particular, spoke with a commanding voice and just appreciation on the subject, which evinced no ordinary mental elevation, purpose and dignity.
_11th_. George Bancroft, Esq., of Boston, in a letter of this date, observes: “I can only repeat, what before I have urged on you, to collect all the materials that can illustrate the language, character and origin of the natives, and the early settlement of the French.” The encouragement I receive from my literary and scientific friends, and which has been continued these many years, is, indeed, of a character which is calculated to stimulate to new exertions, although the love for such exertions pre-exists. I do not know that I shall live to make use of the materials I collect, or that I have the capacity to digest and employ them; but if not, they may be useful in the hands of other laborers.
_16th_. Office of Indian Affairs, Michilimackinack. On returning from Grand River, I observed a continuation of the misrepresentations begun last winter, respecting the Indian policy and proceedings of the Department. A ground for these misconceptions, and in some things, perversions, arose from the _goods’ offer_ for the half annuity, made in 1837. This offer being rejected by the Michigan Indians, was renewed to those of Wisconsin, and accepted by the Menomonies of Green Bay. Traders and merchants who were expecting the usual payments of cash annuities to the Indians, were sorely disappointed by finding a single tribe in the lake country paid in merchandise. The policy itself was a bad one, and denoted the inexperience and consequent unfitness of Mr. Carey A. Harris for the post of Commissioner of Indian Affairs at Washington. I anticipated the storm it would raise on the frontiers, and, when the project was transmitted to me, did not attempt to influence my Indians (the Michigan Indians) to accept or reject it, but left it entirely to their own judgments, after appointing two honest men to show the goods and state the prices. A less impartial course appears to have been pursued at Green Bay, where this policy of the “goods offer” of 1837 was loudly called in question. I had shielded the tribes under my care from it, and should have had credit for it from all honest and candid men, but finding no disposition in some quarters to discriminate, I immediately, on reaching home, sat down and wrote a plain and clear statement of the affair for the public press, and having thus satisfied my sense of justice and truth, left others, who had acted wholly out of my jurisdiction and influence, to vindicate themselves. J.W. Edmonds, Esq., and Maj. John Garland, who had been chief actors in the matter, did so. But it seemed like talking against a whirlwind. The whole action of this offer, on the Michigan Indians, _was to postpone, by their own consent_, the payment of the half annuity in coin one year.
The Grand River Indians declined to come to Mackinack, the place specially named in the treaty, to receive their half annuity, in consequence of which, it was not practicable to send it to them till the next spring. I paid it myself on the 5th of June, 1848, in silver. Yet the rumor of gross injustice to the Indians only gained force as it spread. The Grand River memorialists made “nuts” of it, and General Jim Wilson wielded it for my benefit, in his classical stump speeches in New Hampshire. I had carefully shielded my Indians from a cent’s loss, yet my name was pitched into the general condemnation, like the thirteenth biscuit in a baker’s dozen. Nothing rolls up so fast as a lie, when once afloat.[86]
[Footnote 86: Harris felt disobliged by my independence of action respecting the “goods offer.” He had, in fact, been overreached by a noted commercial house, who dealt heavily in Indian goods in New York, who sold him the goods on credit; but who actually collected the _specie_ from the western land offices, on public drafts, before the year expired. He vented this pique officially, by suspending my report of Oct. 18th, 1837, on the debt claims against the Indians, finally _assumed_ powers in relation to them, directly subversive of the principles of the treaty of March 28th, 1836, which had been negotiated by me, and referred them for revision to a more supple agent of his wishes at New York, who had been one of the efficient actors in the “goods offer” at Green Bay, Wisconsin, as above detailed.]
CHAPTER LXIII.
Missions–Hard times, consequent on over-speculation–Question of the rise of the lakes–Scientific theory–Trip to Washington–Trip to Lake Superior and the Straits of St. Mary–John Tanner–Indian improvements north of Michilimackinack–Great cave–Isle Nabiquon–Superstitious ideas of the Indians connected with females–Scotch royals–McKenzie–Climate of the United States–Foreign coins and natural history–Antique fort in Adams County, Ohio–Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries–Statistics of lands purchased from the Indians–Sun’s eclipse–Government payments.
1838. _June 18th_. W. Lowrie, Esq., Missionary Rooms, N.Y., announces the sending of an agent to explore the missionary field, which it is proposed to occupy by the Presbyterian Board, in the region of Lake Michigan, bespeaking my friendly offices to the agent.
The plethora of success which has animated every department of life and business, puffing them up like gas in a balloon, since about ’35 has departed and left the fiscal system perfectly flaccid and lifeless. The rage for speculation in real estate has absorbed all loose cash, and the country is now groaning for its fast-locked circulating medium. A friend at Detroit writes: “With fifty thousand dollars of productive real estate in the city, and as much more in stocks and mortgages, I am absolutely in want of small sums to pay my current expenses, and to rid myself of the mortification produced by this feeling I am prepared to make almost any sacrifice.”
_27th_. Received a communication from the chief engineer of the New York canal (Alfred Barrett, Esq.) on the subject of the rise of water in the lakes. “A question of considerable importance,” he says, “has arisen in our State Legislature, in relation to the rise of water in Lake Erie. The lake has been gradually increasing in its height for the last ten years, and has gained an elevation of four feet above that of 1826. The inhabitants along the shores of the lake as far as Detroit, upon both sides, and many throughout our State, have been led to attribute this increase to the erection of the State and the United States pier at the outlet of the lake, opposite Black Rock, which presents an obstruction to the action of the river. But this evidently is not the only cause of the rise of the lake, for, by observation, we find the Niagara River below the dam, and the surface of Lake Ontario, to have increased in the same ratio in the same time. Lake Ontario is four feet higher than it was in 1826.
“Our Legislature has called for information on the subject. And for many important facts we shall be indebted to the goodness of persons residing or acquainted at the places where they may exist. The canal commissioners of the State have desired me to communicate with you, desiring such data as you may have in your possession relevant to the subject. And we are induced to trouble you for information respecting the condition of the water in Lake Superior and other western waters, believing that your extensive acquaintance and close observation in that region have put you in possession of facts which will enable you to determine, with a degree of accuracy, the fluctuations of these waters, and their present increased or diminished height, as well as to trace some of the causes which have an influence in producing the results that are experienced in the rise and fall of the lakes.”
This rise and fall is found to be concurrent in volume and time in the whole series of lake basins, and is not at all influenced by artificial constructions. It is believed to be dependent on the annual fall of water, on the water sheds of the lake basins, and the comparative evaporation caused by the annual diffusion of solar heat during the same periods. Nothing less than the accumulation of facts to illustrate these general laws, for considerable periods of time, will, it is believed, philosophically account for the phenomena. Tables of solar heat, rain guages, and scientific measures, to determine the fall of snow over the large continental era of the whole series of basins, are, therefore, the scientific means that should be employed before we can theorize properly. As to periodical rises, actually observed, they are believed to be the very measure of these phenomena, namely, the fall of atmospheric moisture, and the concurrent intensity of solar heat _between the unknown periods of the rise_.
The fluctuations in Lake Michigan and the Straits of Michilimackinack are capable of being accounted for on a separate theory, namely, the theory of lake winds.
_4th July_. Letters from Detroit show that the political agitations respecting Canada still continue. One correspondent remarks: “The fourth of July passed off here with more _apparent_ patriotic feeling than I have ever known before. Canada is still across the river–the _pat-riots_ have not yet removed any part of it; they are, however, still busy.”
Another says: “Times look troublesome, but I am in hopes that it will all blow over and peace continue, which should be the earnest wish of every Christian.”
_23d_. Public business calling me to Washington, I left Mackinack late in June, and, pushing day and night, reached that city on the 9th of July. The day of my arrival was a hot one, and, during our temporary stop in the cars between the Relay House and Bladensburg, some pickpocket eased me of my pocket-book, containing a treasury-note for $50, about $60 in bills, and sundry papers. The man must have been a genteel and well-dressed fellow, for I conversed with none other, and very adroit at his business. I did not discover my loss till reaching the hotel, and all inquiry was then fruitless. After four days I again set out for the North in an immense train of cars, having half of Congress aboard, as they had just adjourned, and reached Mackinack about the tenth day’s travel. This was a toilsome trip, the whole journey to the seat of government and back, say 2,000 miles, being made in some twenty-five days, all stops inclusive.
_31st_. I set out this day from Mackinack in a boat for Lake Superior and the Straits of St. Mary, for the purpose of estimating the value of the Indian improvements North, under the eighth art. of the treaty of March 28th, 1836. The weather being fine, and anticipating no high winds at this season, I determined, as a means of health and recreation, to take Mrs. S. and her niece, Julia, a maid, and the children along, having tents and every camping apparatus to make the trip a pleasant one. My boat was one of the largest and best of those usually employed in the trade, manned with seven rowers and provided with a mast and sails. An awning was prepared to cover the centre-bar, which was furnished with seats made of our rolled-up beds. Magazines, a spy-glass, &c., &c., served to while away the time, and a well-furnished mess-basket served to make us quite easy in that department. At Sault St. Marie I took on board Mr. Placidus Ord to keep, the record of appraisements.
While here, the notorious John Tanner, who had been on very ill terms with the civilized world for many years–for no reason, it seems, but that it would not support him in idleness–this man, whose thoughts were bitter and suspicious of every one, followed me one day unperceived into a canoe-house, where I had gone alone to inspect a newly-made canoe. He began to talk after his manner, when, lifting my eyes to meet his glance, I saw mischief evidently in their cold, malicious, bandit air, and, looking him determinedly in the eyes, instantly raising my heavy walking-cane, confronted him with the declaration of his secret purpose with a degree of decision of tone and manner which caused him to step back out of the open door and leave the premises. I was perfectly surprised at his dastardly movement, for I had supposed him before to be a brave man, and I heard or saw no more of him while there.[87]
[Footnote 87: Eight years afterwards, namely, in July, 1846, this lawless vagabond waylaid and shot my brother James, having concealed himself in a cedar thicket.]
Tanner was stolen by old Kishkako, the Saginaw, from Kentucky, when he was a boy of about nine years old. He is now a gray-headed, hard-featured old man, whose feelings are at war with every one on earth, white and red. Every attempt to meliorate his manners and Indian notions, has failed. He has invariably misapprehended them, and is more suspicious, revengeful, and bad tempered than any Indian I ever knew. Dr. James, who made, by the way, a mere pack-horse of Indian opinions of him, did not suspect his fidelity, and put many things in his narrative which made the whites about St. Mary’s call him an old liar. This enraged him against the Doctor, whom he threatened to kill. He had served me awhile as an interpreter, and, while thus employed, he went to Detroit, and was pleased with a country girl, who was a chambermaid at old Ben. Woodworth’s hotel. He married her, but, after having one child, and living with him a year, she was glad to escape with life, and, under the plea of a visit, made some arrangement with the ladies of Fort Brady to slip off, on board of a vessel, and so eluded him. The Legislature afterwards granted her a divorce. He blamed me for the escape, though I was entirely ignorant of its execution, and knew nothing of it, till it had transpired.
In this trip to the North, I called on the Indians to show me their old fields and gardens at every point.
It was found that there were _eight_ geographical bands, consisting of separate villages, living on the ceded tract. The whole population of these did not exceed, by a close count, 569 souls. The population had evidently deteriorated from the days of the French and British rule, when game was abundant. This was the tradition they gave, and was proved by the comparatively large old fields, not now in cultivation, particularly at Portagunisee, at various points on the Straits of St. Mary’s, and at Grand Island and its coasts on Lake Superior.
