateful sense of it, if the gentlemen of Virginia will send us a dozen of th%ir sons, we will take great care of their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." * It has been the common practice with many, in imitation of De Pauw, to stigmatize the Indians for their ignorance of arts and manufactures, and to conclude that, as they have remained so long without copying the improvements of the white population in their neighbourhood, there is little, if any, chance of their being now brought within the pale of civi- lization. . This impression originates from the pre- judice so often entertained with respect to that ill- fated race. Had the conduct of the whites been more liberal and considerate towards the Indian, he would, no doubt, long ago have been led to adopt many of their improvements : but his simple habits and few wants in a great measure rendered unnecessary the exertion of his industry with re- gard to objects which are considered indispensable in more civilized life. To this, as well as to the conduct of the Europeans themselves, must be as- cribed the little advancement he has made in adopt- ing their manners and customs. At the same time, any person who will impartially notice the various articles which the Indians, both male and female, are in the habit of manufacturing for their own * Dr. Franklin's Essays. Remarks on the North American Savaes. CH. XIV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 323 immediate use, will not feel disposed to pronounce them deficient i handicraft skill and ingenuity. Their instruments of war and of the chase, their bows and arrows and spears, are skilfully con- structed, and well adapted for what is required of them. The skins of various animals used by them for their clothing and bedding are, in many cases, dressed and prepared for the purpose with more skill than has been attained by the European manufacturer. Several of the tribes (chiefly towards the Missisippi) seem, from the earliest periods, to have made a sort of coarse but warm clothing, woven from the wool and hair of the buffalo ; and, before the introduction, by the traders, of metal utensils for cooking and other purposes, the Indians were in the habit of making vessels of clay and pot- tery. Their baskets and various other articles manufactured from the bark of the birch tree, in- geniously contrived, and beautifully ornamented with porcupine quills stained with the finest colours, evidently shew their taste and skill in such em- ployments. The many ingenious devices followed by the Indian in pursuit of his game, and the ad- dress with which he takes the numerous sorts of fish with which the American rivers abound, have for ages been copied by his white brethren. His sin- gular skill in traversing in a direct line his immense native forests, and his accuracy in delineating maps of the country, have often been 4 the subject of sur- 324 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XIV. prise to the Europeans.* The knowledge possessed by the Indian of the use of many valuable medi- cinal plants has been generally admitted : he taught the Europeans also the art of extracting sugar from the maple-tree a practice almost universally fol- lowed in many extensive regions of North America. Nor must it be forgotten, that without the Indian snow-shoe and the Indian canoe, the trader or the traveller, in the interior of that continent, would be totally unable to prosecute his voyages at the seasons during which it might be important for him to undertake them. The invention of the bark- canoe is of itself sufficient to redeem the Indian from the charge of want of handicraft skill and ingenuity. The superior mechanical knowledge of the Europeans has never induced them to reject that conveyance, or enabled them to improve it ; although, from its lightness and elegance, it has more the appearance of a toy for amusement than a vehicle for transporting weighty articles of com- merce. It can be conveyed without difficulty through almost impervious forests, over rugged portages, and along rapid and dangerous rivers, with expedition and safety : and, though liable to be broken by the slightest shock, it is constructed * I was informed by Mr. Hunter, that the Indians can march at night in a direct line through the forests, when they cannot see even a star to guide them, merely by feeling the bark of the trees as they move along. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 325 of such simple materials, that the neighbouring forest seldom fails to furnish the bark, the gum, and the fibres necessary for its immediate repair. The extraordinary skill and boldness with which the Indian navigates his canoe can only be credited by those who have witnessed it, or whom he has taught to follow his example. But there is no point in which the vanity of the white man is more conspicuous than in his lamenta- tion that the Indian cannot be induced to relinquish his hunter-state, and follow, like him, the pursuits of agriculture. It is the common cry among us that the savage must now at length be taught to till the ground, to sow, and to reap ; we all the while for- getting that it was this same savage who actually taught the European emigrant how to cultivate the American soil, to clear the stubborn forest by degrees, and to grow that valuable grain, the maize, or Indian corn ; and that the farmers even of the present day, throughout all the new settlements in the wooded parts, at least, of North America do little more than follow the agricultural lessons taught to their progenitors by the Indians. It is evident that, from the earliest periods, almost all the natives of those countries in North America, where the climate and soil permitted it, raised abundance of that species of corn ; and they pro- bably did not relinquish so beneficial a practice, until their habits and modes of life came to be 326 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XIV. materially changed, and their manners corrupted by communication with Europeans. Sir Alexander Mackenzie, therefore, is mis- taken when he blames the French missionaries and other persons for not having taught the Indians how to cultivate the soil. " Agriculture," says he, " so formed to fix and combine society, and so preparatory to objects of superior consider- ation, should have been the first thing introduced among a savage people. It attaches the wandering tribe to that spot where it adds so much to their comforts, while it gives them a sense of property, and of lasting possession, instead of the uncertain hopes of the chase, and the fugitive produce of un- cultivated wilds." : ' The benefits of agriculture cannot be too much extolled ; but it so happens that most of the North American Indians practised it long before even the earliest European mission- aries visited their country. In the account given by Hackluyt of Jaques Car- tier's voyage up the St. Lawrence in 1535, (when he first discovered the Island of Hochelago, now of Montreal,) he says: " The Indians brought us great store of fish, and of bread made of millet, casting them into our boates so thicke, that you would have thought it to fall from heaven." " They have, on * Mackenzie's Voyages, Preliminary Discourse on the Fin- trade. CH. XIV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 327 the top of their houses, certain garrets wherein they keep their corne to make their bread withall. They make also sundry sorts of pottage with the said corne, and also of pease and of beanes, whereof they have great store, as also with other fruits, as muske-mil,lions, and very great cowcumbers," &c.* Lescarbot, who from curiosity accompanied Mon- sieur de Pourtrincourt to Canada in the year 1606, mentions that " the Indians were then in the habit of cultivating and clearing the ground, of manuring it with sea shells, raising the earth in small mounds, or heaps at equal intervals, and planting their Indian corn at regular distances, with beans sown between them."^ Monsieur de Champlain also, in one of his earliest expeditions against the Iroquois, mentions that he at that time found the enemy all busily employed in gathering in their corn. And Pere le Caron, the first of the missionaries in New France who advanced into the interior, and who is stated to have travelled many hundred leagues up the coun- try in the year 14 15, found every where fields of corn, beans, squashes, and pumpkins.J When Pere Allouez likewise first proceeded to the upper extremity of Lake Superior, he discovered a large * Hackluyt's Voyages, vol. iii. p. 219. t Lescarbot, Hist, de la Nouvelle France, liv. vi. ch. 23. I Premier Etablissement de la Foy dans la Nouvelle France, vol. i. 328 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cir. XIV. village of mixed Indians, chiefly Ottawas, living peaceably together, leading a sedentary life, and cultivating fields of corn. He also describes the Pottawatomies as " a warlike people, hunters, and fishers, and cultivating the ground with Indian corn."' When Pere Marquette undertook his adventurous journey into the interior in 1673, he found the Miami, Mascoutons, and Kickapoos, raising abundance of Indian corn. As he advanced into the country of the Illinois, they were similarly employed, in growing corn, beans, melons, and pumpkins. Hennepin, who was in the interior, in the year 1680, mentions that the Senecas the most numerous nation of the Iroquois confederacy cultivated and carefully manured the soil, raising frequently sufficient in one season to serve them for two, and securing their stores in granaries.f The Baron de Ja Hontan, in a letter written from Mi- chiliimakinac in 1688, observes: "The country here is fine, and well adapted for agriculture. The savages accordingly do not allow it to remain un- productive ; they take great pains to sow Indian corn, pease, beans, pumpkins, and melons. The Hurons and Ottawas sell a great deal of Indian corn ; but they sometimes put so high a price upon it, particularly when their beaver hunts have been * Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1666-67, ch. 3 et 9. f Hennepin, vol. i. ch. 5. CH. XIV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 329 unsuccessful, that they indemnify themselves abun- dantly for the excessive charges we make for our merchandise." * But one of the most satisfactory, as well as the most early, accounts transmitted on this subject, is that of Sagard, the Recollet missionary, who went out to Canada in 1623. In describing the Hurons, among whom he resided, he says they re- gularly cultivated the ground, although, from their want of proper instruments, the labour was great. Every individual was allowed as much land for the purpose of cultivation as he chose ; and, in that case, the ground belonged exclusively to him as long as he continued to cultivate it : if he entirely left his allotment, another person might occupy it, but not otherwise. In perusing the following early account, as given by Sagard, one would almost believe it to be that of a modern American back- woodsman, or of a New-Englander, when he first begins the operations of his farm in the wilderness. " The Indians," says Sagard, " cut down the trees about two or three feet from the ground, then lop all the branches and burn them at the roots of the tree, which kills it, and in time they take away the roots. Then the women carefully clean the ground among the stumps, and dig, step by step, a round hole, in each of which they sow nine or ten grains * La Hontan, vol, i. let. 14. 330 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cu. XIV. of Indian corn, which they have first carefully se- lected and soaked some days in water. This cul- tivation they continue until they have laid up two or three years' provision ; either to secure food for themselves, should there occur any year of scarcity, or to exchange it with other nations for peltries, or any other articles they may stand in need of. They every year plant their corn on the same spots, which they turn up afresh with their little wooden hoes ; the rest of the ground, in the intervals, being left uncultivated, and only cleared of weeds, so that they appear all like roads, so careful are they to keep them clean. This has often caused me to lose my way, more than in the plains and forests. " The corn being thus sown in the manner that we do beans, from each grain grows one stalk or cane, and each stalk bears two or three ears, each ear containing one, two, and sometimes four hun- dred grains, and some even more. The stalk grows to the height of a man, and is very thick. The corn is better and more productive among the Hu- rons than either in Canada or France. It ripens in four months, and in some places in three. They then gather it, tying back the leaves at the top, and put them in regular parcels, which they hang upon poles, in form of racks, all along their cabins from top to bottom. When the grain is thoroughly dry, it is separated by the women and children, who clean it, and put it in large tubs or tuns appropriated for Cu. XIV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 331 that purpose, and placed in the porch or some other part of their cabins."* Sagard concludes his account by describing their different modes of making bread, and how they cooked their Indian corn, mixing it with other ingredients. Before the arrival of the French, he says, the Hurons had no metal pots nor utensils, but made use of wooden ones of their own construction, boiling the meat in them by means of hot stones put in the water. The Huron women, he adds, mad'e excellent vessels of earthenware. We cannot therefore concur with Mackenzie in blaming the early French Canadians, any more than we can the British in New England, for not teaching agriculture to the Indians, however much they may both be pronounced culpable for their fre- quent and wanton destruction of the corn which the Indian had raised. Dr. Turnbull, in his History of Connecticut, says, " The Indians, at the first settle- ment of the English, performed may acts of kind- ness towards them : they instructed them in the manner of planting and dressing the Indian corn :" and "by selling them corn when pinched with famine, they relieved their distresses, and prevented them from perishing in a strange land and unculti- vated wilderness."'!" The same writer, noticing a sea- * Le Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons, &c,, par Fr&re Gabriel Sagard, Recollet, ch. viii. Paris, 1632. t Turnbull's Connecticut, vol. i. ch. 3. 332 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XIV. son in which the English settlers suffered severely from a great scarcity, says, " In this distressful situation, a committee was sent to an Indian settlement called Pocomtock, where they pur- chased such quantities that the Indians came down to Windsor and Hartford, with fifty canoes at one time, laden with Indian corn.'"