Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers Part 23

Would the fixed eye, that dotes on sylvan scenes, Draw pleasure from these dark funereal greens, These stunted cedars and low scraggy pines, Where nature stagnates and the soil repines--

Alas! the source is small--small every bliss, That e'er can dwell on such a place as this.

Bleak, barren, sandy, dreary, and confined, Bathed by the waves and chilled by every wind; Without a flower to beautify the scene, Without a cultured sh.o.r.e--a shady green-- Without a harbor on a dangerous sh.o.r.e, Without a friend to joy with or deplore.

He who can feel one lonely ray of bliss In such a thought-appalling spot as this, His mind in fogs and mists must ever roll, Without a heart, and torpid all his soul.

About three o'clock P.M. there was a transient gleam of suns.h.i.+ne, and, for a few moments, a slight abatement of wind. I ordered my canoe and baggage taken inland to another narrow little bay, having issue into the lake, where the water was calm enough to permit its being loaded; but before this was accomplished, a most portentous cloud gathered in the west, and the wind arose more fierce than before. Huron, like an offended and capricious mistress, seemed to be determined, at last, on fury, and threw herself into the most extravagant att.i.tudes. I again had my tent pitched, and sat down quietly to wait till the tempest should subside; but up to a late hour at night the elemental war continued, and, committing myself to the Divine mercy, I put out my candle and retired to my pallet.

_8th_. The frowning mistress, Lake Huron, still has the pouts. About seven o'clock I walked, or scrambled my way through close-matted spruce and brambles to get a view of the open lake. The force of the waves was not, perhaps, much different from the day before, but they were directly from the west, and blowing directly down the lake. Could I get out from the nook of a bay where I was encamped, and get directly before them, it appeared possible, with a close-reefed sail, to go on my way. My _engagees_ thought it too hazardous to try, but their habitual sense of obedience to a _bourgeoise_ led them to put the canoe in the water, and at 10 o'clock we left our encampment on Outard Point, got out into the lake, not without imminent hazard, and began our career "like a racehorse" for the Capes of the St. Mary's. The wind blew as if "'twad blawn its last." We had reefed our sail to less than four feet, and I put an extra man with the steersman. We literally went "on the wings of the wind." I do not think myself ever to have run such hazards. I was tossed up and down the waves like Sancho Panza on the blanket. Three hours and twenty minutes brought me to Isle St. Vital, behind which we got shelter. The good saint who presides over the island of gravel and sand permitted me to take a gla.s.s of cordial from my basket, and to refresh myself with a slice of cold tongue and a biscuit. Who this St.

Vital may have been, I know not, having been brought up a Protestant; but I suppose the Catholic calendar would tell. If his saints.h.i.+p was as fond of good living as some of his friends are said to be, I make no doubt but he will freely forgive this trespa.s.s upon his territory.

Taking courage by this refreshment, we again put out before the gale, and got in to the De Tour, and by seven o'clock, P.M., were safely encamped on an island in St. Mary's Straits, opposite St. Joseph's. The wind was here ahead.

On entering the straits, I found a vessel at anchor. On coming alongside it proved to be the schooner Harriet, Capt. Allen, of Mont Clemens, on her way from the Sault. A pa.s.senger on board says that he was at Mr.

Johnston's house two days ago, and all are well. He says the Chippewa chiefs arrived yesterday. Regret that I had not forwarded by them the letter which I had prepared at the Prairie to transmit by Mr. Holliday, when I supposed I should return by way of Chippewa River and Lake Superior.

I procured from the Harriet a whitefish, of which I have just partaken a supper. This delicious fish is always a treat to me, but was never more so than on the present occasion. I landed here fatigued, wet, and cold, but, from the effects of a cheerful fire, good news from home, and bright antic.i.p.ations for to-morrow, I feel quite re-invigorated. "Tired nature's sweet restorer" must complete what tea and whitefish have so successfully begun.

_9th_. My journal has no entry for this day, but it brought me safely (some 40 miles) to my own domicil at "Elmwood." The excitement of getting back and finding all well drove away almost all other thoughts.

The impressions made on society by our visit to New York, and the circles in which we moved, are given in a letter from Mr. Saml. C.

Conant, of the 19th July, which I found among those awaiting my arrival.