They cultivate chiefly, the potato, and retire in the spring to certain points, where the _Acer saccharinum_ abounds, and all rely on the quantity of maple sugar made. This is eaten by all, and appears to have a fattening effect, particularly on the children. The season of sugar-making is indeed a sort of carnival, at which there is general joy and hilarity. The whole number of acres found in cultivation by individuals, was 125-1/2 acres; and by bands, and in common, 100-3/4 acres, which would give an average of a little over 1/3 of an acre per soul. Even this is thought high. There were 1459 acres of old fields, partly run up in brush. There were also 3162 acres of abandoned village sites, where not a soul lived. I counted 27 dwellings which had a fixity, and nineteen apple trees in the forest. In proportion as they had little, they set a high value on it, and insisted on showing everything, and they gave me a good deal of information. The whole sum appraised to individuals was $3,428 25; and to collective bands, $11,173 $11,173 50.
While off the mural coast of the Pictured Rocks, the lake was perfectly calm, and the wind hushed. I directed the men to row in to the cave or opening of the part where the water has made the most striking inroad upon the solid coast. This coast is a coarse sandstone, easily disintegrated. I doubted if the oarsmen could enter without pulling in their oars. But nothing seemed easier when we attempted it. They, in fact, rowed us, in a few moments, masts standing, into a most extraordinary and gigantic cave, under the loftiest part of the coast. I thought of the rotunda in the Capitol at Washington, as giving some idea of its vastness, but nothing of its dark and sombre appearance; its vast side arches, and the singular influence of the light beaming in from the open lake. I took out my note-book and drew a sketch of this very unique view.[88]
[Footnote 88: See Ethnological Researches, vol. i., plate xliv.]
The next day the calmness continued on the lake, and I took advantage of it to visit the dimly seen island in the lake, off Presque Isle and Granite Point, called _Nabikwon_ by the Indians, from the effects of mirage. Its deep volcanic chasms, and upheaved rocks, tell a story of mighty elemental conflicts in the season of storms; but it did not reward me with much in the way of natural history, except in geological specimens.
_Aug. 7th_. The Chippewas have some strange notions. Articles which have been stepped over by Indian females are considered unclean, and are condemned by the men. Great aversion is shown by the females at finding hairs drawn out by the comb, which they roll up, and, making a hole in the ashes, bury.
Indian females never go before a man: they never walk in front in the path, or cross in front of the place where a sachem is sitting.
A man will never eat out of the same dish with a woman. The lodge-separation, at the period of illness, is universally observed, where the original manners have not been broken down. If she have no barks, or apukwas to make a separate lodge, a mere booth or bower of branches is made near by.
_10th_. Mrs. Deborah Schoolcraft Johnson died at Albany, aged fifty-four years. The father of this lady (John McKenzie, usually called McKenny) was a native of Scotland, and served with credit in the regiment of Royal Highlanders, before the Revolutionary War, of whose movements he kept a journal. He was present during the siege of Fort Niagara, in 1759, witnessed the death of Gen. Prideau, and participated in the capture of the works, under Sir William Johnson. He was also engaged in the movements of Gen. Bradstreet, to relieve the fort of Detroit from the hosts brought against it by Pontiac and his confederates three or four years after. He settled, after the war, as a merchant at Anthony’s Nose, on the Mohawk, where he was surprised, his store and dwelling-house pillaged, and himself scalped. He recovered from this, as the blow he received had only been stunning, and the copious bleeding, as is usual in such cases, had soon restored consciousness. He then settled at Albany, a place of comparative safety, and devoted himself in old age to instruction. He left a numerous family. His son John, who embraced the medical profession, became a distinguished man in Washington County (N.Y.), where his science, as a practitioner, and his talents as a politician, rendered him alike eminent. But he embraced the politics of Burr, a man whose talents he admired, when that erratic man ran for Governor of the State, and shortly after died. Five daughters married respectable individuals in the county, all of whom have left families. Of such threads of genealogy is the base of society in all parts of America composed. One of her granddaughters, now living in Paris, is a lady entitled to respect, on various accounts. Deborah, whose death is announced, married in early life, as her first husband, John Schoolcraft, Jr., Esq., a most gifted son of one of the actors and patriots of the revolution–a man who was engaged in one of its earliest movements; who shared its deepest perils, and lived long to enjoy its triumphs. The early death of this object of her choice, induced her in after years to contract a second marriage with an enterprising son of Massachusetts (R. Johnson), with whom she migrated to Detroit. Death here again, in a few years, left her free to rejoin her relatives in Albany, where, at last at ease in her temporal affairs, she finally fell a victim to consumption, at a not very advanced age, meeting her death with the calmness and preparedness of a Christian.
“As those we love decay, we die in part.”
_25th_. Returned to Michilimackinack, at a quarter past one o’clock, A.M., from my trip to the north, for the appraisal of the Indian improvements.
_31st_. According to observations kept, the average temperature of the month of August (lat. 42 deg.) was 69.16 degrees. Last year the average temperature of the same month was sixty-five degrees. The average temperature of the entire summer of 1838 was 70.85; while that of the summer of 1837 was but 65.48. Our lakes must sink with such a temperature, if the comparative degree of heat has been kept up in the upper lakes during the year.
_Sept. 4th_. Troops arrive at Fort Mackinack to attend the payments.
An officer of the army, who has spent a year or so in Florida, and has just returned to Michigan, says: “I have seen much that was well worth seeing, am much wiser than I was before, and am all the better contented with a lot midway of the map. The climate of Florida, during the winter, was truly delicious, but the summers, a part of one of which I saw and felt, are uncomfortable, perhaps more so than our winters. This puts the scales even, if, it do not incline the balance in our favor. The summer annoyances of insects, &c., are more than a counterbalance for our ice and snow, especially when we can rectify their influences by a well-warmed house.”
_6th_. A literary friend in Paris writes: “I send a box to Detroit to-day, to the address of Mr. Trowbridge. It contains, for you, upwards of 200 coins, among which is one Chinese, and the rest ancient. You must busy yourself in arranging and deciphering them. I send you, also, some specimens, one from the catacombs of Paris, others from the great excavations of Maestricht, where such large antediluvian remains have been found, also relics from the field of Waterloo. The petrifactions are from Mount Lebanon.”
Mr. Palfrey writes in relation to the expected notice of Stone’s “Brant,” but my engagements have not permitted me to write a line on the subject.
_10th_. Dr. John Locke, of Ohio, announces the discovery in Adams County, in that State, of the remains of an antique fort, supposed to be 600 years old. It is on a plateau 500 feet above Brush Creek, and is estimated at 800 to 1000 feet above the Ohio at low water. It is covered by soil, forest, and trees. Some of the trees in the vicinity are twenty-one feet in diameter. He infers the age from a large chestnut in the enclosure. His data would give A.D. 1238, as the date of the abandonment. We must approach the subject of our western antiquities with great care and not allow hasty and warm fancies to run away with us.
_12th_. A communication from Mr. Rafn informs me that the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Copenhagen, Denmark, have honored me by enrolling my name as one of its members.
_12th_. Congress publishes a statement submitted by the Indian Bureau, showing, 1. That upwards of fifty treaties have been concluded with various tribes since Jan. 1, 1830, for their removal to the west, in accordance with the principles of the organic act of May 28th, 1830. 2. That by these treaties 109,879,937 acres of land have been acquired. 3. That the probable value of this land to the United States is $137,349,946. 4. That the total cost of these cessions, including the various expenses of carrying the treaties into effect, is $70,059,505.
_13th_. Major Chancy Bush, Assistant to Major Garland, the Disbursing Agent, arrives with funds to make the annuity payments.
_14th_. The Cherokees West, meet in general council to consult on their affairs, and adopt some measures preparatory to the arrival of the eastern body of the nation. John Ridge, a chief of note of the Cherokees West, states, that this meeting is entirely pacific–entirely deliberative–and by no means of a hostile character, as has been falsely reported.
_18th_. The obscurity which attends an Indian’s power of ratiocination may be judged of by the following claim, verbally made to me and supported by some bit of writing, this day, by Gabriel Muccutapenais, an Ottawa chief of L’Arbre Croche. He states that, at one time, a trader took from him forty beavers; at another, thirty beavers and bears; at another, ten beavers, and at another, thirty beavers, and four carcasses of beavers, for all which he received no pay, although promised it. He also served as a clerk or sub-trader for a merchant, for which he was to have received $500, and never received a cent. He requests the President of the United States to pay for all these things. On inquiry, the skins were hunted, and the service rendered, and the wrong received at Athabasca Lake, in the Hudson’s Bay Territory, when he was a young man. He is now about sixty-six years old.
_18th_. The sun’s eclipse took place, and was very plainly visible to the naked eye, agreeably to the calculation for its commencement and termination. I took the occasion of its termination (four o’clock, fifty minutes) to set my watch by astronomical time.
_18th_. The Indian payments were completed by Major Bush this day. These payments included the full annuity for 1838, and the deferred half annuity for 1837, making a total of $47,000, which was paid in coin _per capita_.
The whole number of Indians on the pay rolls this year amounted to 4,872, of whom 1,197 were in the Grand River Valley. Last year they numbered, in all, 4,561, denoting an increase of 311. This increase, however, is partly due to emigrations from the south, and partly to imperfect counts last season, and but partially to the increase of _births_ over _deaths_. The annuity divided $12 57 on the North, $22 50 in the Middle, or Thunder Bay district, and $11 50 on the Southern pay list. The Indians requested that these _per capita_ divisions might be equalized, but the terms in the treaty itself create the geographical districts.
CHAPTER LXIV.
Descendant of one spared at the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s–Death of Gen. Clarke–Massacre of Peurifoy’s family in Florida–Gen. Harrison’s historical discourse–Death of an emigrant on board a steamboat–Murder of an Indian–History of Mackinack–Incidents of the treaty of 29th July, 1837–Mr. Fleming’s account of the missionaries leaving Georgia, and of the improvements of the Indians west–Death of Black Hawk–Incidents of his life and character–Dreadful cruelty of the Pawnees in burning a female captive–Cherokee emigration–Phrenology–Return to Detroit–University–Indian affairs–Cherokee removal–Indians shot at Fort Snelling.
1838. _Sept. 20th_, COUNT CASTLENEAU, a French gentleman on his travels in America, brings me a note of introduction from a friend. I was impressed with his suavity of manners, and the interest he manifested in natural history, and furnished him some of our characteristic northern specimens in mineralogy. I understood him to say, in some familiar conversation, that he was the descendant of a child saved accidentally at the memorable massacre of St. Bartholomew’s; and suppose, of course, that he is of Protestant parentage.
_21st_. The St. Louis papers are dressed in mourning, on account of the death of Gen. William Clarke. Few men have acted a more distinguished part in the Indian history of the country. He was widely known and respected by the Indians on the prairies, who sent in their delegations to him with all the pomp and pride of so many eastern Rajahs. Gen. Clarke was, I believe, the second territorial governor of Missouri, an office which he held until it became a state, when Congress provided the office of Superintendent of Indian Affairs for him. He contributed largely, by his enterprise and knowledge, to the prosperity of the west. The expedition which he led, in conjunction with Capt. Meriwether Lewis, across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, in 1805 and 1806, first opened the way to the consideration of its resources and occupancy. Without that expedition, Oregon would have been a foreign province.
_24th_. Letters from Florida indicate the war with the Seminoles to be lingering, without reasonable expectation of bringing it soon to a close. Etha Emathla, however, the chief of the Tallasees, is daily expected to come in, his children being already arrived, and he has promised to bring in his people.