* Yet the English, in their useless expeditions against the natives, began at a very early period to shew their rancour against their enemies by the destruction of " those fields of stately corn" of which mention is every where made in the accounts of the Indian wars. When Captain Endicot was deputed to march against them in a campaign which has been already noticed, we read that " There were two plantations on the island (Block Island), containing about sixty wigwams, some of them very large and fair. The Indians had also about two hundred acres of corn. After the English had spent two days on the island, burning the wigwams, staving their canoes, and destroying their corn, they sailed for the Pequot country," &c. &c. " Enough," adds Dr. Turnbull, " had been done to exasperate, but nothing to subdue, a haughty and warlike enemy. "f Similar to this were many of the campaigns carried on by the French in Canada. La Hontan, when employed in the expedition undertaken in * TurnbulFs Connecticut, vol. i. ch. 6. t Ibid. ch. 5. CH. XIV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 333 1687 by the Marquis de Denonville against the Senecas, observes in noticing an Iroquois village which had been deserted by its inhabitants " We found there no living being to kill, except horses, cattle, poultry, and swine, but no men. Those of us who were most vexed at this disappointment, expended our ill humour upon the fields of grain. This we cut down by vigorous efforts of the sword, being employed five or six days in the gallant occupation. Animating each other in this our martial ardour, we advanced about three leagues, always carrying on the war against our enemy the Indian corn."* Charlevoix likewise, in giving an account of this wanton devastation, says that the French encamped in one of the four large villages which principally composed the canton of the Sene- cas : they found nobody, and the village was burnt. They then penetrated farther into the country, and for ten days in which they overran it they found no one. This time was spent in ravaging the country, " and, above all, in burning four hundred thousand minots of corn."'}' " They also killed a prodigious number of swine, which caused much sickness. This, joined to the fatigue of two days' march through frightful roads, and the fear the general had of being abandoned by our Indian allies, who con- * La Hontan, vol. i. let. 13. t Minot, an old French measure containing three bushels. 334 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XIV. stantly threatened to leave him, obliged him to put a limit to his exploits. Thus, after having again taken possession of a country which he had conquered, the general marched towards the river Niagara," &c.* These are the accounts recorded of this military expedition, by a French officer and by a Jesuit mis- sionary ; let us see what the then bishop of New France says of the same campaign : " The French then entered into the fine plain of Gazeroar6, the principal residence of the Senecas, that famous Babylon, where so many crimes have been com- mitted, so much blood spilt, and so many men burnt alive. It is situated on an agreeable rising ground, to which you ascend by two little eminences in the shape of an amphitheatre, surrounded by lofty hills, and a very fertile plain about a league square, at that time almost entirely covered with Indian corn nearly ripe, which the troops mowed down with their swords. This village they burnt, and three others, together with the fort ; and it was supposed they destroyed about six hundred thou- sand minots of new corn, and thirty thousand of old, in order to starve the country, so that it might be impossible for the savages to subsist themselves." " It was thought necessary," continues the bishop, " for many reasons, to remain contented for this * Charlevoix, Hist, de la Nouvelle France, liv. xi. CH. XIV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 335 year with these advantages ; a great deal had been accomplished by securing the trade, humbling the Iroquois, and causing their scalps to be carried throughout all the land :" and the worthy prelate thus concludes his account, " One sees by the success of the campaign what may be expected from the wisdom and co-operation of those who at present exercise the authority of the king in Canada ; and it only remains for me to say that, in returning to France, it was a great consolation to leave, be- hind me two men whose good conduct promises us a long course of prosperity for religion and the state."* Leaving the bishop to the benefits of this conso- lation, we may notice another similar expedition, which was conducted by the Marquis de Tracy, against the Mohawks. The French had hoped to surprise the inhabitants, but they had fled ; and they only took some old men, women, and children, prisoners. " This canton," says Charlevoix, " was much richer at that time than it has been since. The cabins were well-built and neatly ornamented, each about twenty-six feet long, and of propor- tionate width, all boarded in the inside.f The * Estat present de 1'Eglise, et de la Colonie Francoise dans la Nouvelle France, par M. 1'Eveque de Quebec, p. 262. Paris, 1688. t There can be no doubt that the Indians, since their con- HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XIV. soldiers every where discovered magazines dug in the ground full of corn, sufficient to subsist the whole canton for two years. The first village we reduced to ashes ; the two others were at a consi- derable distance. At the last of these we found the enemy ; but he fled at our approach, and we could not follow him. The French avenged them- selves upon the cabins, not one of which escaped being reduced to ashes throughout the whole canton." Thus ended the campaign, " the nexion with the Europeans, and the corruption of manners with its consequent penury, have become much more slovenly and indifferent to their personal comfort, and to the cleanli- ness of their habitations, than they were two or three cen- turies ago. In Hackluyt's account of Carrier's discovery of the Indian town of Hochelaga, upon the St. Lawrence, he says : " There are in the towne about fiftie houses, about fiftie paces long, and twelve or fifteene broad, built all of wood, covered over with the barke of the wood, as broad as any boord, very finely and cunningly joyned togither : within the said houses there are many roomes, lodgings, and cham- bers : in the middest of every one there is a great court, in the middle whereof they make their fire. They live in com- mon togither : then doe the husbands, wives, and children, each one retire themselves to their chambers." Hackluyt's Voyages, vol. iii. p. 220. In New England, the Indian wig- wams are described to have been " very large and fair." And La Hontan states the cabins, in his day, as being eighty feet long, twenty-five or thirty feet wide, and twenty high; and that the Indians had also smaller cabins, with beds raised above the ground, &c. CH. XIV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 337 viceroy, on his return to Quebec, hanging three or four of his prisoners, as an example to the rest."* In the expedition, also, which was formerly noticed as being conducted by Chevalier de Beauhar- nois, against several Indian tribes in the interior, Father Crespel, who was present, states, that not being able to find the inhabitants of a village they had taken possession of, they could " only burn their cabins to the ground, and destroy all their Indian corn, the food upon which they principally subsist." And, having advanced a little farther, for the purpose of attacking another village of the Win- nepagoes, they, in like manner, found it deserted ; " we therefore," says Crespel, " employed some time in entirely ruining the crops, in order that the Indians might be starved/'^ This kind intention to starve a whole nation did not succeed ; for when Carver visited that people, in 1766, he found them still raising " a great quantity of Indian corn, beans, pumpkins, squash, and water-melons, with some tobacco."J It is curious to observe that these same Winnepagoes have continued to the present day an agricultural and contented tribe, .taking good care that the white population should come among them as little as possible. In Dr. Morse's * Charlevoix, Hist, de la Nouvelle France, liv. ix. t Voyage du Pere Crespel au Nouveau Monde, p. 21, t Carver's Travels, p. 37. Z 338 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cn. XIV. late Report, it is observed of them, that " they will suffer no encroachment upon their soil, nor any persons to pass through it without giving a satisfactory explanation of their motives and inten- tions. In failing to comply with this preliminary step, their lives would be in danger. They cul- tivate corn, potatoes, pumpkins, squashes, and beans ; and are remarkably provident. They pos- sess some horses. The Winnepagoes are indus- trious, frugal, and temperate." They appear also to be increasing in numbers. In the year 1812 they consisted of 3500 souls, and in 1820 they had increased to 5800.* It is certainly a striking circumstance thus to observe a nation of Indians, concentrated among themselves, prospering in agriculture, living con- tented and temperate, and increasing in population: while so many of their fellow-tribes, in consequence of their communication with Europeans, or the descendants of Europeans, have abandoned the best habits of their ancestors, and dwindled away in laziness, intoxication, penury, and disease. It is not necessary to enter farther into the sub- ject of the natural capacity of the North American Indian for science, arts, or manufactures. The experiment of teaching these to him has, in all pro- * Morse's Indian Report, Appendix, pp. 48 and 59. Cil. XIV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 339 bability, never been fairly or judiciously tried. Nor should it be admitted that the obstacles which have occurred, and still occur, to his civilization, arise from any constitutional inferiority or deficiency of intellect. One other instance and one only shall be given of the ingenuity of the North Ame- rican Indian ; and, in noticing it, Monsieur De Pauw shall have ample credit for his triumphant assertion, that " at the first arrival of the Euro- peans in the Western hemisphere, there was not an Indian in America who could read or write"* Although the aborigines of that continent do not appear ever to have had an alphabet in use among them, nor even to have supposed that the words of their language might be composed of, or divisible into separate letters, of which they had no notion, they have generally, by means of bieroglyphical representations, been enabled to communicate or describe their most important affairs and transac- tions. This practice distinct from the custom of delineating upon the collars of wampum their national treaties and records is certainly marked with much ingenuity. By means of painting on the stems of trees, when stripped of their bark, they find the ready means of giving important informa- tion to their roaming war-parties and allies respect- ing their own operations and the movements of * Recherches Philosophiques, vol. ii. partie .5. 340 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XIV. their enemies. When it is intended to represent events in a more permanent and portable form, they prepare the inner rind of the birch bark, and sometimes the skins of animals, upon which they paint, with charcoal or other colours mixed up with grease or oil, the objects they intend to delineate. The materials they use, and their mode of execu- tion, probably depend upon the importance of the subject, and the expected durability of the represent- ation. I have occasionally seen, at the portages in the interior, slight drawings of charcoal upon small slips of birch bark, fastened upon the bushes, or on sticks put in the ground, upon which were drawn particular beasts, birds, or fishes. This simple but convenient mode is adopted by the Indians (who generally assume the names of parti- cular animals), to let their friends know that they had passed in that direction. And at other places I have observed, deeply and distinctly chiselled on lofty rocks of granite, large hiero- glyphical representations of men fighting, of horses, serpents, birds, &c., and which are supposed to have remained there from the most remote antiquity. With respect to their common emblematical De- lineations upon the sterns of trees, Carver has given an instance of one of them during his travels towards Lake Superior from the Mississippi.* * Carver's Travels, ch. 17. CH. XIV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 341 A chief of the Chippevvas, who upon that oc- casion acted as his guide, was apprehensive that their small party might be perceived and followed by some straggling band of the Naudo- wessies (or Scioux Indians), with whom the Chip- pewas were constantly at war. The chief ac- cordingly stripped some of the bark from a tree at a conspicuous spot near the mouth of the Chip- pewa river, and having mixed up some charcoal with bear's grease, drew, in a rough style, on the stem of the tree, first, the town of the Otto- gamies, then a man dressed in skins, intended to represent a Scioux, with a line drawn from his mouth to that of a deer the symbol of the Chip- pewas. He then painted a canoe as proceeding up the river, and a man sitting in it with his hat on : this was to represent an Englishman (Carver) ; and another man was described with a handker- chief tied round his head paddling the canoe ; viz. the French canoeman by whom Carver was accom- panied. He then added some other significant emblems, among which was the pipe of peace at the prow of the canoe. " The meaning," says Carver, " which he intended thus to convey to the Naudowessies and which, I doubt not, appeared perfectly intelligible to them was, that one of the Chippewa chiefs had received a speech from some Naudowessie chiefs at the town of the Ottogamies, desiring him to conduct the Englishman, who had 342 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XIV. lately been among them, up the river, and that they required that the Chippewa, notwithstanding he was an avowed enemy, should not be molested by them in his passage, as he had the care of a person whom they esteemed as one of their own nation."