To introduce a descendant of one of the native race into society, as had been done in my choice, was not an ordinary event, and did not presuppose, it seems, ordinary independence of character. Her grandfather, by the maternal side, had been a distinguished chief of his nation at the ancient council-fire, or seat of its government at Chegoimegon and Lapointe. By her father, a native of Antrim, in the north of Ireland, she was connected with a cla.s.s of clergy and gentry of high respectability, including the Bishop of Dromore and Mr. Saurin, the Attorney-General of Ireland. Two very diverse sources of pride of ancestry met in her father's family--that of the n.o.ble and free sons of the forest, and that of ancestral origin founded on the notice of British aristocracy. With me, the former was of the highest honor, when I beheld it, as it was in her case, united to manners and education in a marked degree gentle, polished, retiring, and refined. No two such diverse races and states of society, uniting to produce such a result, had ever come to my notice, and I was, of course, gratified when any persons of intellect and refinement concurred in the wisdom of my choice. Such was Mr. Conant and his family, a group ever to be remembered with kindness and respect. Having pa.s.sed some weeks in his family, with her infant boy and nurse, during my absence South, his opportunities for judging were of the best kind.

"If you will suffer me to indulge the expression of both my own and Mrs.

Conant's feelings, I am sure that you cannot but be pleased that the frankness and generosity of one, and the virtues and gentleness of the other of you, have made so lively an impression on our hearts, and rendered your acquaintance to us a matter of very sweet and grateful reflection. Truly modest and worthy persons often exhibit virtues and possess attainments so much allied to their nature as to be themselves unconscious of the treasures. It does not hurt such ones to be informed of their good qualities.

"When I first visited Mr. Schoolcraft, I looked about for his _Indian girl_. I carried such a report to my wife that we were determined to seek her acquaintance, and were not less surprised than recompensed to find such gentleness, urbanity, affection, and intelligence, under circ.u.mstances so illy calculated, as might be supposed, to produce such amiable virtues. But all have learned to estimate human nature more correctly, and to determine that nature herself, not less than the culture of skillful hands, has much to do with the refinement and polish of the mind.

"Mr. S.'s book ('Trav. Cent. Ports. Miss. Valley') has also received several generous and laudatory notices; one from the _U.S. Literary Gazette_, printed at Boston. I saw Gov. Clinton, also, who spoke very highly both of the book and the author. He thought that Mr. W.'s ill-natured critique would not do any injury either here or in Europe."

_Oct. 23d_. C.C. Trowbridge, Esq., sends me a copy of "Guess' Cherokee Alphabet." It is, with a few exceptions, syllabic. Eighty-four characters express the whole language, but will express no other Indian language.

Maj. John Biddle communicates the result of the delegate election. By throwing out the vote of Sault Ste. Marie, the election was awarded by the canva.s.sers to Mr. Wing.

New views of Indian philology. "You know," says a literary friend, "I began with a design to refute the calumnies of the _Quarterly_ respecting our treatment of the Indians, and our conduct during the recent war. This is precisely what I have not done. My stock of materials for this purpose was most ample, and the most of the labor performed. But I found the whole could not be inserted in one number, and no other part but this could be omitted without breaking the continuity of the discussion. I concluded, therefore, it would be better to save it for another article, and hereafter remodel it."

_28th_. Mr. C. writes that he has completed his review, and transmits, for my perusal, some of the new parts of it. "I also transmit my rough draft of those parts of the review which relate to Hunter, to Adelang's survey, and to ----. These may amuse an idle hour. The remarks on ---- are, as you will perceive, materially altered. The alteration was rendered necessary by an examination of the work. The 'survey' is a new item, and I think, you will consider, the occasion of it, with me, a precious specimen of Dutch impudence and ignorance. Bad as it is, it is bepraised and bedaubed by that quack D. as though it were written with the judgment of a Charlevoix."

This article utters a species of criticism in America which we have long wanted.

It breaks the ice on new ground--the ground of independent philosophical thought and inquiry. Truth to tell, we have known very little on the philosophy of the Indian languages, and that little has been the re-echo of foreign continental opinions. It has been written without a knowledge of the Indian character and history. Its allusions have mixed up the tribes in double confusion. Mere synonyms have been taken for different tribes, and their history and language has been criss-crossed as if the facts had been heaped together with a pitchfork.

Mr. C. has made a bold stroke to lay the foundation of a better and truer philological basis, which must at last prevail. It is true the _prestige_ of respected names will rise up to oppose the new views, which, I confess, to be sustained in their main features by my own views and researches here on the ground and in the midst of the Indians, and men will rise to sustain the _old_ views--the original literary mummery and philological hocus-pocus based on the papers and letters and blunders of Heckewelder. There was a great predisposition to admire and overrate everything relative to Indian history and language, as detailed by this good and sincere missionary in his retirement at Bethlehem. He was appealed to as an oracle. This I found by an acquaintance which I formed, in 1810, with the late amiable Dr. Wistar, while rusticating at Bristol, on the banks of the Delaware. The confused letters which the missionary wrote many years later, were mainly due to Dr. Wistar's philosophical interest in the subject. They were rewritten and thoroughly revised and systematized by the learned Mr. Duponceau, in 1816, and thus the philological system laid, which was published by the Penn. Hist. Soc. in 1819. During the six years that has elapsed, n.o.body has had the facts to examine the system. It has been now done, and I shall be widely mistaken if this does not prove a new era in our Indian philology.