But what a war of details, which are harassing to the troops, whose action is paralyzed in a maze of swamps and morasses; and how many scenes has it given birth to which are appalling to the heart! A recent letter from a Mr. T.D. Peurifoy, Superintendent of the Alachua Mission, describes a most shocking murder in his own family, communicated to him at first by letter:–
“It informed me,” he says, “that the Indians had murdered my family! I set out for home, hoping that it might not prove as bad as the letter stated; but, O my God, it is even worse! My precious children, Corick, Pierce and Elizabeth, were killed and burned up in the house. My dear wife was stabbed, shot, and stamped, seemingly to death, in the yard. But after the wretches went to pack up their plunder, she revived and crawled off from the scene of death, to suffer a thousand deaths during the dreadful night which she spent alone by the side of a pond, bleeding at four bullet holes and more than half a dozen stabs–three deep gashes to the bone on her head and three stabs through the ribs, besides a number of small cuts and bruises. She is yet living; and O, help me to pray that she may yet live! My negroes lay dead all about the yard and woods, and my everything else burned to ashes.”
_Oct. 1st_. Mr. Palfrey, Editor of the _North American Review_, requests me (Sept. 20th) to notice Gen. Harrison’s late discourse on the aboriginal history, delivered before the Ohio Historical Society. The difficulty in all these cares is to steer clear of some objectional theory. To the General, the Delawares have appeared to play the key-note. But it has not fallen to his lot, while bearing a distinguished part in Indian affairs in the west, to examine their ancient history with much attention.
The steamer Madison arrived with a crowd of emigrants for the west, one of whom had died on the passage from Detroit. It proved to be a young man named Jesse Cummings, from Groton, N.H., a member of the Congregational Church of that place. Having no pastor, I conducted the religious observance of the funeral, and selected a spot for his burial, in a high part of the Presbyterian burial ground, towards the N.E., where a few loose stones are gathered to mark the place.
_2d_. Wakazo, a chief, sent to tell me that an Ottawa Indian, Ishquondaim’s son, had killed a Chippewa called Debaindung, of Manistee River. Both had been drinking. I informed him that an Indian killing an Indian on a reserve, where the case occurred, which is still “Indian country,” did not call for the interposition of our law. Our criminal Indian code, which is defective, applies only to the murder of white men killed in the Indian country. So that justice for a white man and an Indian is weighed in two scales.
_3d_. Mrs. Therese Schindler, a daughter of a former factor of the N.W. Company at Mackinack, visited the office. I inquired her age. She replied 63, which would give the year 1775 as her birth. Having lived through a historical era of much interest, on this island, and possessing her faculties unimpaired, I obtained the following facts from her. The British commanding officers remembered by her were Sinclair, Robinson, and Doyle. The interpreters acting under them, extending to a later period, were Charles Gothier, Lamott, Charles Chabollier, and John Asken. The first interpreter here was Hans, a half-breed, and father to the present chief Ance, of Point St. Ignace. His father had been a Hollander, as the name implies. Longlade was the interpreter at old Fort Mackinack, on the main, at the massacre. She says she recollects the transference of the post to the island. If so, that event could not have happened, so as to be recollected by her, till about 1780. Asken went along with the British troops on the final surrender of the island to the Americans in 1796, and returned in the surprise and taking of the island in 1812.
_5th_. Finished my report on a resolution of Congress of March 19th respecting the interference of the British Indian Department in the Indian affairs of the frontier. The treaty of Ghent terminated the war between Great Britain and the United States, but it did not terminate the feelings and spirit with which the Indian tribes had, from the fall of their French power regarded them.
Mr. Warren (Lyman M.), of La Pointe, Lake Superior, visited the office. Having been long a trader in the north, and well acquainted with Indian affairs in that quarter, I took occasion to inquire into the circumstances of the cession of the treaty of the 29th of July, 1837, and asked him why it was that so little had been given for so large a cession, comprehending the very best lands of the Chippewas in the Mississippi Valley. He detailed a series of petty intrigues by the St. Peter’s agent, who had flattered two of the Pillager chiefs, and loaded them with new clothes and presents. One of these, Hole-in-the-Day, came down twenty days before the time. The Pillagers, in fact, made the treaty. The bands of the St. Croix and Chippewa Rivers, who really lived on the land and owned it, had, in effect, no voice. So with respect to the La Pointe Indians. He stated that Gen. Dodge really knew nothing of the fertility and value of the country purchased, having never set foot on it. Governor Dodge thought the tract chiefly valuable for its pine, and natural mill-power; and there was no one to undeceive him. He had been authorized to offer $1,300; but the Chippewas managed badly–they knew nothing of _thousands_, or how the annuity would divide among so many, and were, in fact, cowed down by the braggadocia of the flattered Pillager war chief, Hole-in-the-Day.
Mr. Warren stated that the _Lac Courtorielle_ band had not united in the sale, and would not attend the payment of the annuities; nor would the St. Croix and Lac du Flambeau Indians. He said the present of $19,000 would not exceed a breech-cloth and a pair of leggins apiece. I have not the means of testing these facts, but have the highest confidence in the character, sense of justice, and good natural judgment of Gov. Dodge. He may have been ill advised of some facts. The Pillagers certainly do not, I think, as a band, own or occupy a foot of the soil east of the Mississippi below Sandy Lake, but their warlike character has a sensible influence on those tribes, quite down to the St. Croix and Chippewa Rivers. The sources of these rivers are valuable only for their pineries, and their valleys only become fertile below their falls and principal rapids.
From Mr. Warren’s statements, the sub-agencies of Crow-wing River and La Pointe have been improperly divided by a _longitudinal_ instead of a _latitudinal_ line, by which it happens that the St. Croix and Chippewa River Indians are required to travel from 200 to 350 miles up the Mississippi, by all its falls and rapids, to Crow-wing River, to get their pay. The chief, Hole-in-the-Day, referred to, was one of the most hardened, blood-thirsty wretches of whom I have ever heard. Mr. Aitkin, the elder, told me that having once surprised and killed a Sioux family, the fellow picked up a little girl, who had fled from the lodge, and pitched her into the Mississippi. The current bore her against a point of land. Seeing it, the hardened wretch ran down and again pushed her in.
_8th_. The Rev. Mr. Fleming and the Rev. Mr. Dougherty arrived as missionaries under the Presbyterian Board at New York. Mr. Fleming stated that he had been one of the expelled missionaries from the Creek country, Georgia. That he had labored four years there, under the American Board of Commissioners, and had learned the Creek language so as to preach in it, by first _writing_ his discourse. The order to have the missionaries quit the Creek country was given by Capt. Armstrong (now Act. Supt. Western Territory), who then lived at the Choctaw agency, sixty miles off, and was sudden and unexpected. He went to see him for the purpose of refuting the charges, but found Gen. Arbuckle there, as acting agent, who told him that, in Capt. Armstrong’s absence, he had nothing to do but to enforce the order.
Mr. Fleming said that he had since been in the Indian country, west, in the region of the Osage, &c., and spoke highly in favor of the fertility of the country, and the advanced state of the Indians who had emigrated. He said the belt of country immediately west of Missouri State line, was decidedly the richest in point of natural fertility in the region. That there was considerable wood on the streams, and of an excellent kind, namely: hickory, hackberry, cottonwood, cypress, with blackjack on the hills, which made excellent fire-wood.
As an instance of the improvement made by the Indians in their removal, he said that the first party of Creeks who went west, immediately after Mackintosh’s Treaty, were the most degraded Indians in Georgia; but that recently, on the arrival of the large body of Creeks at the west, they found their brethren in the possession of every comfort, and decidedly superior to them. He said that the Maumee Ottawas, so besotted in their habits on leaving Ohio, had already improved; were planting; had given up drink, and listened to teachers of the Gospel. He spoke of the Shawnese as being in a state of enviable advancement, &c.
_11th_. First frost at Mackinack for the season.
A friend at Detroit writes: “The Rev. Mr. Duffield (called as pastor here) preached last Sabbath. In the morning, when he finished, there was scarce a dry eye in the house. He excels in the pathetic–his voice and whole manner being suited to that style. He is clear-headed, and has considerable power of illustration, though different from Mr. Cleaveland. I like him much on first hearing.”
_13th_. Finished grading and planting trees in front of the dormitory.
_12th_. The _Iowa Gazette_ mentions the death of Black Hawk, who was buried, agreeably to his own request, by being placed on the surface of the earth, in a sitting posture, with his cane clenched in his hands. His body was then enclosed with palings, and the earth filled in. This is said to be the method in which Sac chiefs are usually buried. The spectacle of his sepulchre was witnessed by many persons who were anxious to witness the last resting place of a man who had made so much noise and disturbance.
He was 71 years of age, having, by his own account, published in 1833, been born in the Sac village on Rock River, in 1767–the year of the death of Pontiac. In his indomitable enmity to the (_American type of the_) Anglo-Saxon race, he was animated with the spirit of this celebrated chief, and had some of his powers of combination. His strong predilections for the British Government were undoubtedly fostered by the annual visits of his tribe to the depot of Malden. His denial of the authority of the men who, in 1804, sold the Sac and Fox country, east of the Mississippi, may have had the sanction of his own judgment, but without it he would have found it no difficult matter to hatch up a cause of war with the United States. That war seems to have been brooded over many years: it had been the subject of innumerable war messages to the various tribes, a large number of whom had favored his views. And when it broke out in the spring of 1832, the suddenness of the movement, the great cruelties of the onset, and the comparatively defenceless state of the frontier, gave it all its alarming power. As soon as the army could be got to the frontiers, and the Indian force brought to action, the contest was over. The battle of the Badaxe annihilated his forces, and he was carried a prisoner to Washington. But he was more to be respected and pitied than blamed. His errors were the result of ignorance, and none of the cruelties of the war were directly chargeable to him. He was honest in his belief–honest in the opinion that the country east of the Mississippi had been unjustly wrested from him; and there is no doubt but the trespasses and injuries received from the reckless frontier emigrants were of a character that provoked retaliation. He has been compared, in some things, to Pontiac. Like him, he sought to restore his people to a position and rights, which he did not perceive were inevitably lost. He possessed a degree of intellectual vigor and decision of character far beyond the mass, and may be regarded as one of the principal minds of the Indians of the first half of the 19th century.
_15th_. A letter of this date from Council Bluffs, describes a most shocking and tragic death of a Sioux girl, of only fourteen years of age, who was sacrificed to the spirit of corn, by the Pawnees, on the 22d of February last. For this purpose she was placed on a foot-rest, between two trees, about two feet apart, and raised above the ground, just high enough to have a torturing fire built under her feet. Here she was held by two warriors, who mounted the rest beside her, and who applied lighted splinters under her arms. At a given signal a hundred arrows were let fly, and her whole body was pierced. These were immediately withdrawn, and her flesh cut from her bones in small pieces, which were put into baskets, and carried into the corn-field, where the grain was being planted, and the blood squeezed out in each hill.
CHEROKEE EMIGRATION.–A letter from Gen. Scott of this date, to the Governor of Georgia, states that, of the two parties of Cherokees, or those who are for and against the treaty of New Echota, only about five hundred (including three hundred and seventy-sixty Creeks) remain east of the Mississippi, and of the anties a little over five thousand souls. About two thousand five hundred of these had been emigrated in June, when the emigration was suspended on account of sickness. An arrangement was made in the month of September, by which John Ross was, in effect, constituted the contractor for the removal of the remainder (twelve thousand five hundred) of his people.
_16th_. Mr. J. Toulmin Smith, the phrenologist, of Boston, writes: “I perfectly concur with you in your remarks on the _minor details_ of phrenology. They have hitherto been loose and vague, but though at first sight they seem _minor_, they will be found, in truth, of great importance to the thorough elucidation and application of the subject.