* * The Chippewa Indians and the Scioux appear to have been from time immemorial in almost constant rivalship ; and their hostility continues to the present day. When I was in the interior country of the Chippewas, in the year 1822, a gentleman who had resided a considerable time among the Red Lake Indians (of the Chippewa nation), related to me a circumstance that had occurred not long before in his neighbourhood, and which exhibits an instance of that respect with which the North American Indian often regards acts of bravery, even in an inveterate enemy. A band of the Scioux having killed two of the Ked Lake Chippewas, the latter tribe determined to take ample re- venge. Sixteen of their warriors accordingly set out, and reached the Scioux village, where they found their enemy in great force. They stationed themselves in a small wood, near the village, from whence they fired upon the Scioux. The latter immediately assembled, and surrounded the wood. One of the Chippewas made his escape, but the remaining fifteen, after defending themselves gallantly, were all killed. Seventeen of the Scioux also fell ; but their chief ordered that none of the Chippewas should be scalped, as they had fought bravely. He then caused a large and deep grave to be dug, in which those who had fallen in battle on either side were all honourably interred ; the body of a Scioux and of a Chippewa being alternately deposited in the grave. Cn.XIV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 343 La Hontan, nearly a century and a half ago, inserted in his Travels a graphic illustration of an Indian hieroglyphic ; and his accuracy so often and so unjustly called in question has received a strong corroboration by the later statements of Car- ver, Heckewelder, Hunter, Schoolcraft, and others, upon this subject. The drawing alluded to is divided into several compartments. The first exhibits a tomohawke (the symbol of war), with the fleur-de-lis, the arms of France, underneath, meaning that the French had commenced war ; eighteen other marks shewing the number of their troops, each mark standing for ten soldiers. On the right of the second compart- ment is represented a mountain (the emblem of Montreal), from which a bird is directing its flight, meaning that the French had set out. A moon in its first quarter, placed on the back of a deer, tells the time of their departure the beginning of the month of July, termed by the Indians " the Moon of the Deer." In another division, the picture of a canoe shews that they first advanced by water, and a group of cabins (as sleeping places) points out the number of days occupied in their voyage. The representation of a human foot shews that the French marched by land (a day's march being generally about five French leagues) as many days as there are cabins marked in that compartment; and, in the next, a hand pointing to three cabins 344 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XIV- signifies that they had approached within three days' march of the Seneca village, the emblem of which is a long cabin or lodge with a tree at each end of it. The sun is represented at the right hand of this emblem, shewing that the affair took place on the east side of the village. In the next division of the picture there are twelve marks, each mark meaning ten men, and the Seneca emblem accom- panying them shews that they are Indians of that nation. A person drawn lying as if asleep on the ground, means that they were taken by surprise : a war club and eleven human heads, that eleven Senecas were killed ; and five men, represented each with a particular mark, imply that fifty of them were taken prisoners. In another compart- ment, nine heads within a bow, mean that nine of the attacking enemy were killed ; and twelve underneath it, that twelve of them were wounded. Arrows represented as flying in the air in different directions, shew that they fought well on both sides ; and, lastly, a number of arrows flying all one way, that the conquered party fled or retreated in disorder. " Thus," says the baron, in explaining his fro- quois Gazette, " the French soldiers, to the number of 180, having set out from Montreal about the beginning of July, proceeded twenty-one days in their canoes ; then advancing thirty-five leagues on foot, they surprised 120 Senecas on the east CH. XIV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 345 side of their village, of whom eleven were killed and fifty taken prisoners, with the loss, on the part of the French, of nine killed and twelve wounded the battle having been well contested."* Although, therefore, the author of the Recher- ches Philosophiques may have triumphantly held the Indians in contempt, because, at the time when America was first discovered, there was not to be found a native in that continent who could read or write, yet enough has probably been inserted in these Notes to shew that, at all events, the Indian may fairly be reckoned not incapable of being taught. And to the charge which the same writer has gravely added, that " even in our days there is not one of the Indians who has the power to think" we may be permitted to close this part of the subject with the thoughts so eloquently expressed by his own contemporary, the celebrated Indian, Logan whose speech has been so much admired on both sides of the Atlantic. The authenticity of this specimen of Indian eloquence having been called in question, induced Mr. Jef- ferson, the late president of the United States, to ascertain it beyond the shadow of a doubt; and in an Appendix (published at Philadelphia in 1800) to his Notes on Virginia, he expressed his wish that in any subsequent edition of that work * La Hontan, vol. ii. p. 210. 346 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XIV. the circumstance should be thus stated : That in the year 1774, a robbery having been committed by some Indians upon the white settlers on the Ohio, the latter undertook, in a summary way, to punish the outrage. They surprised, at different times, several of the Indian hunting parties, with their women and children, and murdered many of them. Among these was the family of Logan, a celebrated chief, who had always distinguished himself as the friend of the whites. This ungrateful return provoked his vengeance, and in the war which ensued he highly signalized himself. In the autumn of that year, the Indians were defeated in a decisive battle, and sued for peace. Logan, however, disdained to be seen among the sup- pliants. But, in order that no distrust might arise in the treaty on account of the absence of so celebrated a warrior, he sent, by the hands of General Gibson, the following speech, to be de- livered to Lord Dunmore, the governor of Vir- ginia : " I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat : if he ever came cold and naked, and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, ' Logan is the CH. XIV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS, 347 friend of white men.' I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Crespal, the last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge ; I have sought it ; I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country I rejoice at the beams of peace : but do not harbour a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan ? Not one." But, in the Recherches Philosophiques, we are desired to believe, that " a stupid insensibility forms the foundation of the Indian character : no passion is sufficient to animate their soul, or raise them above their abject state." And yet, are not many of them animated, like the high-minded Logan, with feelings of indignation at European ingrati- tude? " Brothers," said the celebrated warrior Te- cum-seh, in a speech to the Osages in the year 1811, " when the white men first set foot on our grounds, they were hungry ; they had no place on which to spread their blankets, nor to kindle their fires. They were feeble ; they could do nothing for themselves. Our fathers pitied their distress, and shared freely with them whatever the Great Spirit 348 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XIV. had given his red children. They gave them food when hungry, medicine when sick, spread skins for them to sleep on, and gave them grounds that they might hunt and raise corn. Brothers, the white people are like poisonous serpents : when chilled they are feeble and harmless ; but invigorate them with warmth, and they sting their benefactors to death."* * Hunter's Memoirs of a Captivity, &c. p. 45. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 349 CHAPTER XV. GENERAL REMARKS ON THE CIVILIZATION OF THE INDIANS. IT may perhaps be said, on the subject of civilizing the North American Indians, that it is easier to state objections to the efforts which have hitherto been made for that purpose, than to suggest plans not liable to similar animadversion. It may be thought that no good can arise from attempting to shew the inefficiency of one system of proposed im- provement, without substituting a better in its place. This, in some cases, may be true; but, amidst the difficulties which are every where admitted to exist on this subject, benefit may arise from experience ; and, by shewing the errors of former periods, similar faults may in future be avoided, and ulti- mate success rendered more attainable. Yet, how- ever much the early systems which were pursued with respect to the Indians may be pronounced blameable, it must be acknowledged, that to pro- pose in their stead any specific plan distinctly calculated at the present moment to effect the beneficial objects which all parties wish to pro- mote, is fraught with extreme difficulty. This very difficulty, however, ought to con- vince us that the object can only be attained 350 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XV. by slow and gradual steps ; for it is evident that we have not only to combat the native prejudices of the Indians, but to effect the more difficult task of making them forget the impressions we had already given them. Were it possible for the Indian of North America happily to lose all knowledge or traditionary remembrance of the interference imprudently exerted in behalf of his race for two centuries were it practicable to replace him at once in that state of total igno- rance with respect to the Christians in which he was situated when first discovered by them, it would be far easier at the present time to teach him Chris- tianity, and to effect his civilization. Measures cannot now be adopted with regard to him as to an unbiassed stranger : on the contrary, his educa- tion and feelings strongly tend to make him repose little confidence in those Europeans who would be disposed to exert themselves for his benefit. Many of those writers in America who have of late years turned their attention to this subject, think there is little prospect of success when the Indians are mixed with the white population ; but that the result would probably be favourable if they were located in districts or reservations of their own, with the aid of such establishments among them as might tend to promote their general improve- ment. These writers complain bitterly of many of the white people who resort to the Indian countries Cu.XV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 351 within and along the frontiers of the United States. Dr. Morse observes, that " The success of these efforts (to civilize the Indians) has doubtless been much obstructed by the influence of depraved white people who have insinuated themselves among the Indians, and whose interest it is to keep them igno- rant, and whose exertions, of course, would be against all improvement." * Mr. Nuttall, in his Travels into the Arkansaw Country of Louisiana, in 1819, also remarks, that some of the white people settled there, " as well as the generality of those who till lately inhabited the banks of the Arkansaw, bear the worst moral character imaginable, being many of them renegadoes from justice, and such as have forfeited the esteem of civilized so- ciety." f The natives readily follow the example of these lawless and dissolute rovers, as men- tioned by Mr. Hunter, in noticing the same Indian countries of the United States, while, unfortu- nately, they have no good examples put be- fore them which might tend to counteract the contagion. " I repeat," says he, " that the bene- volent of our race trust their hopes of benefiting the Indians on a sandy foundation, so long as this kind of intercourse is tolerated."! And again, T o ' ' Before any permanent good effects can result * Morse's Indian Report, p. 26. f Nuttall's Travels into the Arkansaw Territory, ch. 9. + Hunter's Memoirs, ch. 4. 352 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cn. XV. to the Indians from the beneficent but mistaken effects of the numerous associations organized for their civilization in various parts of the world, all their intercourse with this class of people should be broken off."* It is certainly extremely difficult, if not almost impracticable, for the law to reach these distant and detached violators of it ; but, unless means are taken to prevent the settling of such people among the Indians, it need not be expected that much pro- gress can be made in the improvement of the native population. It will be wiser to take every possible means to prevent them from going among the Indians at all, and to encourage the Indians them- selves to prohibit their approach, than to expect that any legal restraint will keep them from those lawless practices with which they are so constantly charged. It has been often observed, in considering the state of the North American Indians, that the endeavours to civilize and to convert them, should be carried on at the same time. " Civilization and religion," says the Reverend Mr. Sergeant, the missionary, " must go hand in hand ; as I have read with regard to Africa, the plough and the Bible must go together." But this is extremely questionable. It is much more probable that the attempt to convert the adult Indian to Christianity, should invariably * Hunter's Memoirs, ch. 15. CH. XV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 353 be preceded by an endeavour to improve his habits, and promote his general advancement. It is more likely that his civilization has been obstructed by the steps taken to convert him, than that his own tardiness in being converted should be attri- buted to any want of docility in becoming civi- lized. Mr. Tudor, in his interesting Letters on the Eastern States, observes, " A strong reason against commencing the attempts at civilization exclusively with religious instruction, is the oppo- sition that will be offered by Indian supersti- tion. The Indians, particularly the highest and least vitiated among them, are attached to their own notions, some of which are the soundest prin- ciples of natural religion. They are very apt to confound our religion with the evils our society has brought upon them ; and their prophets take every occasion to excite their distrust of our mission- aries."* A similar feeling appears to have influenced the Seneca chief, Red Jacket, in his address to the governor of New York, which has already been adverted to. After expressing his gratitude for the means which had been furnished to enable them to plough and to sow, he added, that they had no wish to change their religion. " Each nation," says he, " has its own cus- * Tudor's Letters on the Eastern States of North America, let. 12. A A 354 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XV. toms and its own religion. The Indians have theirs given to them by the Great Spirit, under which they were happy. It was not intended that they should embrace the religion of the whites, and be destroyed by the attempt to make them think differently on that subject from their fathers." There can, indeed, be little doubt that, among. adult Indians, it will be found a far easier task to civilize than to con- vert them. If the European instructor succeed in the former, he may, in process of time, effect the latter; but if he insist upon a simultaneous ad- vancement in both, it is extremely probable that he will obtain success in neither. The experiment of endeavouring to civilize the Indian before an attempt be made to convert him, appears to have been begun by the Quakers. Dr. Morse, in noticing the Shawanee Indians, says, " For several years past the Society of Friends, at a considerable expense, have supported an agricul- tural establishment among them. They have a grist mill, and saw mill, which are kept in complete order for the use of these Indians. The Friends are about to establish a school. This truly be- nevolent denomination of Christians do not yet attempt to instruct these people in the principles of Christianity, believing that they are not yet sufficiently acquainted with the arts of civilized life."