Whatever the review does on this head, however, and admitting that it pushes some positions to an ultra point, it will blow the impostor Hunter sky high. His book is an utter fabrication, in which there is scarcely a grain of truth hid in a bushel of chaff.

_Nov. 4th_. Difficulties have arisen, at this remote post, between the citizens and the military, the latter of whom have shown a disposition to feel power and forget right, by excluding, except with onerous humiliations, some citizens from free access to the post-office. In a letter of this date, the Postmaster-General (Mr. McLean) declines to order the office to be kept out of the fort, and thus, in effect, decides against the citizens. How very unimportant a citizen is 1000 miles from the seat of government! The national aegis is not big enough to reach so far. The bed is too long for the covering. A man cannot wrap himself in it. It is to be hoped that the Postmaster-General will live long enough to find out that he has been deceived in this matter.

_29th_. Mr. Conant, of New York, writes: "I hope you will not fail to prosecute your Indian inquiries this winter, getting out of them all the stories and all the _Indian_ you can. I conclude you hear an echo now and then from the big world, notwithstanding your seclusion. The Creek Delegation is at Was.h.i.+ngton, unfriendly to the late treaty, and I expect some changes not a little interesting to the aboriginal cause. Mr. Adams looks at his 'red children' with a friendly eye, and, I trust, 'the men of his house,' as the Indian orator called Congress, will prove themselves so. I have been charmed with the quietude and coolness manifested in Congress in reference to the Georgia business."

And with these last words from the civilized world, we are prepared to plunge into another winter, with all its dreary accompaniments of ice and snow and tempests, and with the _consoling_ reflection that when our poor and long-looked-for monthly express arrives, we can get our letters and papers from the office after duly performing our genuflections to a petty military chief, with the obsequiousness of a Hindoo to the image of Juggernaut.

CHAPTER XXVI.

General aspects of the Indian cause--Public criticism on the state of Indian researches, and literary storm raised by the new views--Political rumor--Death of R. Pettibone, Esq.--Delegate election--Copper mines of Lake Superior--Instructions for a treaty in the North--Death of Mr.

Pett.i.t--Denial of post-office facilities--Arrival of commissioners to hold the Fond du Lac treaty--Trip to Fond du Lac through Lake Superior--Treaty--Return--Deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

_1826. Feb. 1st_. The year opens with unfavorable symptoms for the Indian cause. The administration is strong in Congress, and the President favorable to the Indian view of their right to the soil they occupy east of the Mississippi until it is acquired by free cession. But the doctrine of state sovereignty contended for by Georgia, seems to be an element which all the States will, in the end, unite in contending for. And the Creeks may settle their accounts with the fact that they must finally go to the West. This is a practical view of the subject--a sort of political necessity which seems to outride everything else.

Poetry and sympathy are rode over roughshod in the contest for the race.

We feel nothing of this _here_ at present, but it is only, perhaps, because we are too remote and unimportant to waste a thought about.

Happy insignificance! As one of the little means of supporting existence in so remote a spot, and keeping alive, at the same time, the spark of literary excitement, I began, in December, a ma.n.u.script _jeu d'esprit_ newspaper, to be put in covers and sent from house to house, with the perhaps too ambitious cognomen of "The Literary Voyager."

_6th_. The author of a leading and pungent critique for the _North American Review_ writes in fine spirits from Was.h.i.+ngton, and in his usual literary tone and temper about his review: "Dr. Sparks' letter will show you his opinion. He altered the ma.n.u.script in some places, and makes me say of--what I do not think and what I would not have said. But let that pa.s.s. I gave him _carte blanche_, so I have no right to find fault with his exercise of his discretion. W. is in a terrible pa.s.sion. He says that the article is written with ability, and that he always entertained the opinion expressed in the review of Heckewelder's work. But he is provoked at the comments on ----'s work, and, above all, at the compliment to you. Dougla.s.s, who is here, says this is merely Philadelphia _versus_ New York, and that it is a principle with the former to puff all that is printed there, and to decry all that is not."

This appears to have been known to Gov. Clinton, and is the ground of the opinion he expressed of W. to Mr. Conant.