“The Indian tribes do, indeed, present most interesting subjects for examination, and it is an anxious wish of my mind to be able to examine them thoroughly (per crania), and also to compare them with the crania found in their ancient burial-places, supposed to be the remnants of an anterior race. Not only will this throw light on their history, but it will do so also on those ‘minor’ but most interesting points, to the elucidation of which my attention has been, and is particularly directed. I should be exceedingly happy to be able to compare also one or two _female_ Indian skulls with the males of the same tribe. The females, I presume, may be easily recognized phrenologically; it may be done with facility by the large philoprogenitiveness, and the smaller general size of the head.”
_22d_. Rumor says that Mr. Harris, Com. Indian Affairs, had entered into land speculations in Arkansas, which led Mr. Van Buren to call for a report, which, being made, the President returned it with the pithy and laconic endorsement “unsatisfactory,” whereupon Mr. H. tendered his resignation. Rumor also says, that Mr. T. Hartley Crawford, of Pennsylvania, is appointed in his stead. This gentleman is represented to be a person of some ability; an old black-letter lawyer, but a man who is apt to lose sight of main questions in the search after technicalities. They say he is very opinionated and dogmatical; personally unacquainted with the character of the Indians, and the geography of the western country, and not likely, therefore, to be very ready or practical in the administrative duties of the office. Time must test this, and time sometimes agreeably disappoints us.
_29th_. I reached Detroit this day, with my family, in the new steamer “Illinois,” having had a pleasant passage, for the season, from Mackinack. The style of the lake steamboats is greatly improved within the last few years, and one of the first-class boats bears no slight resemblance to a floating parlor, where every attention and comfort is promptly provided. He must be fastidious, indeed, who is not pleased.
_31st_. Col. Whiting called at my office to get the loan of an elementary work on conchology. Dr. Pitcher stated that the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan had adopted a plan of buildings to be erected at Ann Arbor. Four Saginaw delegates are sent in by Ogema Kegido, to ascertain the time and place of their annuity payments.
_Nov. 4th_. The Regents of the University of Michigan adopt resolutions respecting the establishment of branches in the counties, which are apprehended to be rather in advance of their means; but the measure is stated to be popular.
_3d_. Mr. James Lawrence Schoolcraft, the acting agent of Indian Affairs at Michilimackinack, writes respecting the additional claim of the estate of John Johnston, an Irish gentleman of the upper country, whose name is mentioned in a prior part of these memoirs: “I have looked over the old books belonging to the estate, and find the following result upon the most critical examination.
“William’s account of the beaver skins due was 7,221. Mr. Edmonds’ account was 4,313. My own 6,043. William’s account exceeded mine 1,178. Mine exceeds Mr. Edmonds’ 1,730. In my account I have cast out all debts (or skins) charged for liquor. William did not. Mr. Edmonds did.
“I found all the books but one in the box, which one, according to William’s account, contained five hundred and sixty skins. From these five hundred and sixty, I made deductions corresponding with the skins found to be charged in all the other books, so that the difference can be but very trifling, and, by the liberal discount made, I think, will be in favor of the claim.”
The account stands thus:–
Due 6,043 beavers at $4 = $24,172 00 Average loss on four years’ trade, from 1813 to 1816, at $2,014 per annum = $8,056 00
Add:–
Item 2 as allowed in 1836. $6,040 00
” 6 ” ” . $9,192 00
” 7 ” ” . $1,141 00
” 8 ” ” . $44 90 = $10,384 72 ———-
$42,612 72
Allowed in 1836. = $32,436 72 ———-
$10,176 00
“Books are shown from 1816 to 1828, a period of twelve years; consequently twelve divided into 24,172 will give the average loss for the four years’ trade, for which no books are shown. Mr. Edmonds made an error in computing the number of skins due; the other difference was, of course, in consequence. I am inclined to think Mr. E. was prejudiced against the claim, as I cannot see how he could so much reduce the number of skins due.”
_6th_. The Rev. Mr. Potter, a missionary for sixteen years among the Cherokees, called and introduced himself to me. He said that he thought the Cherokees had received enough for their lands; that they were peaceably emigrating west, but had been delayed by low water in the streams. While thus waiting, about five hundred persons had died.
This gentleman had been stationed at Creek Path, where the morally celebrated Catherine Brown and her brother and parents lived. While there, he had a church of about sixty members, and thinks they exhibited as good evidences of Christianity as the same number of whites would do. He speaks in raptures of the country this people are living in, and are now emigrating from, in the Cumberland Mountains, as full of springs, a region of great salubrity, fertility, and picturesque beauty. Says a portion of the country, to which they are embarking west, is also fertile.
Florida, the papers of this date tell us, is now free from Indians. This can only be strictly true of the towns on the Apalachicola, &c. The majority of them are doubtless gone.
A Wyandot, of Michigan, named Thomas Short, complains that his lands, at Flat Rock, are overflowed by raising a mill-dam. Dispatched a special agent to inquire into and remedy this trespass.
The Swan Creeks complain that a Frenchman, named Yaks, having been permitted to live in one of their houses at Salt River, on rent, refuses to leave it, intending to set up a pre-emption right to the lands. I replied, “That is a matter I will inquire into. But you have ceded the land without stipulating for improvements, and cannot prevent pre-emptions.”
_7th_. I received instructions from Washington, dated 29th Oct., to draw requisitions in favor of the Ottawas and Chippewas, for the amounts awarded for their _public_ improvements in the lower peninsula, agreeably to the estimates of Messrs. MacDonnel and Clarke, under the treaty of March 28th, 1836.
Eshtonaquot (Clear Sky), principal chief of the Swan Creeks, states that his people will be ready to remove to their location on the Osage, by the middle of next summer. He states that his brother-in-law, an Indian, living at River _Au Sables_, in Upper Canada, reports that a large number of Potawattomies have fled to that province from Illinois; and that many of the Grand River Ottawas, during the past summer, visited the Manitoulines, and gave in their names to migrate thither. Little reliance can be placed on this information. Besides, the government does not propose to hinder the movements of the Indians.
Maj. Garland states that he was present, a few years ago, at Fort Snelling, Upper Mississippi, at the time the fracas occurred in which the Sioux fired on the Chippewas and killed four of their number. Col. Snelling exhibited the greatest decision of character on this occasion. He immediately put the garrison under arms, and seized four Sioux, and put them in hold till their tribe should surrender the real murderers. Next day the demand was complied with, by the delivery of two men, to replace two of the four hostages, the other two of the prisoners being, by hap, the murderers. The Indian agent vacillated as to the course to be adopted. Col. Snelling said that he would take the responsibility of acting. He then turned the aggressors over to the Chippewas, saying: “Punish them according to your law; and, if you do not, I will.” The Chippewas selected nine of their party as executioners. They then told the prisoners to run, and shot them down as they fled. Two were shot on the very day after the murder, and two the following day, when they were brought in. One of the latter was a fine, bold, tall young fellow, who, having hold of the other prisoner’s hand, observed him to tremble. He instantly threw his hand loose from him, declaring “that he was ashamed of being made to suffer with a coward.”
_8th_. Col. Whiting exhibited to me, at his office, several bound volumes of MSS., being the orderly book of his father, an adjutant in a regiment of Massachusetts Continentals, during the great struggle of 1776. Many of the orders of Gen. Washington show the exact care and knowledge of details, which went to make up a part of his military reputation.
_12th_. Texas is involved in troubles with fierce and intractable bands of Indians. Among these the Camanches are prominent, who have shown themselves, in force, near Bexar, and in a conflict killed ten Americans with arrows.
CHAPTER LXV.
Embark for New York–A glimpse of Texan affairs–Toltecan monuments–Indian population of Texas–Horrible effects of drinking ardent spirits among the Indians–Mr. Gallatin–His opinions on various subjects of philosophy and history–Visit to the South–Philadelphia–Washington–Indian affairs–Debt claim–Leave to visit Europe–Question of neutrality–Mr. Van Buren–American imaginative literature–Knickerbocker–Resume of the Indian question of sovereignty.
1838. _Nov. 14th_. I Embarked in a steamer, with my family, for New York, having the double object of placing my children at eligible boarding-schools, and seeking the renovation of Mrs. S.’s health. The season being boisterous, we ran along shore from river to river, putting in and putting out, in nautical phrase, as we could. On the way, scarlatina developed itself in my daughter. Fortunately a Dr. Hume was among the passengers, by whose timely remedies the case was successfully treated, and a temporary stop at Buffalo enabled us to pursue our way down the canal. Ice and frost were now the cause of apprehension, and our canal packet was at length frozen in, when reaching the vicinity of Utica, which we entered in sleighs. In conversation on board the packet boat on the canal, Mr. Thomas Borden, of Buffalo Bayou, Texas, stated that there is a mistake in the current report of the Camanche Indians being about to join the Mexicans. They are, perhaps, in league with the Spaniards of Nacogdoches, who now cry out for the federal constitution of 1824; but there is no coalition between them and the Mexicans. Lamar is elected president, the population has greatly increased within the last year, customs are collected, taxes paid, and a revenue raised to support the government. Mr. Borden said, he was one of the original three hundred families who went to Texas, with my early friend Stephen F. Austin, Esq., the founder of Texas, of whom he spoke highly.
“Hurry” was the word on all parts of our route; but, after reaching the Hudson, we felt more at ease, and we reached New York and got into lodgings, on the evening of the 24th (Nov.). The next day was celebrated, to the joy of the children, as “Evacuation Day,” by a brilliant display of the military, our windows overlooking the Park, which was the focus of this turnout.
_28th_. In conversation with the Rev. Henry Dwight, of. Geneva, he made some pertinent remarks on the Toltecan monuments, and the skill of this ancient people in architecture, in connection with some specimens of antiquities just deposited in the New York Historical Society. This nation had not only preceded the Aztecs in time, as is very clearly shown by the traditions of the latter, but also, there is every reason to believe, in knowledge.
_29th_. Texas papers contain the following statistics of the Indian population of that Republic, of whom it is estimated that there may be 20,000. “The different tribes known as wild Indians, comprise about 24,000, west and south-west. There are on the north ten tribes, known as the ‘Ten United Bands,’ between the Trinity and Red River, numbering between 3 and 4000. Of these latter tribes, three are said to have wandered off beyond the Rio Grande and the Rocky Mountains. Of the _Comances_, nearly one-half of the Indians known by that name are, and have always been, _without_ the limits, and press upon the tribes of New Mexico. In all it appears that we have within the limits of Texas, an Indian population of 20,000–of whom one-fifth may be accounted Warriors. There are one or two remnants of tribes (perhaps not more than fifty in number) living within the settlements of the whites, whom they supply with venison, and in that way support themselves.
“Some of these tribes are the hereditary enemies of Mexico, who has nevertheless furnished them with arms and ammunition, in the hope of inciting them against our people, at a risk to her own. If, looking beyond our borders, we turn our eyes to the north, we behold within striking distance of the United States frontier on the north-west, an indigenous Indian population of 150,000, and on their western frontier 46,000; in all between 2 and 300,000 Indians within the jurisdiction of the United States–against whom, were they to combine, they could at any moment direct a war force of 60,000 men.”
These popular estimates, may serve the purpose of general comparison, but require some considerable abatements. There is a tendency to estimate the numbers of Indian tribes like those of flocks of birds and schools of fish. We soon get into thousands, and where the theme is guessing, thousands are soon added to thousands.
_Dec. 4th_. James L. Schoolcraft of Michilimackinack, in a letter of Nov. 10th, describes a most revolting scene of murder, which, owing to the effects of drinking, recently occurred at the Menomonie pay-ground at Grande Chute, Wisconsin.