* * Morse's Report, Appendix, p. 92. CH.XV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 355 On the subject of the Quakers, Mr. Hunter has stated a circumstance which is worthy the most */ earnest attention of those societies, on both sides of the Atlantic, which interest themselves respecting the improvement of the North American Indians. He mentions that, along the frontier settlements of the United States, as also among many of the more distant tribes, the Quakers are, of all the white people, the most acceptable to the Indians. " If these would undertake," says he, "to revolutionize the habits and opinions of the Indians, they would have the advantage of at least an entire generation of confidence and good will in their favour, over every other religious sect, a circumstance that would operate as a miracle in arriving at the mea- sure in view."* But whatever may be the class who turn their minds to the improvement of the Indian popu- lation, it cannot be too strongly impressed upon them that, in attempting to introduce changes among that people, slowness and caution are indispensable ; and that it is necessary fully to understand their peculiar habits, before any endeavour be made to amend them. The custom, for instance, of employing the women in those works which, among civilized nations, are gene- rally performed by the men, has often been * Hunter's Memoirs, ch. 16. 356 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XV. stigmatized in the description of Indian man- ners. But if any sudden change in this respect is to be insisted upon, or attempted, it will probably have no other effect than to disgust both the men and the women. " The women," says Dr. Franklin, " till the ground, dress the food, nurse and bring up the children, and preserve, and hand down to posterity, the memory of the public transactions. These employments are accounted natural and honourable."* Heckewelder also observes, " There are many persons who believe, from the labours they see the Indian women per- form, that they are in a manner treated as slaves. These labours, indeed, are hard, compared with the tasks imposed upon females in civilized society; but they are no more than their fair share, under every consideration and due allowance of the hard- ships attendant upon savage life ; therefore they are not only voluntarily but cheerfully submitted to : and as the women are not obliged to live with their husbands any longer than suits their pleasure or convenience, it cannot be supposed that they would submitto be loaded with unjust or unequal burdens. "f The same writer observes, that the women take upon themselves the chief labour of the field ; nor do * Dr. Franklin's Remarks concerning the Savages of North America. f Heckewelder's Account of the Indians, ch. 16. CH. XV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 357 they think it hard so to do, because this employs them only about six weeks in the twelve months, while the labours of the husband to maintain his family, by other means, last throughout the whole year. " The tilling of the ground at home, getting in fire wood, and pounding corn in mortars, is fre- quently done by female parties much in the manner of those husking, quilting, and other frolics, as they are called, which are so common in some parts of the United States. The labour is thus quickly and easily performed. When it is over, and sometimes at intervals, they sit down to enjoy themselves, by feasting on good victuals prepared for them by the person or family for whom they work, and which the man has taken care to provide beforehand from the woods :" and he adds, " Even the chat which passes during their joint labours is highly diverting : and so they seek to be employed in this way as long as they can, by going round to all those in the village who have ground to till."* This is merely noticed as one of many customs where a hasty and inconsiderate attempt at altera- tion may prevent the attainment of those very benefits which are expected from the change. To set an Indian hunter or warrior at once to labour in the fields, and his squaw to resign the healthy and varied occupations she has been * Heckewelder's Account of the Indians, ch. J 6. 358 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XV. accustomed to follow in the open air with her chil- dren, and suddenly to fix her at the irksome task of a spinning wheel, will only have the effect of disgusting them with the begi^iings of civilization, and inevitably prevent its progress. Keeping con- stantly in view that, with regard to the Indian, the slower and more gradual the attempts at change, the more sure will be the results that are ulti- mately looked for, it would be better to encourage the men gradually to share with the women in the labours of agriculture, than at once to separate them in their occupations, as appears to be the case with respect to some of the recent establishments for Indian improvement. But those who look the most anxiously towards the civilization of the Indians, must direct their attention chiefly to the education of the native children. Kindness and regard shewn to the Indian parents will make them much less reluctant than they formerly were to allow their children to be taken from them : and there is no doubt however melancholy it may be to reflect upon the cause that the dependent and feeble state to which many of the tribes have been now reduced, will render them more disposed to agree to a partial separa- tion from their offspring. It is at present much more difficult for an Indian, in most parts of the country, to maintain his family, than it was in earlier times : and this circumstance, together with his Cn.XV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 359 personal observation of the benefit arising from the adoption of European arts and industry, will pro- bably induce him to part with his children for the purposes of their induction. This, of late years, appears to have been the case ; and, from the ac- counts given of the Indian tribes, particularly within the territory of the United States, that feeling seems to be generally on the increase, and the re- quisite advantage is taken of it. A resolution having passed the house of represen- tatives at Washington two years ago, requesting in- formation from the President as to the condition of the several Indian tribes within the United States, and the progress of the measures hitherto adopted for their civilization, an official Report was drawn up by Mr. Calhoun, the secretary of war, by which it appeared that there were then throughout the Union fourteen schools, chiefly established by the missionary societies, where about five hundred children, male and female, were taught ; and that it was thought advisable, at the commencement of the system, to proceed with caution, and to ex- tend their operations as experience or circumstances might dictate. " Whether the system," says Mr. Calhoun, " which has been adopted by the govern- ment, if persevered in, will ultimately bring the Indians within the pale of civilization, can only be determined by time. It has been in operation too short a period to pronounce with certainty on the 360 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XV result. The present generation, which cannot be greatly affected by it, must pass away, and those who have been reared under the present system must succeed them, before its effects can be fully tested. As far, however, as civilization may depend on education only, without taking into con- sideration the force of circumstances, it would seem that there is no insuperable difficulty in effecting the benevolent intention of the government. It may be affirmed, almost without any qualification, that all the tribes within our settlements, and near our borders, are even solicitous for the education of their children."* It cannot be doubted that the Indian may be in- duced, with cautious management, to permit his children to be instructed by the whites, although he at present appears but little disposed to follow their instructions himself. " I see," observed an Osage chief, when urged at Washington upon the subject of Indian civilization "I see, and admire your manner of living, your good warm houses, your extensive fields of corn, your gardens, your cattle, your waggons, and a thousand machines that I know not the use of. I see that you are able to clothe yourselves even from weeds and grass : in short, you can do almost what you choose. You * Official Report from the Secretary of War, to the Presi- dent of the United States, Feb. 8, 1822. CH. XV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 361 whites have the power of subduing almost every ani- mal to your use. But you are surrounded by slaves; every thing about you is in chains, and you are slaves yourselves. I fear if I should exchange my pursuits for yours, I too should become a sla,ve. Talk to my sons ; perhaps they may be persuaded to adopt your fashions, or at least recommend them to their sons ; but for myself I was born free, was reared free, and wish to die free."* Similar to these were the sentiments uttered by the chief of the Grand Pawnees, Sharitarouish, in a speech addressed to the President of the United States, at a grand council held at^Washington, in the year 1822.f The following are extracts from it : " My great father : J I have travelled far to see you. I have seen you, and my heart rejoices. I have heard your words : they have entered one ear, and shall not escape the other. I will carry them to my people as pure as they came from your mouth. The Great Spirit looks down upon us, and I will call hirff'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 * Morse's Report, Appendix, p, 206. f The Indian speeches made at that council were trans- lated and given to the public, by Major O'Fallon, the Indian agent, with the assistance of the other interpreters. I The Indian appellation given to the President. 362 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XV. earth, and intended we should live differently from each other. He made the whites to cul- tivate the earth, and feed on domestic animals ; but he made us to rove through the unculti- vated woods and plains, to feed on wild animals, and to dress with their skins. He also intended that we should go to war to take scalps to plunder horses from, and triumph over, our ene- mies to cultivate peace at home, and promote the happiness of each other. " My great father, some of your good chiefs have proposed to send several of their good people* among us to change our habits, to make us work and live like the white people. I will not utter a falsehood ; I will tell the truth. You love your country you love your people you love the manner in which they live, and you think your people brave. I am like you, my great father ; I love my country I love my people I love the manner in which we live, and think myself and my warriors brave. Spare me then, my father; let me enjoy my country, and pursue the buffalo, and the beaver, and the other wild animals of our land, and I will trade their skins with your people. I have grown up, and lived thus long without work ; I am in hopes you will suffer me to die without it. We have plenty of buffalo, beaver, deer, and other * Meaning the missionaries. CH. XV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 363 wild animals we have also abundance of horses we have every thing we want we have plenty of land, if you will keep your people off from it. It is too soon, my great father, to send those good men among us. We are not starving yet we wish you to permit us to enjoy the chase until the game of our country and the wild animals become extinct. Let us exhaust our present resources before you make us toil, and interrupt our happi- ness ; let me continue to live as I have done ; and after I have passed to the Good or Evil Spirit from off the wilderness of my present life, the subsistence of my children may become so precarious as to make them embrace the assistance of those good people." The Indian chief thus concluded his speech to the President : " Here, my great father, is a pipe, which I present you, as I am accustomed to present pipes to all the red skins in peace with us. It is filled with such tobacco as we were accustomed to smoke before we knew the white people : it is pleasant, and the spontaneous growth of the most remote parts of our country. I know that the robes, the mockasins, the bears'-claws, and other orna- ments which we present, are of little value to you ; but we wish you to have them deposited and pre- served in some conspicuous part of your lodge; so that when we are gone, and the sod turned over our bones, our children, should they visit this place, 364 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XV- as we do now, may see and recognise with pleasure the deposits of their fathers, and reflect on the times that are past." It appears unnecessary to enter further into details on the subject of the obstructions which have opposed themselves to civilizing the Indians of North America ; or upon the general treatment which might be advantageously extended towards them. It is obvious, that to wipe away the errors of at least two centuries, much caution is necessary. We cannot now expect that the native tribes will meet us half way in the object even of their own improvement ; but kindness, conciliation, and regard may do much to recover the ground which has been lost, and ultimately to effect their civilization. Of this Mr. Hunter, than whom no one is better acquainted with the character of the Indians, does not despair. " Taught by ex- perience," says he, " that the white people are sincere in their efforts to serve them, their pre- judices will gradually unbend; and they will acquire the knowledge of a few facts that will elicit and confirm a taste for further and more important attainments."* It cannot be doubted, that the Indians of North America are much more likely now to benefit from good example, and from their own * Hunter's Memoirs, ch. 15. CH. XV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 365 observation, than by the positive instruction of others. One single Indian family copying, of its own accord, some of the best habits of regularity and industry observable among their civilized neigh- bours, would effect more for the ultimate advance- ment of the tribe or nation to which it belongs, than the active interference of generations of European, Canadian, or Anglo-American im- provers : and in concluding the remarks upon this part of the subject, it may be noticed with regret, that those judicious suggestions which were recorded by Monsieur de Cham- plain upwards of two hundred years ago, should have been so little carried into practical operation, in those extensive regions of which he was one of the most early and enterprising discoverers. " It is not sufficient," says Champlain, " to send missionaries among the Indians, unless there are others appointed to support and assist them. It would require population and families to keep them to the proper course of duty, to prevail upon them by mild treatment to improve themselves, and by holding good examples before their eyes, to induce them to alter their manners and customs. Peres Le Caron and De Daillion, and I, have often conversed with them on the subject of their customs, laws, and belief. They listened with attention, sometimes saying, * You speak of things beyond our understanding, and we cannot compre- 366 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XV. hend your discourse. But if you wish to do well, you will reside in this country, and bring your wives and children ; and when they come here, we shall see how you serve the God whom you wor- ship; how you live with your wives and your chil- dren ; how you obey the laws; how you cultivate and sow the ground ; how you raise up and feed animals ; and how you make all thoe things which we see of your invention. Seeing all this, we should learn more in one year than hearing dis- courses for twenty : and if we could not understand you, you would take our children, who would be as your own; and thus judging of our rude mode of life by comparing it with yours, it is likely we should prefer the latter, and abandon our own."