_March 6th_. Col. De Garmo Jones writes from Detroit that it is rumored that McLean is to leave the General Post-office Department, and to be appointed one of the United States Judges.

Mr. L. Pettibone, of Missouri, my companion in exploring the Ozark Mountains in 1818 and 1819, writes from that quarter that his brother, Rufus Pettibone, Esq., of St. Louis, died on the 31st July last. He was a man of n.o.ble, correct, and generous sentiments, who had practiced law with reputation in Western New York. I accompanied him and his family on going to the Western country, on his way from Olean to Pittsburgh. His generous and manly character and fair talents, make his death a loss to the community, and to the growing and enterprising population of the West. He was one of the men who cheered me in my early explorations in the West, and ever met me with a smile.

_7th_. My sister Maria writes, posting me up in the local news of Detroit.

_9th_. Mr. Trowbridge informs me that Congress settled the contested delegate question by casting aside the Sault votes. We are so unimportant that even our votes are considered as worthless. However that may be, nothing could be a greater misrepresentation than that "Indians from their lodges were allowed to vote."

_14th_. Col. Thomas H. Benton, of the Senate, writes that an appropriation of $10,000 has been granted for carrying out a clause in the Prairie du Chien treaty, and that a convocation of the Indians in Lake Superior will take place, "so that the copper-mine business is arranged."

_17th_. Maj. Joseph Delafield, of New York, says that Baron Lederer is desirous of entering into an arrangement for the exchange of my large ma.s.s of Lake Superior copper, for mineralogical specimens for the Imperial Cabinet of Vienna.

_April 16th_. A letter from the Department contains incipient directions for convening the Indians to meet in council at the head of Lake Superior, and committing the general arrangements for that purpose to my hands, and, indeed, my hands are already full. Boats, canoes, supplies, transportation for all who are to go, and a thousand minor questions, call for attention. A treaty at Fond du Lac, 500 miles distant, and the throwing of a commissariat department through the lake, is no light task.

_27th_. A moral question of much interest is presented to me in a communication from the Rev. Alvan Coe. Of the disinterested nature and character of this man's benevolence for the Indian race, no man knowing him ever doubted. He has literally been going about doing good among them since our first arrival here in 1822. In his zeal to s.h.i.+eld them from the arts of petty traders, he has often gone so far as to incur the ill-will and provoke the slanderous tongues of some few people. That he should deem it necessary to address me a letter to counteract such rumors, is the only thing remarkable. Wiser, in some senses, and more prudent people in their worldly affairs, probably exist; but no man of a purer, simpler, and more exalted faith. No one whom I ever knew lives less for "the rewards that perish." Even Mr. Laird, whose name is mentioned in these records, although he went far beyond him in talents, gifts, and acquirements of every sort, had not a purer faith, yet he will, like that holy man, receive his rewards from the same "Master."

_May 2d_. Mr. Trowbridge writes me of the death of Wm. W. Pett.i.t, Esq., of Detroit, a man respected and admired. He loaned me a haversack, suitable for a loose mineral bag, on my expedition in 1820.

_8th_. Difficulties between the military and citizens continue. The Postmaster-General declined, on a renewed memorial of the citizens, to remove the post-office without the garrison. He says the officers have evinced "much sensibility" on the subject, and denied that "any restraints or embarra.s.sments" have been imposed, when every man and woman in the settlement knows that the only way to the _post-office_ lies through the _guard-house_, which is open and shut by tap of drum.

Restraints, indeed! Where has the worthy Postmaster-General picked up his military information?

_June 6th_. Definite information is received that the appropriation for the Lake Superior treaty has pa.s.sed Congress.

_10th_. Mr. John Agnew, designated a special agent for preliminaries at Fond du Lac, writes of his prompt arrival at that place and good progress.

Gov. C. writes: "We must remove the copper-rock, and, therefore, you will have to provide such ropes and blocks as may be necessary."

_22d_. The citizens on this frontier, early in the season, pet.i.tioned the Legislative Council for the erection of a new county, embracing the Straits of St. Mary's and the Basin of Lake Superior, proposing to call it Chippewa, in allusion to the tribe occupying it. Maj. Robert A.

Forsyth, of Detroit, M.C., writes of the success of the contemplated measure.

_July 4th_. The proposed treaty of Fond du Lac has filled the place with bustle for the last month. At an early hour this morning expectation was gratified by the arrival of His Excellency, Gov. Ca.s.s, accompanied by the Hon. Thomas L. McKenney, Commissioner of Indian Affairs. They reached the village in boats from Mackinac.

These gentlemen are appointed by the President to hold the conferences at Fond du Lac.