“Since closing my letter of this morning, Lieut. Root, just from Fort Winnebago, informs me that he attended the payment of the Menomonies, at the _Grande Chute_; that liquor, as usual, had found its way to the place of payment, and that, in consequence, an Indian had killed two Indian women. That the individual (murderer) was taken to the tent of the agent, Colonel Boyd, but that, in consequence of the repeated and threatening demands of the Indians for the man, the agent was obliged to deliver him up to them, and that they then, in front of the tent, inflicted wounds of death, from six different blades, upon the body of the murderer, beat his brain out with clubs, and then threw his body upon a burning fire, after which he was dragged some distance, to which place he might be traced by attached embers strewed along the path.
“A child was crushed to death by a drunken Indian accidentally. Lieut. Root informs me that he left the ground, soon after the scene above alluded to, and that many of the Indians were armed with knives, and in much excitement.”
_6th_. I visited Mr. Gallatin at his house in Bleecker Street, and spent the entire morning in listening to his instructive conversation, in the course of which he spoke of early education, geometric arithmetic, the principles of languages and history, American and European. He said, speaking of the
EARLY EDUCATION OF CHILDREN.–Few children are taught to read well early, and, in consequence, they never can become good readers. A page should, as it were, dissolve before the eye, and be absorbed by the mind. Reading and spelling correctly cannot be too early taught, and should be thoroughly taught.
_Arithmetic_.–_G_. There is no good arithmetic in which the reasons are given, so as to be intelligible to children. Condorcet wrote the best tract on the subject, while in confinement at a widow’s house near Paris, before his execution. The language of arithmetic is universal, the eight digits serving all combinations. They were not introduced till 1200. The Russians count by sticks and beads. The Romans must have had some such method. M stood for 1000, D for 500, C for 100, L for 50, X for ten, V for five, and I for one. But how could they multiply complex sums by placing one under another.
LANGUAGES.–_S_. How desirable it would be if so simple a system could be applied to language.
_G_. Ah! it was not designed by the Creator. He evidently designed diversity. I have recently received some of the native vocabularies from Mackenzie–the Blackfeet and Fall Indians, &c. Parker had furnished in his travels vocabularies of the Nez Perces, Chinooks, &c.
LEADING FAMILIES.–_S_. The term Algonquin, as commonly understood, is not sufficiently comprehensive for the people indicated.
_G_. I intended to extend it by adding the term “Lenape.” The Choctaw and the Muscogee is radically the same. The Chickasaw and Choctaw has been previously deemed one. Du Pratz wrote about the Mobilian language without even suspecting that it was the Choctaw.
_G_. The National Institute at Paris has printed Mr. Duponceau’s Prize Essay on the Algonquin. Dr. James wrote unsuccessfully for the prize. Duponceau first mentioned you to me. He has freely translated from your lectures on the substantive, which gives you a European reputation.
PUBLISHERS ON PHILOLOGY.–_G_. There is no patronage for such works here. Germany and France are the only countries where treatises on philology can be published. It is Berlin or Paris, and of these Berlin holds the first place. In Great Britain, as in this country, there is not sufficient interest on the subject for booksellers to take hold of mere works of fact of this sort. They are given to reading tales and light literature, as here.
ORAL TALES OF THE INDIANS–_G_. Your “Indian Tales” and your “Hieroglyphics” would sell here; but grammatical materials on the languages will not do, unless they can be arranged as appendices.
_S_. I urged Governor Cass to write on this subject, and he declined.
_G_. Does he understand the languages?
_S_. Pronouns, in our Indian languages, are of a more permanent character than philologists have admitted. They endure in some form, in kindred dialects, the most diverse.
_G_. This is true, the sign is always left, and enables one, clearly enough, to trace stocks. Dialects are easily made. There are many in France, and they fill other parts of Europe. Every department in France has one.
DISCRIMINATING VIEWS OF PHILOLOGY AND PHILOLOGISTS.–_G_. It is not clear what Heckewelder meant by “whistling sound,” in the prefix pronouns. I told Mr. Duponceau that it had been better that the gentleman’s MSS. were left as he originally wrote them, with mere corrections as to grammar–that we should then, in fact, have had _Indian_ information. For Heckewelder thought and felt like a Delaware, and believed all their stories.[89]
[Footnote 89: This admission of the re-composition of Mr. Heckewelder’s letters, and the excellent missionary’s general deficiency, furnishes a striking confirmation of the views and sagacity of a critic of the _North American Review_, writing on that topic, in 1825. And the more so, as those views were conjectural, but they were the conjectures of one who had personally known Mr. Heckewelder.]
MONOSYLLABIC LANGUAGE.–_G_. You have asserted that all the Indian roots are monosyllables.
_S_. Most of them, not all. This is a branch to which I have paid particular attention; and if there is anything in Indian philology in which I deem myself at home, it is in the analysis of Indian words, the digging out of roots, and showing their derivatives and compounds.
_G_. The societies would print your observations on these topics. They are of much interest.
ORIGIN OF THE INDIAN LANGUAGE.–_S_. The Hebrew is based on roots like the Indian, which appear to have strong analogies to the Semitic family. It is not clearly Hindostanee, or Chinese, or Norse. I have perused Rafn’s Grammar by Marsh. The Icelandic (language) clearly lies at the foundation of the Teutonic.
_G_. I have not seen this. The grammatical principles of the Hebrew [90] are widely different (from the Indian). There is, in this respect, no resemblance. I think the Indian language has principles akin to the Greek. The middle moods, or voices, in the Greek and Indian dialects are alike; they make the imperfect past, or _aorist_, in a similar manner.
[Footnote 90: Mr. G. did not understand the Hebrew, and was not aware that the person he addressed had made a study of it in particular reference to the Indian.]
PATOIS.–_G_. The great impediment to popular instruction in France, is the multiplicity of _patois_, and the tenacity of the peasantry for them. The same objection exists to the use of so many Indian dialects by such numbers of petty tribes. Pity these were not all abolished. They can never prosper without coming on to general grounds in this respect.
CHINESE.–Mr. Duponceau had published Col. Galindo’s account of the Ottomic of Mexico, and likened it to the Chinese. It was the very reverse.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE.–_S_. The English language of Chaucer’s day, is based on the Frisic, Belgic, and Low Dutch; and not on the Saxon. (Examples were given. He fully assented to this, and used his familiarity with European history to demonstrate it.)
_G_. There was, in fact, no Anglo-Saxon but that of Alfred, which was the old English. The early migrations were from Belgium. Doubtless the Teutons had made the conquest ascribed to them, but I think they did not revolutionize the language. They conquered the people, but not the language.
WASHINGTON IRVING.–_G_. Washington Irving is the most popular writer. Anything from his pen would sell.
JOHN JACOB ASTOR.–Several years ago, J. J. A. put into my hands the journal of his traders on the Columbia, desiring me to use it. I put it into the hands of Malte Brun, at Paris, who employed the geographical facts in his work, but paid but little respect to Mr. Astor, whom he regarded merely as a merchant seeking his own profit, and not a discoverer. He had not even sent a man to observe the facts in the natural history. Astor did not like it. He was restive several years, and then gave Washington Irving $5,000 to take up the MSS. This is the History of “Astoria.”
RAFINESQUE.–This erratic naturalist being referred to, he said–
“Who is Rafinesque, and what is his character?”
NAPOLEON AND NERO.–Bonaparte was a mathematician; but, whatever he did, he did not appreciate other branches of science and research. On taking Rome, he carried to Paris all the Pope’s archives, containing, in fact, the materials for the secret history of Europe. The papers occupied seventy large boxes, which were carefully corded and sealed, and put away in a garret of the Louvre at Paris, and never opened. On the restoration of the Bourbons, Louis XVIII. gave them back to the Pope’s nuncio. The seals had never been broken.
Bonaparte hated Tacitus. He was an aristocrat, he said, and lied in his history. He had blackened the character of Nero merely because he was a republican. “That may be, sire,” said —-, “but it is not the generally received opinion, and authorities sustain him.” “Read Suetonius,” said he. “Truly,” said M. Gallatin, “it is there stated that the people strewed flowers on Nero’s grave for years.”
ALGIC RESEARCHES.–The oral legends of the Indians collected by me being adhered to, he said, “Take care that, in publishing your Indian legends, you do not subject yourself to the imputations made against Macpherson.”
On leaving the hall, whither he came to see me out, he said: “I am seventy-eight, and (assuming a gayer vein) in a good state of preservation.” He was then a little bent, but preserved in conversation the vivacity of his prime. He had, I think, been a man of about five feet ten or eleven inches. His accent and tone of voice are decidedly French. His eye, which is black and penetrating, kindled up readily. He wore a black silk cap to hide baldness.
_15th_. A singular coincidence of the names and ages of Indian chiefs, is shown in the following notice from a Russian source:–
“We have just received from Nova Archangesk, an account of the death of the chief of one of the most powerful tribes of North America, Black Hawk, who was suddenly carried off on the banks of the River Moivna, in the seventy-first year of his age. The loss of this chief, who kept up friendly relations with the authorities of the Russian colony, and was always hostile to the English, is felt in a lively manner by the Russian government, who rested great hopes on the influence exercised by Black Hawk, not only over his own tribe, but also over all the neighboring nations. The Czar has ordered the new governor-general of the Russian colony in America to endeavor by all means to secure the friendship of the three sons of Black Hawk, the eldest of whom, now forty-eight years of age, has succeeded his father in the government of the tribe.”–_Le Commerce_.
_22d_. I left New York on the 12th, in the cars, with Mrs. Schoolcraft and the children, for Washington, stopping at the Princeton depot, and taking a carriage for Princeton. I determined to leave my son at the Round Hill School, in charge of Mr. Hart, and the next day went to Philadelphia, where I accepted the invitation of Gen. Robert Patterson to spend a few days at his tasteful mansion in Locust street. I visited the Academy of Natural Sciences, and examined Dr. Samuel George Morton’s extensive collection of Indian crania. While here, I placed my daughter in the private school of the Misses Guild, South Fourth Street. I attended one of the “Wistar parties” of the season, on the 15th, at Mr. Lea’s, the distinguished bookseller and conchologist, and reached the city of Washington on the 21st, taking lodgings at my excellent friends, the Miss Polks.
_24th_. Submitted an application to the department for expending a small part of the Indian education fund, for furthering the general object, by publishing, for the use of teachers and scholars, a compendious dictionary, and general grammar of the Indian languages.
_25th_. In a conference with Mr. Murray, of Pennsylvania, a recent commissioner to adjust Indian claims at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, he gave me Mr. Robert Stuart’s testimony respecting the Indian trade, to read. It appears from the document that the gain on trade of the American Fur Company, from 1824 to 1827, was $167,000. From 1827 to 1834 it was $195,000. From the aggregate of ten years’ business, there is to be deducted $45,000, being a loss from 1817 to 1824, which leaves a profit on seventeen years’ trade of $317,000.
Mr. Murray presented me a copy of the Commissioner’s report. These claims have not yet received the action of the department. The commissioners set out with requiring of traders high evidence of the _individual_ indebtedness by Indians. They finally decided that the Winnebago debts were _national_. They went further–they approved and adopted the decision of a meeting of the claimants themselves, as to the application to individual firms, of the fund. This decision was subsequently sanctioned by _eight_ Winnebago chiefs, who were stated to be authorized to act for the nation.
The error, in all these cases, seems to be, that where a tribe has agreed to set apart a generic sum to satisfy debts, and the United States has accepted the trusteeship of determining the individual shares, that the Indians, who cannot _read, or write, or understand figures, or accounts at all_, and cannot possibly tell the arithmetical difference between one figure and another, should yet be made the subject of these minor appeals. The TRUSTEE himself should determine _that_, by such testimony as he approves, and not appear to seek to bolster up the decisions of truth and faithfulness, by calling on Indian ignorance and imbecility, which is subject to be operated on by every species of selfishness.