* * Voyages et des Descouvertures faites en la Nouvelle France, depuis 1'annde 1615 jusques a la fin de 1'annde 1618, par le Sieur de Champlain. p. 95. Paris, 1620. CH. XVI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 367 CHAPTER XVI. GENERAL REMARKS ON THE ATTEMPTS MADE TO CONVERT THE INDIANS, AND ON THE CAUSES OF FAILURE OBSTACLES ARISING FROM THE IN- FLUENCE OF THE NATIVE JUGGLERS BENEFITS THAT WOULD FOLLOW FROM THE AID OF MEDICAL SKILL EXTENDED TO THE INDIAN NATIONS IN- JUDICIOUS VIEWS AND INTOLERANT SPIRIT TOO OFTEN ENTERTAINED BY SOME OF THE MISSION- ARIES CONCLUSION. IT was justly observed of the Indians in the time of Sir Walter Raleigh's early settlement in Virgi- nia, " Some religion theye have already, which, although it bee farre from the trueth, yet, being as it is, there is a hope it may bee the easier and sooner reformed ;"* a remark which might have served as a most appropriate text for the missionaries of every sect, nation, and period, throughout all the Indian countries of North America. Heckewelder states, that the Indian believes he is highly fa- voured by his Maker, not only in having been created with mental and bodily powers different from other animals, but in his being able to master even the largest arid most ferocious of the brute * Hackluyt's Voyages, vol. Hi. p. 276. 368 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH.XVI. creation ; and that when he has performed any heroic act, he acknowledges it as an instance of divine favour, ascribing his success entirely to the boldness instilled in him by the Great Spirit. " Thus, habitual devotion to the Great First Cause," adds that writer, " and a strong feeling of gratitude for the benefits which he confers, is one of the prominent traits which characterize the mind of the uninstructed Indian."* Conrad Weisar, well known in the early history of Virginia as a cele- brated Indian interpreter, when travelling with one of the natives in the year 1 737, has related an anec- dote descriptive of the pious gratitude of his fellow traveller. By some accident this Indian was on the point of falling down a dreadful precipice that lay in their route; and on perceiving the danger from which he had so narrowly escaped, he ex- claimed with great earnestness, and outstretched arms, "I thank the Great Lord and Governor of this world that he has had mercy upon me, and that he has been willing I should live longer."f In fact, " There are no people more frequent than the Indians in their acknowledgments of gratitude to God : their belief in him is. universal, and their confidence astonishingly strong."J * Heckewelder's Account of the Indians, ch. 6. t Boudinot's Star in the West, ch. 10. J Appendix (R.) to Dr. Morse's Indian Report. CH. XVI. -THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 369 But in place of endeavouring to conciliate and encourage the Indians, it appears that their early teachers, both of the Roman and Reformed church, treated them with arrogance and presumption. " It is so obvious," writes the Jesuit Father Bre- beuf, when residing among the Hurons, " it is so obvious that there is a Divinity who made heaven and earth, that the Hurons cannot be entirely de- void of belief on that subject, although their eyes and minds are obscured by the darkness of a long ignorance, by their sins and their vices. They per- ceive something, but are so grossly in error, that they render to God no honour, no love, no proper worship ; for they have neither temples, nor priests, nor feasts, nor ceremonies."* In like manner, and with similar intolerance, did the early Protestant ministers denounce the whole Indian race as " a subtile brood " " a generation of vipers" "perishing forlorne outcasts" " for- lorne wretched heathen," &c. &c. Was it likely that the Indian, sincere in his own native devotion, and impressed with feelings of gratitude to the Great Spirit, by whom he considered himself to be highly favoured, could entertain cordiality or deference for those who thus avowedly looked upon him as a miserable abandoned outcast? Instead of cautiously engrafting the doctrines of Christianity * Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1635. B B 370 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cii.XVI. upon the sound, though rude, stock of natural re- ligion, which had evidently taken deep root among the Indian nations, the European generally exas- perated his red brethren by an arrogant claim of superior virtues, intellect, and acquirements. The preacher called upon the Indian to forget the lessons of his youth, to renounce the belief in which he had been brought up, thus at once setting Christianity in direct and hostile opposition to those sentiments of natural religion with which he was sincerely impressed. By imprudent abrupt- ness in denouncing to him that there is no salva- tion but in the name of Jesus Christ, the missionary may undermine his veneration and gratitude towards the Great Spirit whom he worships, without ad- vancing him a single step in conversion to Christi- anity. The savage may lose much, and gain nothing : for although his native sentiments of religion " bee farre from the trueth," they are evidently such as would form a solid foundation for his future reception of the Gospel. But by be- ginning the work of conversion with harsh or hasty attempts to pluck out by the root the opinions which have been implanted in him, it will only tend to that result which was lamented by the Mohawk chief already noticed, who declared that his Indians " had formerly the fear of the Great Spirit, but that now they hardly believed in his existence." CH. XVI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 371 In considering this important part of the subject, I feel unwilling to touch upon points of discussion which might give offence to any sect of Christians whatever ; but it cannot, and should not be con- cealed, that one of the principal causes of failure in the attempts made to convert the North American Indians, is the manner -in which Christianity has been preached to them. This observation will be found to apply both to Roman Catholic and ProtSstant. With respect to the former, it was not likely that the Indian, who possessed strong powers of reflection, and, as Mr. Tudor expresses it, " some of whose notions are the soundest principles of natural religion," could re- ceive any solid benefit from the abstruse doctrines, idle ceremonies, harassing ordinances, and vexa- tious penance approved of by the early Jesuits. It has been already noticed how indignant Father Charlevoix was at the Dutch Protestant ministers for questioning the creeds, ceremonies, and doc- trines taught to their female Roman Catholic con- verts. " They attacked them," said he, " on the subject of their devotions to the Mother of God, on the worship of the Saints, on that of the Cross, and of the Images; but they found these female converts well instructed, and firm in the belief of what we had taught them on these articles." In like manner did Pere Rasles complain of the mi- nister from New England interfering with his 372 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cs.XVJ, neophytes, and " turning into ridicule all the pious observances of our Roman Catholic church, our purgatory, invocation of saints, images, crosses, beads, and tapers." But it did not require the ridicule of any sect whatever to make the Indian entertain indifference towards these ' pious obser- vances/ observances which no liberal Roman Catholic would ever wish to see pressed upon the mind of the savage whom he calmly hoped to con- vert to Christianity. What then was the result? "They have a great complaisance for all that is said to them," writes Father Hennepin, " and in appearance do every thing seriously which you en- treat them to do. When we say to them, Pray to God with us, they do so ; answering, word for word, according to the prayers that have been taught them in their own language. Kneel down, they kneel; take off your bonnet, they take it off; be silent, they are so. If one say to them, Hear me, they hearken directly ; and if one gives them some holy image, or crucifix, or beads, they will merely use them as ornaments to adorn their per- sons." ' And yet the Jesuit missionaries wished to make the world believe that their young Indian pupils and catechumens comprehended fully the doctrines they inculcated to them. " I had last year two scholars," says one of these early mis- * Hennepin, vol. ii. ch. 32. Cn.XVI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 373 sionaries ; " but now I have above twenty. After the departure of my master, (a native who was teaching him the Indian language) I collected and arranged a part of what he had taught me, and which I had written in detached pieces, according to his humour in dictating to me. Having there- fore mustered my treasures, 1 set about composing something upon the catechism, or the principles of the faith ; and, taking my paper in my hand, J beaan by calling some of the children to me by a little bell. I then explained to them, in a general way, the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and of the Incarnation, and I repeatedly asked them if I spoke riaht, and if they understood me well ; they all swered me, Eoco, eoco, ninisitoutenan ; yes, yes, we understand."* These young Indian scholars were more polite than most of their masters. The religion, or rather the superstition of the Indians, says another of the Jesuit missionaries, "also con- sists in praying; but, O my God, what prayers! In the morning, the little children, in coming out of their cabins, cry aloud, Cakouaki packais, amiscouaki packais, mousouaki packais - porcupines, come elks, come beavers. This-this is all their prayers !"t And no bad prayer either for little Indian children to make, whose daily : * Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1633, p. HO. t Ibid. 1634, p.* 80. 374 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XVI. sistence often depended upon the produce of their father's chase. What can be said also of the infliction of religious penance upon the Indian converts? The French missionaries must indeed have entered little into the sentiments and character of the North American Indian, if they thought that the prescription of such discipline could serve them in their work of conversion. Not that an Indian warrior, possessing such extreme self-command, and educated to bear with indifference the most severe trials, would shrink at the infliction of any penance which it was likely the church would impose upon him. His own voluntary penances, or self-devotion for the commis- sion of what, according to Indian notions, amounted to crimes or offences, were far more severe than any thing ordained by even the rigorous bigotry of their Jesuit instructors. The anecdote related by V r olney of the Miami chief, who, having murdered another Indian, offered his own life as an atone- ment to the family of the deceased, has been already mentioned. " If they will not receive these pre- sents," said he, " let them fix the time and place. I shall be there alone, and they may take my life." Heckewelder also relates a similar instance, which occurred in Canada in 1793. Two Indians met on the street of the village of La Chine, and one of them, a man of great personal strength, in- sulted the other, calling him a coward, and ad- THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 375 dressing him in other opprobrious terms ; upon which the latter drew out his knife, and stabbed him to the heart. A crowd immediately collected, calling out, " Kill him, kill him !" The Indian sat down by the dead body, and placing himself in an attitude proper to receive the stroke of the tomo- hawke, coolly awaited his fate. This he expected from the hand of some relative of the deceased, but no person seemed inclined to strike the blow. After the body was removed, the Indian was left sitting alone on the spot. Not meeting the fate he expected, he rose and went to a more public part of the village, and again lay down on the ground waiting the fatal stroke ; but no one attempted to touch him. He then went to the mother of the Indian whom he had killed, an aged widow, and thus addressed her : " Woman, I have slain thy son. He had insulted me, it is true ; but still he was thine, and his life was valuable to thee. I therefore now surrender myself up to thy will." * * Heckewelder's Account of the Indians, ch. 6. The story proceeds thus : " Thou hast indeed killed my son, who was dear to me," replied the woman, " and the only support of my old age. One life is already lost, and to take thine on that account can be of no service to me. Thou hast, how- ever, a son, whom, if tliou wilt give me in the place of him thou hast slain, all shall be wiped away." The Indian then said, " Mother, my son is yet a child, only ten years old, and can be of no service to thee, but rather a trouble and charge : 376 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XVI. Indians who could thus, with a spirit of self- devotedness, offer their lives in atonement for their offences, must have looked with contempt upon the penance inflicted by the church. Such an ordi- nance could not but tend to lower, rather than. to raise, the moral feelings of the Indian ; to whom also it taught a system of petty tyranny and hard- ness of heart, evidently foreign to his natural cha- racter. The contemptible self-scourgings publicly exhibited by the Indian Pigarouick in the church of Montreal, by order of the Jesuits, has been already noticed ; and it is curious to observe, that this same neophyte had himself, under the sanction of these fathers, been instrumental to the infliction of penance upon a female convert of his own na- tion, charged with no heavier offence than availing herself of a custom allowed by the institutions of her country that of quitting her husband when she wished no longer to remain united to him. The story is thus told in one of the early Jesuit mis- sionary Reports : " A young woman wishing to leave her husband without sufficient cause, the most zealous of the but here am I, capable of supporting and maintaining thee. If thou wilt receive me as thy son, nothing shall be wanting on my part to make thee comfortable whilst thou livest." The woman accordingly adopted the Indian as her son, and took the whole family into her house. Cii.XVI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 377 converted savages begged the governor to permit them to make a little prison at Sillery, and confine her some time, in order to make her return to her duty. Pigarouick undertook the commission, and had her seized ; and when she was at the door of the prison he thus addressed her : ' My niece, pray to God all night : you will have leisure. Entreat him to make you wise, and that you may not continue obstinate, suffer this imprisonment for your sins. Take courage ; if you will be obedi- ent, you will not remain long,' " She entered the prison very quietly, and re- mained there all night lying on the ground, without fire or any covering, although on the second of January, the most severe month of the year. Next morning Pere de Rinen visited her with Pigarouick, and gave her a little bread, and some straw to lie upon, and he wished that she should go out a short time into a neighbouring room to warm herself; but the savage said she must suffer this for her faults, and encouraged her to bear this penance patiently.