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1Author:  Bennett Emerson 1822-1905Requires cookie*
 Title:  Wild Scenes on the Frontiers, Or, Heroes of the West  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: We talk of the ferocity, the vindictiveness, the treachery, and the cruelty of the native savage; and, painting him in the darkest colors, tell how, when his hunting grounds covered the sites of our now proudest cities, he was wont to steal down upon a few harmless whites, our forefathers, and butcher them in cold blood, sparing neither sex nor age, except for a painful captivity, to end perhaps in the most demoniac tortures; and we dwell upon the theme, till our little innocent children shudder and creep close to our sides, and look fearfully around them, and perhaps wonder how the good God, of whom they have also heard us speak, could ever have permitted such human monsters to encumber His fair and beautiful earth. But do we reverse the medal and show the picture which impartial Truth has stamped upon the other side—and which, in a great measure, stands as a cause to the opposite effect—stands as a cause for savage ferocity, vindictiveness, treachery and cruelty? Do we tell our young and eager listeners that the poor Indian, living up to the light he had, and not unfrequently beyond it, knew no better than to turn, like the worm when trampled upon, and bite the foot that crushed him? That we had taken the land of his father's graves and driven him from his birthright hunting grounds? That we had stolen his cattle, robbed him of his food, destroyed his growing fields, burned his wigwams, and murdered his brothers, fathers, wives and little ones, besides instigating tribe to war against tribe—and that, knowing nothing of the Christian code, to return good for evil, he fulfilled the law of his nature and education in taking his “great revenge” upon any of the pale-faced race he should chance to meet? No! we seldom show this side of the medal—for the natural inquiry of the innocent listener might contain an unpleasant rebuke:
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