_25th_. I applied to the department this day, by letter, for leave of absence from my post on the frontier, to visit Europe.
_26th_. I called on Mr. Poinsett, the Secretary of War, and received from him the permission which I had yesterday solicited. I also called on the President (Mr. Van Buren), who, in turning the conversation to the state of disturbances on the frontier, evinced the deepest interest that neutrality should be preserved, and asked me whether the United States Marshal at Detroit had faithfully performed his duty.
_27th_. Visited Mr. Paulding (Secretary of the Navy) in the evening. Found him a father aged bald-headed man, of striking physiognomy, prominent intellectual developments, and easy dignified manners. It was pleasing to recognize one of the prominent authors of _Salmagundi_, which I had read in my schoolboy days, and never even hoped to see the author of this bit of fun in our incipient literature. For it is upon this, and the still higher effort of Irving’s facetious History of New York, that we must base our imaginative literature. They first taught us that we had a right to laugh. We were going on, on so very stiff a model, that, without the Knickerbocker, we should not have found it out.
_28th_. I prepared a list of queries for the department, designed to elicit a more precise and reliable account of the Indian tribes than has yet appeared. It is astonishing how much gross error exists in the popular mind respecting their true character.
Talk of an Indian–why the very stare Says, plain as language, Sir, have you been there? Do tell me, has a Potawattomie a soul, And have the tribes a language? Now that’s droll– They tell me some have tails like wolves, and others claws, Those Winnebagoes, and Piankashaws.
_30th_. Mr. Paulding transmits a note of thanks for some Indian words. The euphony of the aboriginal vocabulary impresses most persons. In most of their languages this appears to result, in part, from the fact that a vowel and a consonant go in pairs–_i.e._ a vowel either precedes or follows a consonant, and it is comparatively rare that two consonants are required to be uttered together. There is but one language that has the _th_, so common in English. _Sh_ and _gh_ are, however, frequently sounded in the Chippewa. The most musical words are found in the great Muscogee and Algonquin families, and it is in these that the regular succession of vowels and consonants is found.
_31st_. The year 1838 has been a marked one in our Indian relations. The southern Indians have experienced an extensive breaking up, in their social institutions, and been thrown, by the process of emigration, west of the Mississippi, and the policy of the government on this head, which was first shadowed out in 1825, and finally sanctioned by the act of land exchanges, 1830, may be deemed as having been practically settled. The Cherokees, who required the movements of an army to induce them to carry out the principles of the treaty of New Echota, have made their first geographical movement since the discovery of the continent, a period of 331 years. How much longer they had dwelt in the country abandoned we know not. They clung to it with almost a death grasp. It is a lovely region, and replete with a thousand advantages and a thousand reminiscences. Nothing but the drum of the Anglo-Saxon race could have given them an effectual warning to go. Gen. Scott, in his well advised admonitory proclamation, well said, that the voice under which both he and they acted is imperative, and that by heeding it, it is hoped that “they will spare him the horror of witnessing the destruction of the Cherokees.” The great Muskogee family had been broken up, by the act of Georgia, before. The Seminoles, who belong to that family, broke out themselves in a foolish hostility very late in 1835, and have kept up a perfectly senseless warfare, in the shelter of hummocks and quagmires since. The Choctaws and Chickasaws, with a wise forecast, had forseen their position, and the utter impossibility of setting up independent governments in the boundaries of the States. It is now evident to all, that the salvation of these interesting relics of Oriental races lies in colonization west. Their teachers, the last to see the truth, have fully assented to it. Public sentiment has settled on that ground; sound policy dictates it; and the most enlarged philanthropy for the Indian race perceives its best hopes in the measure.
CHAPTER LXVI.
Sentiments of loyalty–Northern Antiquarian Society–Indian statistics–Rhode Island Historical Society–Gen. Macomb–Lines in the Odjibwa language by a mother on placing her children at school–Mehemet Ali–Mrs. Jameson’s opinion on publishers and publishing–Her opinion of my Indian legends–False report of a new Indian language–Indian compound words–Delafield’s Antiquities–American Fur Company–State of Indian disturbances in Texas and Florida–Causes of the failure of the war in Florida, by an officer–Death of an Indian chief–Mr. Bancroft’s opinion on the Dighton Rock inscription–Skroellings not in New England–Mr. Gallatin’s opinion on points of Esquimaux language, connected with our knowledge of our archaeology.
1839. _Jan. 1st_. I called, amid the throng, on the President. His manners were bland and conciliatory. These visits, on set days, are not without the sentiment of strong personality in many of the visitors, but what gives them their most significant character is the general loyalty they evince to the constitution, and government, and supreme law of the land. The President is regarded, for the time, as the embodiment of this sentiment, and the tacit fealty paid to him, as the supreme law officer, is far more elevating to the self-balanced and independent mind than if he were a monarch _ad libitum_, and not for four years merely.
_2d_. I received a notice of my election as a member of the Royal Northern Antiquarian Society of Copenhagen, of which fact I had been previously notified by that Society. This Society shows us how the art of engraving may be brought in as an auxiliary to antiquarian letters; but it certainly undervalues American sagacity if it conjectures that such researches and speculations as those of Mr. Magnusen, on the Dighton Rock, and what it is fashionable now-a-days to call the NEWPORT RUIN, can satisfy the purposes of a sound investigation of the Anti-Columbian period of American history.
There was a perfect jam this evening at Blair’s. What sort of a compliment is it to be one of five or six hundred people, not half of whom can be squeezed into a small house, and not one of whom can pretend to taste a morsel without the danger of having server and all jammed down his throat.
_3d_. The mail hunts up everybody. Go where you will, and particularly to the seat of government, and letters will follow you. Whoever is in the service of government bears a part of the functions of it, though it be but an infinitesimal part. Mr. H. Conner, the Saginaw sub-agent, in a letter of this date, reports the Saginaws at one thousand four hundred and forty-three souls, and the Swan Creek and Black River Chippewas at one hundred and ninety-eight. One of the most singular facts in the statistics of the most of the frontier Indian tribes of the Lakes, is, in the long run, that they neither _increase_ nor _decline_, but just keep up a sort of dying existence.
_4th_. Dr. Thomas H. Webb, Secretary of the Rhode Island Historical Society, announces the plan of that Society in publishing a series of works illustrating, in the first place, the history and language of the Indians, and soliciting me to become a contributor of original observations. The difficulty in all true efforts of our literary history is the want of means. A man must devote all his leisure in researches, and then finds that there is no way in which these labors can be made to aid in supplying him the means of subsistence. He must throw away his time, and yet buy his bread. There is no real taste for letters in a people who will not pay for them. It is too early in our history, perhaps, to patronize them as a general thing. Making and inventing new ploughs will pay, but not books.
_9th_. The Secretary of War confirms my leave of absence, to visit Europe, and extends it beyond the contingencies of a re-appointment, on the 4th of March next.
_10th_. Attended a general and crowded party at Gen. Macomb’s, in the evening, with Mrs. Schoolcraft. The General has always appeared to me a perfect amateur in military science, although he has distinguished himself in the field. He is a most polished and easy man in all positions in society, and there is an air and manner by which he constantly reveals his French blood. He has a keen perception of the ridiculous, and a nice appreciation of the mock gravity of the heroic in character, and related to me a very effective scene of this latter kind, which occurred at Mr. John Johnston’s, at St. Mary’s Falls, on the close of the late war. He had visited that place in perhaps 1815 or 1816, as military commander of the District of Michigan, in the suite of Major-Gen. Brown. They were guests of Mr. Johnston. In going up the river to see Gros Cape, at the foot of Lake Superior, the American party had been fired upon by the Chippewas, who were yet hostile in feeling. When the party returned to the house of Mr. Johnston, their host, the latter drew himself up in the spirit of the border times of Waverley, and, with the air and accent of a chief of those days–which, by the way, was not altogether unnatural to him–manifested the high gentlemanly indignation of a host whose hospitality had been violated. He exclaimed to his eldest son, “Let our followers be ready to repel this gross affront.” The General’s eye danced in telling it. The thing of the firing had been done–nobody was hurt–nobody was in fact in hostile array; and far less was the party itself alarmed. It had been some crack-brained Indian, I believe Sassaba, who yet smarted at the remembrance of the death of his brother, who was killed with Tecumseh in the Battle of the Thames.
_11th_. Left Washington, with my family, in the cars for Baltimore, where we lodged; reached Philadelphia the next day, at four P.M.; remained the 13th and 14th, and reached New York on the 16th, at 4 o’clock P.M.
_14th_. Mrs. Schoolcraft, having left her children at school, at Philadelphia and Princeton, remained pensive, and wrote the following lines in the Indian tongue, on parting from them, which. I thought so just that I made a translation of them.
Nyau nin de nain dum
May kow e yaun in
Ain dah nuk ki yaun
Waus sa wa kom eg
Ain dah nuk ki yaun
Ne dau nig ainse e
Ne gwis is ainse e
Ishe nau gun ug wau
Waus sa wa kom eg
She gwau go sha ween
Ba sho waud e we
Nin zhe ka we yea
Ishe ez hau jau yaun
Ain dah nuk ke yaun
Ain dah nuk ke yaun
Nin zhe ke we yea
Ishe ke way aun e
Nyau ne gush kain dum
[FREE TRANSLATION.]
Ah! when thought reverts to my country so dear, My heart fills with pleasure, and throbs with a fear: My country, my country, my own native land, So lovely in aspect, in features so grand, Far, far in the West. What are cities to me, Oh! land of my mother, compared unto thee?
Fair land of the lakes! thou are blest to my sight, With thy beaming bright waters, and landscapes of light; The breeze and the murmur, the dash and the roar, That summer and autumn cast over the shore, They spring to my thoughts, like the lullaby tongue, That soothed me to slumber when youthful and young.
One feeling more strongly still binds me to thee, There roved my forefathers, in liberty free– There shook they the war lance, and sported the plume, Ere Europe had cast o’er this country a gloom; Nor thought they that kingdoms more happy could be, White lords of a land so resplendent and free.
Yet it is not alone that my country is fair, And my home and my friends are inviting me there; While they beckon me onward, my heart is still here, With my sweet lovely daughter, and bonny boy dear: And oh! what’s the joy that a home can impart, Removed from the dear ones who cling to my heart.
It is learning that calls them; but tell me, can schools Repay for my love, or give nature new rules? They may teach them the lore of the wit and the sage, To be grave in their youth, and be gay in their age; But ah! my poor heart, what are schools to thy view, While severed from children thou lovest so true!
I return to my country, I haste on my way, For duty commands me, and duty must sway; Yet I leave the bright land where my little ones dwell, With a sober regret, and a bitter farewell; For there I must leave the dear jewels I love, The dearest of gifts from my Master above.
NEW YORK, _March 18th_, 1839.
_17th_. Went, in the evening, to hear Mr. Stephens, the celebrated traveler, lecture before the Historical Society, at the Stuyvesant Institute, on Mehemet Ali. Public opinion places lecturers sometimes in a false position. An attempt was here made to make out Mehemet Ali a great personage, exercising much influence in his times. An old despotic rajah in a tea-pot! Who looks to him for exaltation of sentiment, liberality and enlargement of views, or as an exemplar of political truth? Mr. Stephens, however, knew the feeling and expectation of his audience, and drew a picture, which was eloquently done, and well received. This popular mode of lecturing is certainly better than the run-a-muck amusements of the day. But it panders to an excited intellectual appetite, and is anything but philosophical, historical, or strictly just.
_18th_. I received instructions from Washington, to form a treaty with the Saginaws, for the cession of a tract of ground on which to build a light-house on Saginaw Bay.