* At night, however, it was thought best to release her. It was enough thus to frighten this poor creature, as the commencement of- discipline to these new Christians, joined to the * The reader may recollect that in Lower Canada, in the month of January, the mercury (of Fahrenheit's thermometer) will fall to 20, 30, or 40 degrees below zero! HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XVI. melancholy which it gives to the mind of the savages, sometimes drives them to extremities, and even to a violent death ; and the chastisement was thought sufficient for this young woman, and for several others."* The natural result of all this might have been anticipated. The Jesuit missionaries continued labouring in the vineyard, but gathered no fruit : and even their favourite convert himself, Etienne Pigarouick, whom they lauded as " professing much ardour in the faith, and preaching in our churches with a fervour and eloquence which savoured nothing of the barbarian," after thus inflicting punishment on his countrywoman for leaving her husband, had alas ! soon after to perform a more ignominious penance for leaving his own wife. The excess of zeal, also, which was so often evinced by the missionaries in their attempts to convert the Indians of North America, appears to have been one of the principal causes of their failure. If we reflect upon what has been generally understood as the attributes of a zealous missionary among the heathen, however laudable his intentions, and eminent his perseVerance, yet it is extremely ques- tionable how far that very fervour which makes individuals eagerly to volunteer in so laborious, Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1642-43, ch. 5. CH.XVI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 379 and often dangerous a service, is calculated to pro- mote the object which is looked for. In tracing the history of the missions, it will often be found that an over-sanguine hope of speedily effecting the conversion which was expected, caused the mission- ary to adopt those hasty and incautious pro- ceedings which irrecoverably prevented his ultimate success. These premature expectations did not escape the remark of some of the early ministers of reli- gion themselves, both Roman Catholic and Pro- testant. Pere C. Lallemant, the Superior of the Jesuit missions in New France, observed, " I anxiously request that those who have any affection for this country will not become impatient if they have no speedy accounts of the results which they look for. The conversion of savages requires time. The first six or seven years will appear sterile to some persons ; and if I were to add ten or twelve years, I might, perhaps, be nearer the truth. But, must there not be a beginning to every thing ; and must we not make the necessary and gradual dis- positions to attain the object which is proposed ?"* Similar to this was the observation made by one of the early Protestant ministers in New England, when recounting the difficulties which arose in con- verting the Indians of that quarter, and regretting * Mercure Francois, 1626, vol. xiii. HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XVI. how few the cases were which he stated to have occurred of their conversion. " And wonder not that wee mention no more instances at present ; but consider, first, their infinite distance from Chris- tianity, having never been prepared thereunto by any civility at all ; secondly, the difficulty of their language to us, and of ours to them, there being no rules lo learne either by ; thirdly, the diversity of their own language to itselfe ; every part of that countrey having its own dialect, differing much from the other ; all which make their comming into the Gospel the more slow."* To any one who will inspect the Reports which were annually transmitted to France for nearly half a century, from the Jesuit missionaries in Canada, it will appear evident that the unbridled zeal thus ad- verted to often hurried them into steps which rendered their labours abortive. Instead of gradually under- mining his errors, and gaining upon him by slow and secure approaches, the Jesuits seemed determined to take the heathen by storm. The consequence was, that they were foiled in their attempts, frequently con- firming those tribes as their enemies, whom it was their object to have conciliated as friends. In one of these Reports a feat is recorded as having been performed by two fathers of the church, which * New England's First Fruits in respect of the conversion of the Indians. 1643. CH. XVI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 381 may serve as an instance of the imprudent ardour above alluded to. Peres Allouez and Dablon who seem to have held a sort of roving mission in the interior when ascending the Fox river, in the year 1 670, observed a rock which bore the resemblance of a gigantic human bust. This object was peculiarly regarded by the neighbouring Mascouton Indians, who were in the habit of painting it with their finest colours; and in passing by, during their excursions, fre- quently left their little offerings of tobacco, arrows, &c., in gratitude for their having got through the adjoining dangerous rapids in safety. Our two crusaders, however, declared they were shocked at this sight; and, " to remove this object of idolatry," said they, " we had it taken down by manual labour, and thrown into the bottom of the river, never to appear more."* Let us turn for a moment to another of these missionary Reports. A party of Hurons having come down from a great distance to Quebec, '* We made them enter our chapel," says Pere Le Jeune, " where they were much astonished. We had placed the images of Saint Xavier and Saint Ignatius upon our altar. They regarded these with surprise, thinking them living per- sons, and asked if they were not divinities, and if they dressed themselves in the ornaments they saw * Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1670-71, page 163. 382 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cu. XVI. upon the altar. Father Brebeuf having explained what these images meant, they put their hands to their mouth their usual sign of astonishment. There were also three other images of the Virgin in o o different places. The Indians successively de- manded what these were, one after the other. The father informing them that it was the mother of Him who made every thing ; they laughed, asking how that could be, and how one person could have three mothers, for they supposed these representa- tions were of three different persons ; and it was explained to them that these only signified one and the same person. O, how good it would be," adds Pere Le Jeune, " to have all the mysteries of our holy faith well represented !"* But, had this party of Hurons thought fit to have taken these three representations, together with the images of the saints Xavier and Ignatius, and tossed them all into the St. Lawrence, no doubt the whole body of the Jesuits would have been shocked and indig- nant at the fancied profanation. Would these savages, however, have been more faulty than Peres Allouez and Dablon, when they demolished an ancient fragment of rock immemorially prized by the Indians, and which, for aught these fathers knew, might have been as much a figurative and symbolical representation among the Mascoutons, * Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1663, p. 183. CH.XVI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 383 as were the images of their own chapel to the Jesuits of the college at Quebec ? There is a judicious suggestion connected with this subject to be met with in one of the letters written from the interior, in ] 648, by Pere Rague- neau, who was at one time superior of all the Jesuit missions in New France. " Were I to give my advice to those who commence the conversion of the Indians, I would say, that we ought to be very cautious in condemning many things which we remark in their customs, and which clash with the ideas of those who have been educated in a different state of society. It is very easy to accuse of irreligion those who are only charge- able with folly, and to mistake for diabolical prac- tices that which has nothing in it supernatural. And we then feel ourselves obliged to forbid, as impious, many things which are innocent, or which, at most, are foolish customs, but not criminal ones. These might be got the better of more gently, and, I may say, more effectually, by gradually enlightening the savages, who at length would, of themselves, abandon those cus- toms, not for conscience sake as crimes, but from judgment and reflection as follies. It is difficult to learn every thing in a day. Time is the instructor most to be relied upon."* * Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1647-48, ch. 9. 384 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cn. XVI. Of these Indian customs, so often and so un- justly attacked as sinful and diabolical, but which better deserved the name of foolish than criminal, was the practice or profession of the juggler. This custom has continued almost universal among the North American Indians to the present day, and has always formed a great obstruction to their conversion. These native conjurers the Jongleurs of New France, and the Powahs of New England have already been adverted to ; and are described by Hakluyt as " great majicians, great soothsayers, callers of divils ; priests who serve instead of phisitions and chyrurgions." And Dr. Mather observes, " In most of their dangerous distempers it is a Powah that must be sent for, that is, a priest who has more familiarity with Satan than his neighbours. This conjurer comes, and roars and howls and uses magical ceremonies over the sick man, and will be well paid for it when he has done. If this don't effect a cure, the man's time is come, and there's an end."* The influence and authority which the juggler enjoys among his countrymen, whether as priest, prophet, or physi- cian, is extensive and powerful. The superstitious and uninstructed Indians of North America are at present as much inclined to give credit to things supernatural, as the Christian nations of Europe were to believe in witchcraft not two hundred years * Mather's Magnalia, b. iii. (Life of Eliot). Cii. XVI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 385 ago. In addition to his other impositions, the conjurer arrogates to himself a close communion with the Great Spirit, whose aid he affects to propitiate, and whose operations he pretends to foresee. Mr. Henry observes in his Travels, " In all parts of the country, and among all the nations I have seen, particular individuals arrogate to themselves the art of healing, but principally by means of pretended sorcery ; and operations of this sort are always paid for by a present made before they are begun." 4 The conjurer, however, was sometimes rather roughly handled by his employers. If he prophesied falsely he lost his credit, and if he prescribed unskilfully he stood a chance of losing his life. We have already seen how the grand chief of the Tonicas killed the physician by whom his son was attended in an illness of which he died ; and Mr. Henry relates an instance which he witnessed of. an Indian sorcerer being stabbed to death by a Chippewa, whose brother . was supposed to have died in consequence of his spells or prescriptions.! In the early Reports transmitted from the mission- aries in Canada, the obstruction they met with from the jugglers is every where deeply complained of. The French priests were often looked upon by the Indians as sorcerers themselves ; and the * Henry's Travels, parti, ch. 14. f Ibid. c c 386 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XVI. native conjurers, of course, eyed them with jealousy and hatred. In one of these Reports they state that " the Indians raised horrible calumnies against us, calling us sorcerers, impostors, magicians, who caused .the frost, destroyed the corn, poisoned the rivers, and inflicted mortal diseases ;" * and the hostility of these men was evidently one of the principal causes of the hardships suffered by the missions in the interior. The French, probably without much difficulty, detected and incautiously exposed their impostures ; and it was not to be expected that the jugglers would tamely submit to be deprived of the benefits and estimation which they had hitherto enjoyed among their countrymen. " I need not describe," says Pere Marest, " how often I have been subjected to insults, and run the risk of being killed by them, if the Divine Pro- tector had not secured me from their fury. It happened that one of them would have split my head with his tomohawke, had I not suddenly turned away at the moment his arm was lifted to destroy me."t Notwithstanding the great influence which the jugglers possess among the tribes, they appear to be the most unprincipled of all the Indian popula- tion ; and, therefore, probably the most opposed to * Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1657-58. (Preface.) t Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, vol. vi. p. 320. Cn. XVI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 387 every measure which might lead to the conversion of their countrymen. Mr. Hunter, in noticing the Indian sentiments respecting natural religion, and their belief in being accountable to the Great Spirit, observes, " It is a fact worthy of remark, that neither frigidity, indifference, nor hypocrisy in regard to sacred things is known to exist among them, excepting occasionally the young and incon- siderate, some of their prophets or priests, and all their conjurers"* It may be proper to mention, however, that besides the conjurers acting as priests and physi- cians, there are among many of the Indian tribes other individuals who practise the art of healing ; and there can be no doubt if the accounts of travellers and others who have experienced their aid are to be credited that in many cases the Indian treatment of the sick, and particularly of the wounded, is attended with a success not to be surpassed by the regular and graduated practi- tioner among the whites. But these cases, perhaps, were not of a difficult nature. It is very different, however, with regard to their jugglers, whose treat- ment of the sick is exclusively limited to pretended spells and magical operations. In travelling through the interior of the Indian country a few years ago, I had the opportunity of observing, near Lake Win- nipic, a Cree (or Knistinaux) woman, who had been * Hunter's Memoirs, p. 219. 388 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XVI. for several days watching over a sick daughter, about twelve years of age, apparently extremely ill. The anxious mother seemed to rest all hopes of recovery in unceasingly waving over her child the family confuring-stick, which had probably been consecrated by one of their jugglers. This holy instrument was ornamented with painted patches, feathers, porcupine quills, and rags of various colours. Upon inquiring into the symp- toms of the child's illness, the Reverend Mr. West, who was with me, undertook to select some of the medicines we happened to have with us ; and, having obtained a promise that they should be faith- fully administered, we proceeded on our journey, leaving the mother flourishing her enchanted rod over the patient with great solemnity. In the following week we returned by the same route, when, upon inquiring after the sick child, we found that the prescriptions had been regularly attended to by the mother, and that the patient was almost entirely recovered. With the consent of this Knistinaux matron, therefore, I brought away* the magical wand in triumph ; and both my travelling companion and myself no doubt felt that we had taken a better mode of endeavouring to remove an object of Indian superstition, than what, in a similar case, would probably have been adopted by the more hasty zeal of fathers Allouez and Dablon. This incident may be thought a trivial one ; but it was well observed by Pere CH. XVI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 389 Ragueneau, that these, and similar customs, would be best got rid of " by gradually enlightening the savages, who would abandon them, not from conscience' sake as crimes, but from judgment and reflection as follies." There is no circumstance whatever that would prove of more solid and permanent use to the Indians of North America, than to introduce among them the advantages which flow from medical science. This is recommended both by Dr. Morse and Mr. Hunter ; but the benefits arising from it would, I conceive, prove much more extensive than even the cure or prevention of disease. Nothing would tend so rapidly to put a stop to the reign of sorcery and conjuration throughout all the Indian countries ; and that alone would remove one of the grand obstacles to their civilization and conversion. The reflecting Indian would gradually perceive the benefits he had obtained ; and instead of accusing the Chris- tian of injuring him by his supposed incantatioiA he would regard him as a successful protector from the mischievous impostures of his own conjuring priests. Gratitude and confidence would follow the exertions of true medical skill, and the result would be, that the Indians could not fail to become more inclined to be guided by the religious instruc- tions of a people from whom they were convinced they had procured such substantial advantages whose judgment they had learned to respect, and 390 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XVI. whose benevolence they had experienced in the removal or alleviation of those diseases, which make such havock among the Indian race. The ravages of the small-pox alone a disease introduced into America by the Europeans have often depopulated whole Indian nations. Umfre- ville, in his account of the Northern tribes, has given a lamentable description of the pestilent visitation of this malady in his day. " Numbers began to die on every side ; the infection spread rapidly, and hundreds lay expiring together without assistance, without courage, or the least glimmering of hope of recovery. For when an Indian finds himself sick, he resigns himself up to a state of stupefaction, which hinders him from using even those means that may be in his power towards removing the cause of his malady." " Without the least medicinal help, or that common aid which their case demanded, a prey to hunger and disease, these forlorn Indians lay in their tents expiring under the accumulated weight of every scourge which human nature can experience. Wolves and other wild beasts infested and entered their habita- tions, and dragged them out, while life yet remained, to devour their miserable morbid carcases: even their faithful dogs, worn out with hunger, joined in this unnatural depredation. Heads, legs, and arms lay indiscriminately scattered about, as food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the moun- tains ; and, as none were buried, the very air Cif. XVI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 391 became infectious, and tended to waft about the baneful contagion.'" At a later period, and in a different part of North America, we find a similar account in the Travels of Captains Lewis and Clarke. In noticing the ancient Maha village, they state that it once had consisted of three hundred cabins, but had been burnt a few years before, when the small-pox had destroyed four hundred men, and numbers of women and children. " The accounts we have had," say these travellers, " of the effects of the small-pox on that nation, are most distressing. It is not known in what way it was first communi- cated to them, though probably by some war-party. They had been a military and powerful people ; but when these warriors saw their strength wasting before a malady which they could not resist, their phrensy was extreme. They burned their village, and many of them put to death their wives and children, to save them from so cruel an afflic- tion, and that they all might go together to some better country. "t These are melancholy pictures ; but they tend to shew how important it would be to introduce the advantages of medical science into countries where, from ignorance, and from the apathy of despair, disease is accompanied with such dreadful results. * Umfreville's Hudson's Bay, p. 92. t Lewis and Clarke's Travels, vol. i. chap. 2. 392 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CM. XVI The French missionaries, when they had it in their power, appear to have been extremely attentive and useful to the sick of the Indians among whom they resided ; and it is very probable that in those cases not very numerous, perhaps when they gained advantages over the conjuring priests, or medicine- men, it was chiefly in consequence of their medical assistance, limited as that must have been. " Thank God," says Pre Marest, in writing from the Illinois, " thank God, that our village is now purged of these conjurers. The care we have taken of the sick, the remedies we administer to them, most of which have cured their complaints, have caused these impostors to lose their credit, and compelled them to remove to other places.* And, in New England, Mr. Eliot mentions, in 1648, " I find by God's blessing on our means of physick and chyrurgery, the Indians are already convinced of the folly of paw-owing, and are easily persuaded to give it over as a sinful and diabolical practice." f It would, therefore, be well worthy of the atten- tion of those numerous and benevolent societies, established both in the Old world and the New, who have evinced such anxiety for the improvement of the Indians of North America, to consider whether a portion of their funds, which have been * Lettres Edifiautes et Curieuses, vol. vi. p. 320. f Hutchinson's History of Massachussets, ch. 6. CH. XVI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 393 so long appropriated exclusively to the use of the religious departments of the missions, might not, for the present, be usefully transferred to the sup^ port of medical Indian establishments. It has been already noticed how the mortality which at one time raged among the Hurons, in consequence of the small-pox (introduced, as Char- levoix says, by the French*), was ascribed by the Indians to the diabolical sorceries of the Christians -a charge, no doubt, raised and circulated by the native conjurers. A similar accusation is men- tioned by Dr. Morse as operating upon Indians, even close to the American settlements, at the present day; and nothing can shew more strongly the little benefit that accrued from the labours of the early missionaries, than the influence which the jugglers have still retained among their countrymen in those quarters where the missions had been established. The medicine influence, if I may so designate it," says Dr. Morse, which is hostile to schools and Christianity, and to civilization gene- rally, is strongly felt by these Indians. They are afraid to have priests come among them, because t happened that immediately after one had visited them, about the year 1799, the small-pox was introduced among them from Canada, and carried off nearly half their number. They were made to believe, by their medicine-men,' that the Great * Charlevoix, Hist, de la Nouvelle France, liv.9. 394 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XVI. Spirit was angry with them for receiving this priest and his instructions, and that the fatal disease was sent among them to punish them for this offence."* And yet L'Arbre Croche, the place where this tribe a remnant of the once powerful nation of the Ottawas now resides, was, for upwards of half a century, the seat of one of the principal missions of the Jesuits, from whom many of the ancestors of these Indians had received the rites of baptism. In the year 1799 there remained among them only one baptized Indian, an old man ; and their jongleurs seemed then, as they seem now, resolved to exert their influence in pre- venting any progress towards the conversion of their brethren. For even when Dr. Morse held his official conference with some of their principal chiefs in the year 1820, he states that the same influence was manifest during his interview with them, and they believed, that if he paid a visit to their tribe for the purposes intended, it would be followed by the displeasure of the Great Spirit, by pestilence and death. The reader may, perhaps, imagine that this tribe, which in the nineteenth century, two hundred years after Christianity had first been introduced into the country thus declined to receive a Christian mission, must be the most rude and savage of the aborigines. " But," says Dr. Morse, " these * Morse's Report, Appendix, p. 24. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 395 Indians are much in advance, in point of improve- ment, appearance, and manners, of all Indians whom I visited. Their dress was in the Indian style, neat, and highly ornamented with silver bands, plates, &c., in various forms, received prin- cipally as presents from Drummond's Island. The women and children, who are apart by themselves, had a cleanly appearance ; in countenance and manners intelligent and modest. Their warriors, who occupied a separate station, would appear well on any of our military parades they are a tall, straight, and well-faced band of men. The chiefs are shrewd, sensible, well-behaved men, most of them advanced beyond middle age, and of venerable appearance."* He also states, that they have been long in the habit of cultivating their lands and raising corn, not only sufficient to supply their own wants, but to carry the surplus to market at Michil- limakinac, where they have sometimes sold three thousand bushels in the season. However advanced this tribe of Indians might be in point of improvement, " it was evident," adds Dr. Morse, " that these people, from some source, were made to fear that my visit, should they listen to my proposal, would be followed by a similar calamity (the small-pox) ; and some effectual means, therefore, must be used to remove this influence before any thing can be done effectually for their * Morse's Report, Appendix, p. 23. 396 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XVI. improvement. An appeal to their good sense, and reference to what has been effected among some other of our Indian tribes, I think would accomplish the purpose." But let it be recollected, that in every such appeal, the good sense of the missionary must be exerted, as well as that of the Indian ; and while the former endeavours to root out the superstition which often leads that uninstructed race to ascribe natural occurrences to extraordinary interpositions of the Great Spirit, his instructor should, on his part, be cautious in believing that any supernatural interference of the Supreme Being is specially exhibited in his own behalf, or in the promotion of that work of conversion in which he is engaged. While the remnants of the Ottawa nation are called upon to forsake the superstitious impression that the Great Spirit will inflict upon them a fatal malady if they permit the introduction of Christian missionaries, the latter should avoid every super- stitious feeling of divine interposition, such as Char- levoix entertained when he recorded the destruction of a heathen village, and the massacre of its inhabitants. " Shortly after Pere Jogues was taken prisoner, an entire Huron village was de- stroyed. A band of Iroquois entered it at break of day, and, before the sun rose, not a single cabin remained that was not reduced to ashes, nor an inhabitant of any age or sex, except twenty that escaped through the flames, who were not mur- Cu. XVI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 397 dered. This village had always declined to receive the Gospel, and had carried its impiety so far as to defy the God of the Christians. Its destruction was regarded as a punishment from Heaven, and many profited by so signal a mark of the Divine vengeance." * The doctrine of a particular and superintending Providence is believed by the unconverted Indian * ^ as well as by the true Christian ; but, in the inter- pretation given to the Divine dispensations, every degree of caution is requisite ; and there has not been a more fatal error committed by missionaries, than rashly appealing to passing events as a proof of the special interposition of the Deity. While the mis- sionary, therefore, endeavours to eradicate the super- stitious notions of the North American Indian, let him guard his own mind against those seeds of incipient enthusiasm which often produce a similar supersti- tion in those who repair to the wilderness for the purpose of converting the heathen, and who, in pursuing their meritorious object, so frequently adopt those very measures which ultimately prevent their success. It is true that, in general, the missionaries have not acknowledged such failure: on the contrary, they have been disposed to claim high merit for the numbers, as well as the zeal of their alleged con- verts. But in this both Roman Catholic and * Charlevoix, Hist, de la Nouvelle France, liv. 6. 398 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XVI. Protestant each in their day have deeply de- ceived themselves. The silence and attention shewn by a congregation of North American In- dians neither proves that they understand what is preached to them, nor, if understood, that they have given their assent to the doctrines of the preacher. " The Indians," writes the Baron de la Hontan, " listen to -all that the Jesuits preach, without contradicting them. They are content with joking among themselves on the subject of the sermons delivered in the church by the fathers ; and, before any Indian will speak openly to a Frenchman on these subjects, he must be well satisfied, indeed, of his discretion and his friend- ship."