The next letter I opened was from Mrs. Jameson, of London, who writes that her plan of publication is, to divide the profits with her publishers, and, as these are honest men and gentlemen, she has found that the best way. She advises me to adopt the same course with respect to my Indian legends.[91]
[Footnote 91: I followed this advice, but fell into the hands of the Philistines.]
“I published,” she says, “in my little journal, one or two legends which Mrs. Schoolcraft gave me, and they have excited very general interest. The more exactly you can (in translation) adhere to the _style_ of the language of the Indian nations, instead of emulating a fine or correct English style–the more characteristic in all respects–the more original–the more interesting your work will be.”
_21st_. I read the following article in the New York Herald:–
NEW INDIAN TRIBE.–Dr. Jackson, in his report of the geology of the public lands, states that at the mouth of the Tobique there is an Indian settlement, where a large tribe of Indians reside, and gain a livelihood by trapping the otter and beaver. These Indians are quite distinct from the Penobscot tribe, and speak a peculiar language.
_Query_. What is the name of this tribe? what language do they speak? and what evidence is there that they are not Souriquois or Miemacks, who have been known to us since the first settlement of Acadia and Nova Scotia?
Indian compound words are very composite. _Aco_, in the names of places once occupied by Algonquin bands, means, _a limit_, or _as far as_, and is intended to designate the boundary or reach of woods and waters. _Ac-ow_ means length of area. _Accomac_ appears to mean, at the place of the trees, or, as far as the open lands extend to the woods: _mac_, in this word, may be either a derivative from _acke_, earth, or, more probably, _auk_, a generic participle for tree or trunk.
_21st_. The editor of the _North American Review_ directs my attention to Delafield’s Antiquities as the subject of a notice for his pages. Delafield appears to have undertaken a course of reading on Mexican antiquities. The result is given in this work, with his conjectures and speculations on the origin of the race. The cause of antiquarian knowledge is indebted to him for the first publication of the pictorial Aztec map of Butturini.
_24th_. Called on Mr. Ramsey Crooks, president of the American Fur Company, at his counting-house, in Ann street. He gave me an interesting sketch of his late tour from La Pointe, Lake Superior, to the Mississippi. The Chippewas were not paid at La Pointe till October. This made him late at the country. The St. Croix River froze before he reached the Mississippi, and he went down the latter, from St. Peter’s, in a sleigh. Bonga had been sent to notify the Milles Lacs, Sandy Lake, and Leoch Lake Indians to come to the payments. When he reached Leech Lake, Guelle Plat had gone, with twenty-four canoes, to open a trade with the Hudson’s Bay Factor, at Rainy Lake. Mr. Crooks thinks that the dissatisfaction among these bands can be readily allayed by judicious measures. Thinks the Governor of Wisconsin ought to call the chiefs together at some central point within the country, and make explanations. That the payments, in future, should be made at _one_ place, and not divided. That the Leech Lake, and other bands _living without the ceded district_, ought not to participate in the annuities.
Mr. Crook’s manner is always prompt and cordial. He concentrates, in his reminiscences, the history of the fur trade in America for the last forty years. I have always thought it a subject of regret, that such a man should not have kept a journal. There was much, it is true, that could not be put down, and he was always so exclusively an active business man that mere literary memoranda never attracted his attention; they were not adverse to his tastes. He has nearly, I should judge, recovered from the severe hardships and privations which attended his perilous journey across the Rocky Mountains, on the abandonment of Astoria, on the Pacific, in 1812.
_29th_. Texas and Florida continue to be the rallying points of Indian warfare. The frontier of Texas is harassed by wandering parties of Indians. A Mr. Morgan, who resided near the falls of Brazos, had been killed, and three women carried off by a band of fifteen savages. A company of rangers was sent in pursuit.
The Florida War still lingers, without decisive results. The _New Orleans Bee_ says that General Taylor has been very active, the past season, in trying to bring it to a close. A writer from Tampa Bay, of the 25th instant, who appears to have good knowledge of matters, states three causes, particularly as opposing a successful prosecution and consummation of it, namely:–
“1st. An ignorance of the topography of Florida–the position of the numerous swamps and hummocks, the usual hiding-places of the Indians.
“2d. A want of proper interpreters.
“3d. A countervailing influence from some unknown quarter.”
He supports his view as follows: “It is a well known fact that, previous to the year 1836, the portion of Florida south of the Military Road from Tampa to Garey’s Ferry was unexplored and unknown, and since that time the only information has been derived from the hasty reconnoissances of officers, made in the progress of the several divisions of the army through the country. Since the organization of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, several have been sent to this country, and are now actively engaged in making surveys and plotting maps. Could the information they are expected to give have been known even before the commencement of the last campaign, it would have aided materially in the subjugation of the enemy. A correct knowledge of this country is needed more especially because such another theatre of war probably has not a place on the earth; a theatre so peculiarly favorable to the Indians and disadvantageous to the white man. Swamps may be delineated as well perhaps as any other natural object; but _such_ swamps as are found in Florida, are not to be imitated in painting or described by words. As an instance, I may mention the Halpataokee or Alligator Water, which is made up of small islands, surrounded by water of various depths, through which for two miles the road of the army passed during the winter of 1838.”
“_2d_. The only Interpreters are Seminole negroes, who, for the most part, find it difficult to understand English. As an instance of the numerous mistakes occurring daily, may be mentioned the following: The General told the interpreter to say to Nettetok Emathla, that ‘patience and perseverance would accomplish everything.’ While he was speaking to the Indian, the remark was made that he did not know the meaning of the sentence. When questioned the following day, he said ‘patience and ‘suverance mean a little book,’ Our laughter convinced him he was mistaken, and he said ‘patience mean you must be patien; I don’t zackly know what ‘suverance do mean, sar!’ Numerous errors of this nature are doubtless occurring daily, and among a people who are so scrupulously nice and formal in their ‘talks,’ such trifling mistakes may be injurious.
“_3d_. We are now to speak of the most important difficulty in the way of termination of hostilities, and the removal of the Seminoles to their new homes beyond the ‘Muddy Water.’ That the Indians are and have been supplied by whites, Americans or Spaniards, is a point so decisively settled that ‘no hinge is left whereon to hang a doubt.’ However shameless it may appear, proofs are not wanting to establish the fact, so much to the discredit of our patriotism. When Coacoochee escaped from St. Augustine he carried with him bolts of calico and factory cloths, which he afterwards sold to the Indians in the woods for three chalks (six shillings) per yard. It was reported to Colonel Taylor, then at Fort Bassinger, by an Indian woman, who ran away from Coacoochee’s camp, that he had one poney packed solely with powder; that he had plenty of lead, provisions, etc., and was determined never to come in or go to Arkansas. On several occasions when Indians have been killed or taken, or their camps surprised, new calico, fresh tobacco, bank bills, and other articles of a _civilized_ character, have been found in their possession. Besides, this, the Indians are constantly reporting in their talks that some persons on the other side of the territory prevent the hostiles from complying with the treaty. Ethlo Emathla, Governor of the Tallahassees, promised the general to be in with his people on a specified day. It is reduced almost to a certainty that he has been prevented from doing so by the representations of some person or persons in a quarter, the name of which charity alone forbids to mention. The only object is, and for a long time has been, to keep entirely out of the way, to hide themselves from the whites, and every effort to bring them to battle, either by sending small or large parties among them, has proved useless. _They will not fight_, and thirty thousand men cannot find them, broken up as they are into small parties. What then is to be done? Protect the inhabitants of the frontiers, gradually push the Indians south, and at no distant day, the necessary, unavoidable and melancholy consummation must arrive, viz., the expulsion of the last tribe of red men from the soil over which they once roamed the sole lords and possessors.”
_30th_. The oldest man in the Ottawa nation, a chief called Nish-caud-jin-in-a, or the Man of Wrath, died this day at L’Arbre Croche, Michigan. He was between ninety and one hundred years of age, withered and dry, and slightly bent, but still preserving the outlines of a man of strength, good figure, and intellect. What a mass of reminiscences and elements of history dies with every old person of observation, white or red.
_Feb. 4th_. Mr. James H. Lanman writes respecting the prospects of his publishing a history of Michigan–a subject which I gave him every encouragement to go forward in, while he lived in that State. The theme is an ambitious one, involving as it does the French era of settlements, and the day for handling it effectively has not yet arrived. But the sketches that may be made from easily-got, existing materials, may subserve a useful purpose, with the hope always that some new fact may be elicited, which will add to the mass of materials. “I have been delayed here,” he says, “in preparing the book, and the delay has been occasioned by my publishers having failed. It is now, however, stereotyped, and will be out in about a fortnight.” [92]
[Footnote 92: He afterwards re-cast the work, and it was published by the Harpers as one of the volumes of their library.]
_21st_. Mr. Bancroft writes to me, giving every encouragement to bring forward before the public my collections and researches on Indian history and language, and expressing his opinion of success, unless I should be “cursed with a bad publisher.”
“Father Duponceau,” he says, “won his prize out of your books, and Gallatin owes much to you. Go on; persevere; build a monument to yourself and the unhappy Algonquin race.”
Making every allowance for Mr. Bancroft’s enthusiastic way of speaking, it yet appears to me that I should endeavor to publish the results of investigations of Indian subjects. My connection with the Johnston family has thrown open to me the whole arcanum of the Indian’s thoughts.
I wrote an article for Dr. Absalom Peter’s Magazine, expressing my dissent from the very fanciful explanations of the Dighton Rock characters, as given by Mr. Magrusen in the first volume of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquarians, published at Copenhagen. It appears to me that those characters (throwing out two or three) are the Indian _Kekewin_–a species of hieroglyphics or symbolic devices, still in vogue among them. To this view of the matter Mr. Bancroft assents. “If you have a proof-sheet of your article on the Daneschrift, send it me. All they say about the Dighton Rock is, I think, the sublime of humbuggery.”
What is said in the interpreted Sagas, of the Skroellings or Esquimaux being in New England at the date of Eric’s voyage (A. D. 1001) is, I think, problematical. Those tribes are not known to have extended further south than the Straits of Belleisle, about 60 deg., or to parts of Newfoundland. The term deduced from the old journals appear to belong to the Esquimaux proper, rather than to the New England class of the Algonquins. The Esquimaux had the free use of the sound of the letter _l_, which was not used at all by the N.E. Indians.
Mr. Gallatin, in a letter of Feb. 22, in response to me on this subject, says: “The letter _L_ occurs in every Esquimaux dialect of which I have any knowledge. Thus heaven or sky, is in Greenland, _Killak_; Hudson’s Bay, _Keiluk_; Kadick Islands, _Kelisk_; Kotzebue’s Sound, _Keilyak_; Asiatic Tshuktchi, _Kuelok_.
“I am not so certain about the _v_, which I find used only by Egede, or Crantz (not distinguished from each other in my collection) for the Greenland dialect. In their conjurations I find ‘we (sing. and dual) wash them’ Ernikp-auvut, and Ernikp-auvuk. In the Mithradites, the same letter _v_ is repeatedly used in dual examples of the Greenland and Labrador dialects, principally (as it appears to me) but not exclusively in the pronominal terminations, _picksaukonik, akeetvor, tivut_, Profetiv-vit! that is, good ours, debtors ours, a prophet art thou.
“By comparing this with the pronouns of the other Esquimaux dialects, I suspect that _oo_ and _w_ in these, are used instead of _v_. But the difference may arise from that in the mother tongue, or in the delicacy of the ear, of those who have supplied us with other verbal and pronominal forms or vocabularies.”
_22d_, The Indian names may be studied analytically.