* Pere Charlevoix himself admits, that " It must not be supposed a savage is convinced be- cause he seems to assent to what is expounded to him ; because, in general, they dislike nothing so much as disputation, and sometimes from pure complaisance, sometimes through particular views of interest, and still more frequently from indolence or indifference, they give the marks of full con- viction with respect to matters regarding which they have not paid the slightest attention, or which they have not been able to comprehend." f When Mr. Hunter, in modern times, was among the Grand Osage Indians, " I saw a number of white * Memoires de la Hontan, p. 124. t Charlevoix, Hist, de la Nouvelle France, liv. 5. CH. XVI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 399 people," says he, " who, from different mo- tives, resorted to this nation. Among them was a clergyman who preached several times to the Indians through an interpreter. He was the first Christian preacher I had ever heard or seen. The Indians treated him with great respect, and listened to his discourses with profound atten- tion, but could not, as I heard them observe, com- prehend the doctrines he wished to inculcate. It may be appropriately mentioned here, that the Indians are accustomed in their own debates never to speak but one at a time, while all others, consti- tuting the audience, invariably listen -with patience and attention till their turn to speak arrives. This respect is still more particularly observed towards strangers, and the slightest deviation from it would be regarded as rude, indecorous, and highly offen- sive. It is this trait in the Indian character which many of the missionaries mistake for a serious impression made on their minds, and which has led to many exaggerated accounts of their conversion to Christianity."* Who the preacher was that is thus alluded to by Mr. Hunter, or to what sect he belonged, is not mentioned, nor is it material to inquire. His error, no doubt, consisted in not adapting his discourses to the capacity of his hearers; nor confining his instructions to the more simple and intelligible * Hunter's Memoirs, p. 42. 400 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XVI. truths, leaving to the progress of time to mature and enlarge the conception of those to whom he addressed himself. Heckewelder, in praising the copiousness of the Indian languages, says : " We see our ministers, when once familiar with the language of the nation with whom they reside, preach to them, without the least difficulty, on the most abstruse subjects of the Christian Faith."" * It is unwise in the missionaries among the Indians ever to touch upon such subjects, either in their own language, or in any other. All classes and descriptions of Christians must admit that there occur many theological points connected with, or arising from the sacred Scriptures, which are placed above the reach of human intellect. It is upon these that Christians have disagreed ; and in the heat of discussion to which the difference has often given rise, each party has been led to assign a paramount degree of importance to conformity of opinion in those mystical points of controversy to which they respectively lean. Missionaries under such impressions cannot be expected easily to relinquish the peculiar doctrines which may have hitherto occupied so much of their zealous atten- tion : and although, when locally established in their several missions, there may be little call for controversial discussion, yet habit and education may naturally have the effect of inducing them * Heckewelder's Account of the Indians, ch. 10. CH. XVI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 401 to lay too much importance upon points that can only tend to perplex the judgment of the Indian, and make him the more unwilling to adopt a religion which, if so preached to him, he cannot be expected to comprehend. Would it not be better that the Christian teachers, in endeavouring to instruct the Indian, should con- fine themselves to those simple truths upon which Christians of every denomination have agreed, and where there exists no subject of serious difference or dispute ? And, further than this, might he not be safely left to the operation of time, and to his own powers of reflection, which are certainly in 'no respect inferior to those of his white brethren ? Hunter states, that the Indians are acute observers, and look much more deeply into these matters than people commonly believe; and that over^sanguine reformers go among them with very erroneous views of their character. " I have myself known young missionaries, and others also," says he, " who were sent among them, and whose correct intentions I do not pretend to question, to deal out long lectures on morality, original sin, vicarious atonement, &c. The disposition of the Indians never to interrupt a talker by rising, nor even by yawning and other indications of uneasiness, often causes the philan- thropist to flatter himself that he has enlisted their whole affections and judgment in the cause, when, perhaps, they feel themselves insulted. For when they are dismissed, and converse among themselves 5 D D 402 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cn. XVl- on these subjects, they say, ' The white men tell the Indians to be honest ! The Indians have no prison, no jail for unfortunate debtors; no locks on their doors.' And when the preachers make their dis- course more evangelical, they do not comprehend them; which shews they should become mere acquainted with metaphysical disquisitions before any attempts are made to teach them the mysteries of Christianity." * This, from one so well acquainted with the Indian character, conveys a serious lesson to the missionary ; and if we calmly consider what the Board of Missions in America reported in September 1821, on the subject of those persons whom they had been preparing for that vocation, the lesson surely does not appear to be uncalled for. " It should be mentioned, with devout ascriptions of praise," says the published Report of that Board, " that the great Head of the church has made provi- sion for a succession of ministers and missionaries in the extensive revivals of religion with which the churches of our land have been favoured for several years past. In the progress of those revivals, many young persons of both sexes have, in the judgment of enlightened charity, become the subjects of renewing grace ; and have had their minds enlarged to contemplate the wants of mankind, and their hearts filled with compassion for the millions remaining in all the darkness and misery of pagan- * Hunter's Memoirs, ch. 15. CH. XVI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. ism. It is not extravagant to hope, that from among the numerous youths whose souls appear to be imbued with a disposition to labour for the sal- vation of men, a host will hereafter be marshalled to carry on the war against Satan, in many parts of the world where he has heretofore held an undis- puted empire. Never before were half so many young men iu a course of education for the ministry among ourselves, as at the present time; and it may be safely asserted, that hundreds of these young men were first led to think of becoming preachers of the Gospel, by the interest which they felt in missions to the heathen, and by the effect of these missions in exposing the wants and miseries of the greater part of the world, dead in sin, without God, and without hope." These, surely, are not the sentiments with which the missionary should go forth, in all reasonable humility, to convert the heathen. However sincere the faith, and good the intentions of the preacher, he may rest assured that, if influenced by such impressions, his preaching will be in vain, and that, as far, at least, as regards the North American Indian, his labours will prove fruitless. In deceiving him- self as to his supposed success, the missionary will only mislead the benevolence of his patrons. Let the Christian, thankful for the light of Revelation, evince that consideration for the unenlightened * See Church Missionary Register. August, 1822. 404 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING CH. XVI. Indian to which the latter is justly entitled, and which no one will probably withhold from him, who reflects upon the following passage from those Memoirs which have been so often, and with such satisfaction, referred to in these Notes. Hunter, when describing what occurred upon breaking up their winter encampment in the course of that long and dangerous expedition which he and an Indian party made across the American continent to the Pacific Ocean, thus observes: "At the breaking up of the winter, having supplied ourselves with such things as were necessary, and the situa- tion afforded, all our party visited the spring from which we had procured our supplies of water, and there offered up our orisons to the Great Spirit for having preserved us in health and safety, and for having supplied all our wants. This is the constant practice of the Osages, Kanzas, and many other Indian nations, on breaking up their winter encamp- ments, and is by no means an unimportant cere- mony. On the contrary, the occasion calls forth all the devotional feelings of the soul ; and you there witness the silent but deeply impressive com- munion which the unsophisticated native of the forest holds with his Creator."* And yet are we to be told that these people are " dead in sin, without God, and without hope !" But the pleasing testimony above recorded by * Hunter's Memoir^ p. 77- CH. XVI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 405 Mr. Hunter respecting tribes by whom he was adopted, and among whom he resided from his boyhood, may for a moment be contrasted with an opposite account of the same Indians which was communicated to Dr. Morse while compiling his Indian Report for the use of the American govern- ment. The passage will be found referred to in the index of that work, under the gloomy title of Moral Darkness of the Osages. " The moral darkness in which this people are involved, is greater than has yet been communicated to the Christian world. It has been commonly reported that they worship God, and acknowledge him as the great First Cause of all things. This, however, will, I believe, be found to be a misrepre- sentation. From the best information I can ob- tain, it appears that they are an idolatrous race, and that they worship the sun, the earth, the moon, the thunder, and the stars. They worship those creatures of God as creators. If asked who made the sun, moon, earth, Sec., they cannot tell. Hence it is evident that they have no knowledge of Him who made the heavens, and the earth, and all things that are therein. O how apt is the human mind to forsake and forget what is right, and to learn and remember what is wrong ! How apt to forget the God who made and governs all things, and to worship the creatures of God, or the work- manship of men's hands ! The Osages will rise in the morning before the day dawns, black their 406 HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING Cir. XVI. faces with earth, look towards the rising sun, and, with an affected air, pray sometimes until the sun has risen.* But their gods are not able to change their hearts, or put right spirits within them. It is no uncommon thing to see them start, immediately after their morning devotion, on some mischievous and atrocious expedition, perhaps to murder some of a neighbouring tribe, or steal their substance. I will mention the following as an instance of their readily learning that which is sinful, and their proneness to do evil." And what does the reader sup- pose this Indian proneness to do evil amounted to? " Many of them," adds their reformer, " are play- ing cards around me while I am writing; and uttering in broken English, the oaths which are so commonly uttered at the card table ; both the card- playing and the profanity they have, doubtless, learned from the traders who pass much of their time in the village." f N * Many Indian customs are reviled by those who are igno- rant of the meaning of them. The ceremony alluded to, as Mr. Hunter informed me, must have occurred in the course of some of their solemnities while mourning for their dead. Captain Franklin, in noticing a party of Northern Indians who were lamenting the loss of some of their relations who had been drowned, says: " They bewailed the melancholy accident every morning and evening, by repeating the names of the persons in a loud singing tone, which was frequently interrupted by bursts of tears." Captain Franklins Narrative, $c. ch. 3. p. 472. t See Appendix, (E e) to Dr. Morse's Indian Report. CH.XVI. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 407 This, it must be confessed, savours somewhat of the olden time, of those times when Francis the First, pronounced the Indians of America to be " without the knowledge of God, and without the use of reason:" when Henry the Fourth denounced them as " atheists sunk in ignorance and infidelity" and when our own Act of Par- liament pleasantly preambled upon the " charms sorceries, and Satanical delusions" of the infidel salvage. But, with reference to these abomina- tionsof the Osages, would it not have been wiser to have recommended to the government of the United States to begin by reforming its own white traders, than thus to have reviled the Indians for card-playing and uttering oaths in broken English, the meaning of which they probably did not understand, and to the use of which they could ascribe no sinfulness or immorality? It is not under such a system that we may expect " to reduce the savage nations, by just and gentle manners, to the love of civil society and the Christian religion." * The Christian missionary of the pre- sent day may not, perhaps, be disposed to inveigh against the Indians with the coarse and unbecoming language resorted to by many of the early preachers who attempted their conversion; but this is not sufficient; he ought to evince, in every respect * Royal Charter to William Penn. 408 HISTORICAL NOTES &C. Cu. XVI. more candour and moderation than was generally shewn in former times. If, proud of superior acquirements, the ministers of religion commence the duty of their missions by supposing the unin- structed Indian to be " dead in sin, a#d without hope," let them recollect the words of that apostle who, in a case that may be fairly deemed analo- gous, declared, " Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons : but in every nation, he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him." Impressed with such conviction, the missionary may, in due time, reap the benefit of his labours, and be enabled successfully to inculcate, in all their purity and simplicity, the principles of that religion to which every well-wisher of the Indian race would hope to see them truly, firmly, and permanently converted. THE END. PRINTED BY J. MOYES, GJIEVILLE STREET, LONDON- UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING THE INDIANS