_Ches_ (pronounced by the Algonquin Indians _Chees_), signifies a plant of the turnip family. _Beeg_ is the plural, and denotes water existing in large bodies, such as accumulations in the form of lakes and seas. If these two roots be connected by the usual sound in Algonquin words, thus Ches-a-beeg, a sound much resembling Chesapeake would be produced. The Nanticokes, who inhabited this bay on its discovery, were of the Algonquin stock.
Potomac appears to be a clipped expression, derived, I believe, from Po-to-wau-me-ac. Po-to-wau, as we have it, in Potawattomie, means to make a fire in a place where fires, such as council fires, are usually made. The _ac_ in the word is apparently from _ak_ or _wak_, a standing tree. The whole appears descriptive of a burning tree, or a burning forest.
Megiddo in the Algonquin means he barks, or a barker. Hence me-giz-ze, an eagle or the bird that barks.
CHAPTER LXVII.
Workings of unshackled mind–Comity of the American Addison–Lake periodical fluctuations–American antiquities–Indian doings in Florida and Texas–Wood’s New England’s Prospect–Philological and historical comments–Death of Ningwegon–Creeks–Brothertons made citizens–Charles Fenno Hoffman–Indian names for places on the Hudson–Christian Indians–Etymology–Theodoric–Appraisements of Indian property–Algic researches–Plan and object.
1839. _Feb. 22d_. Hon. Lucius Lyon, Senator in Congress from Michigan, writes, informing me of the movements of political affairs in that State. The working of our system in the new States is peculiar. Popular opinion must have its full swing. It rights itself. Natural good sense and sound moral appreciation of right are at work at the bottom, and the lamp of knowledge is continually replenished with oil, by schools and teaching. That light cannot be put out. It will burn on till the world is not only free, but enlightened and renovated.
_24th_. Washington Irving kindly encloses me a letter to Colonel Aspinwall of London, commending to him my contemplated publication on the oral legends of the North American Indians. “I regret to say,” he adds, “that the last time he wrote to me, he was in great uneasiness, apprehending the loss of one of his daughters, who appeared to be in a rapid decline.”
_25th_. Mrs. Jameson, on returning from her trip to the lakes, writes for my opinion on the causes of the phenomenon of the rise in the waters of the lakes. Alluding to this subject, the Superintendent of the works in the Ohio says: “The water of Lake Erie, which has been rising for many years, and has attained a height unequaled in the memory of man, seems to have attained its maximum, and to have commenced its reflux. Since the first day of June last, as I have ascertained by means of graduated rods at different points along the coast of Lake Erie, the water has fallen perpendicularly nineteen inches, and is still falling. The meteorological character of the present season, as compared with that of several previous seasons, clearly shows the cause of the rise and fall of the lakes not to be periodical, as has heretofore been asserted, but entirely accidental. For several years the summers have been cloudy and cold, with a prevalence of easterly winds and rainy weather. The last summer has been excessively warm for the whole season, and of exceeding drought. When it is remembered that the amount of water evaporated over the surface of these vast bodies of water, during a period of warm sunny weather, greatly exceeds that which passes the outlet of one of these lakes (Niagara River, for example), the cause of the phenomenon is apparent.”–See _Mr. Barrett’s inquiries, ante_.
_26th_. The _New York Star_ publishes a notice of _Delafield’s Antiquities_. This handsomely printed and illustrated work contains four things that are new to the antiquarian inquirer: 1. A theory by the author, by which he conceives the Indian race to be descended from the ancient Cuthites, who are Hamitic. This is wrong. 2. A curious and valuable pictographic map of the migration of the Aztecs, not heretofore printed. This is an acquisition. 3. A disquisition of Dr. Lakey, of Cincinnati, on the superiority of the northern to the southern race of red men. This seems true. 4. A preface, by Bishop McIlvaine, showing the importance in all inquiries of the kind, of keeping the record of the Bible strictly in view. This is right.
_27th_. The _Houston Telegraph_ of this date gays: “A party of about eighty men from Bastrop County, accompanied by Castro and forty Lipan warriors, recently made an expedition into the Comanche country, and, near the San Saba, attacked and routed a large body of Comanches, who, with their women and children, were encamped on a small branch of the stream. About thirty of the Comanche warriors were killed in the engagement, many huts and considerable baggage destroyed, and a large number of horses and mules captured. On their return, however, a few Comanches stole silently into the droves of horses, while feeding at night, and recaptured the whole except ninety-three horses, which the shrewd Castro, with ten of his warriors, had driven far in advance of the main company, and which he subsequently brought in safety to Lagrange. Only two of the citizens of Texas were injured on this expedition.”
“General Burlison, at the head of about seventy men, recently encountered a large body of Indians on the Brushy, and, after one or two skirmishes, finding the enemy numerous, retreated to a ravine in order to engage them with more advantage; but the Indians, fearing to attack him in his new position, drew off and retreated into a neighboring thicket. Being unable to pursue them, he returned to Bastrop. It is reported that he has lost three men in this engagement; the loss of the Indians is not known; it, however, must have been considerable, as most of the men under Burlison were excellent marksmen, and had often been engaged in Indian warfare.”
_March 4th_. The _N. Y. Evening Post_ says, that a gentleman from Tallahassee, just arrived at Washington, states that murders by the Indians are of everyday occurrence in that vicinity, and that between the 17th and 21st Feb. fifteen persons had been killed.
_5th_. Finished the perusal of William Wood’s “_New England’s Prospects_,” a work of 98 12mo pages, printed at London, 1634. This was fourteen years after the first landing of the pilgrims at Plymouth, and the same year that John Eliot came over. Its chief claim to notice is its antiquity. “Some have thought,” he says, “that they (the Indians) might be descendants of the Jews, because some of their words be near unto the Hebrew; but by the same rule they may conclude them to be some of the gleanings of all nations, because they have words which sound after the Greek, Latin, French, and other tongues. Their language is hard to learn, few of the English being able to speak any of it, or capable of the right pronunciation, which is the chief grace of their tongue. They pronounce much after the diphthongs, excluding B and L, which, in our English tongue, they pronounce with much difficulty, as most of the Dutch do T and H, calling a lobster, a _nobstan_.”
The examples of a vocabulary he gives show them to be Algonquins, and not “Skroellings,” or Esquimaux, as they are represented to have been by the Scandinavians (vide Ant. Amer.), who visited the present area of Massachusetts in the tenth century.
The close alliance of their language with the existing Chippewa and Ottawa of the north, is shown by the following specimens:–
_New England Tribes_. _Chippewa of Lake Superior_. 1634. 1839.
_Woman_, Squa, E-qua.
_Water_, Nip-pe, Ne-be. _A raccoon_, Au-supp, A se-bun. _Daughter_, Tawonis, O-dau-nis. _A duck_, Sea-sceep, She-sheeb. _Summer_, Se-quan, Se-gwun.
_Red_ Squi, Mis-qui.
_A house_, Wig-wam, Weeg-wam.
He divides the tribes into:–
Tarrenteens.
Churhers (local tribes even then under instruction). Aberginians (Algonquins of the St. Lawrence, probably). Narragansetts (a tribe of the N.E. Algonquins with dialectic peculiarities). Pequants (” ” “)
Nepnets (” ” “)
Connectacuts (” ” “)
Mohawks (a tribe of Iroquois).
The people whom he calls “Tarrenteens,” are clearly Abenakies.
Cotton Mather, L. of E., 1691, p. 78, denominates the Indians “the veriest ruins of mankind. Their name for an Englishman was a knifeman; stone was used instead of metal for their tools; and for their coins they have only little beads, with holes in them, to string them upon a bracelet, whereof some are _white_, and of these there go six for a penny; some are _black_ or _blue_, and of these go three for a penny; this _wampum_, as they call it, is made of shell fish, which lies upon the sea-coast continually.”
P. 79. “_Nokehick_, that is, a spoonful of parched meal with a spoonful of water, which will strengthen them to travel a day.”
“Reading and writing are altogether unknown to them, though there is a stone or two in the country that has unaccountable characters engraved upon it.”
The intention of the King in granting the royal charter to Massachusetts was, says Cotton Mather:–
“To win and invite the natives of that country to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour of mankind, and the Christian faith, is our Royal intentions, and the adventurer’s free profession is the principal end of the plantation.”–_Life of Eliot_, p. 77.
_10th_. Died at Little Traverse Bay, on Lake Michigan, Ningwegon, or the Wing, the well-known American-Ottawa chief–a man who distinguished himself for the American cause at Detroit, in 1812, and was thrown into prison by the British officers for his boldness in expressing his sentiments. He received a life annuity under the treaty of 28th March, 1836.
_11th_. Received notice of my election as a corresponding member of the Brooklyn Lyceum.
_12th_. A small party of chiefs of the Seneca tribe under the command of “Blacksmith,” successor to Red Jacket, arrived in this city yesterday from Washington, and took lodgings at the Western Hotel in Courtland Street. They were received by the Mayor at the Governor’s room about 12 o’clock. In the address made by one of the number, it was stated that the object of their visit had been to urge upon the President the impropriety of driving them from their present possessions.
_13th_, PEACE AMONG THE INDIANS.–The two nations of Upper and Lower Creeks, who were hostile while residing east of the Mississippi, have, in their new homes in Arkansas, united in general council, at which fifteen hundred were present. The oratory on this occasion, of smoking the calumet, is described as of the highest order.
_14th_. Judge Bronson, of Florida, last evening, at a party at his cousin’s (Arthur Bronson, 46 Bond Street, N. Y.), states that, as Chairman of a Committee in Congress, a few years ago, he had reported a bill for allowing the Brotherton Indians to hold their property in Wisconsin individually, and to enjoy the rights of citizenship; and that this bill passed both houses.
_20th_. Went to dine with Charles Fenno Hoffman, at his lodgings in Houston Street. Found his room garnished with curiosities of various sorts, indicative, among other things, of his interest in the Indian race. A poet in his garret I had long heard of, but a liberal gentlemanly fellow, surrounded by all the elegances of life, I had not thought of as the domicil of the Muses. Mr. Hoffman impressed me as being very English in his appearance and manners. His forehead is quite Byronic in its craniological developments. His eye and countenance are of the most commanding character. Pity that such a handsome man, so active in everything that calls for the gun, the rod, the boat, the horse, the dog, should have been shorn of so essential a prerequisite as a leg. His conversational powers are quite extraordinary. I felt constantly as if I were in the presence of a lover of nature and natural things; a _bon vivant_ perhaps, or an epicure, a Tom Moore, in some sense, whose day-dreams of heaven are mixed up with glowing images of women and wine.
_27th_. I was directed from Washington to relieve the principal disbursing officer at Detroit. Here then my hopes of visiting Europe are blown sky high for the present. I must return to the north, and, so far as labor is concerned, “heap Pelion on Ossa.”
_April 6th_. There is hardly a word in the Indian languages which does not readily yield to the power of analysis. They call tobacco, Ussama. _Ussa_, means to put (anything inanimate). _Ma_, is a particle denoting smell. The _us_, in the first syllable, is sounded very slight, and often, perhaps, nearly dropt, and the word then seems as if spelt _Sa ma_. The last vowel is broad.
_8th_. Left the city for Detroit. In ascending the Hudson, with so good an interpreter at my side as Mrs. Schoolcraft, whom I have carried through a perfect course of philological training in the English, Latin, and Hebrew principles of formation, I analyzed many of the old Indian names, which, until we reached Albany, are all in a peculiar dialect of the Algonquin.
SING SING.–This name is the local form of the name for rocks, and conveys the idea of the plural in the terminal letter. _Os-sin_ in modern Algonquin (the Chippewa dialect), is stone, or rock. _Ing_, is the local form of all nouns proper. The term may be rendered simply