University of Virginia Library

26. CHAPTER XXVI.
CONTAINING THE METAPHYSICS OF INDIAN-HATING, ACCORDING TO THE
VIEWS OF ONE EVIDENTLY NOT SO PREPOSSESSED AS ROUSSEAU IN
FAVOR OF SAVAGES.

“The judge always began in these words: `The
backwoodsman's hatred of the Indian has been a topic
for some remark. In the earlier times of the frontier
the passion was thought to be readily accounted for.
But Indian rapine having mostly ceased through regions
where it once prevailed, the philanthropist is surprised
that Indian-hating has not in like degree ceased with it.
He wonders why the backwoodsman still regards the
red man in much the same spirit that a jury does a
murderer, or a trapper a wild cat—a creature, in whose
behalf mercy were not wisdom; truce is vain; he must
be executed.

“`A curious point,' the judge would continue, `which
perhaps not everybody, even upon explanation, may fully
understand; while, in order for any one to approach to
an understanding, it is necessary for him to learn, or if
he already know, to bear in mind, what manner of man
the backwoodsman is; as for what manner of man the
Indian is, many know, either from history or experience.

“`The backwoodsman is a lonely man. He is a thoughtful
man. He is a man strong and unsophisticated. Impulsive,
he is what some might call unprincipled. At
any rate, he is self-willed; being one who less hearkens
to what others may say about things, than looks for
himself, to see what are things themselves. If in straits,
there are few to help; he must depend upon himself;
he must continually look to himself. Hence self-reliance,
to the degree of standing by his own judgment,
though it stand alone. Not that he deems himself
infallible; too many mistakes in following trails prove
the contrary; but he thinks that nature destines such
sagacity as she has given him, as she destines it to the
'possum. To these fellow-beings of the wilds their
untutored sagacity is their best dependence. If with
either it prove faulty, if the 'possum's betray it to the
trap, or the backwoodsman's mislead him into ambuscade,
there are consequences to be undergone, but no self-blame.
As with the 'possum, instincts prevail with
the backwoodsman over precepts. Like the 'possum,
the backwoodsman presents the spectacle of a creature
dwelling exclusively among the works of God, yet
these, truth must confess, breed little in him of a godly
mind. Small bowing and scraping is his, further than
when with bent knee he points his rifle, or picks its
flint. With few companions, solitude by necessity his
lengthened lot, he stands the trial—no slight one, since,
next to dying, solitude, rightly borne, is perhaps of for
titude the most rigorous test. But not merely is the
backwoodsman content to be alone, but in no few cases

is anxious to be so. The sight of smoke ten miles off is
provocation to one more remove from man, one step
deeper into nature. Is it that he feels that whatever man
may be, man is not the universe? that glory, beauty,
kindness, are not all engrossed by him? that as the
presence of man frights birds away, so, many bird-like
thoughts? Be that how it will, the backwoodsman is
not without some fineness to his nature. Hairy Orson as
he looks, it may be with him as with the Shetland seal—
beneath the bristles lurks the fur.

“`Though held in a sort a barbarian, the backwoodsman
would seem to America what Alexander was to
Asia—captain in the vanguard of conquering civilization.
Whatever the nation's growing opulence or power, does
it not lackey his heels? Pathfinder, provider of security
to those who come after him, for himself he asks
nothing but hardship. Worthy to be compared with
Moses in the Exodus, or the Emperor Julian in Gaul,
who on foot, and bare-browed, at the head of covered
or mounted legions, marched so through the elements,
day after day. The tide of emigration, let it roll as it
will, never overwhelms the backwoodsman into itself;
he rides upon advance, as the Polynesian upon the comb
of the surf.

“`Thus, though he keep moving on through life, he
maintains with respect to nature much the same unaltered
relation throughout; with her creatures, too,
including panthers and Indians. Hence, it is not
unlikely that, accurate as the theory of the Peace Congress
may be with respect to those two varieties of

beings, among others, yet the backwoodsman might be
qualified to throw out some practical suggestions.

“`As the child born to a backwoodsman must in turn
lead his father's life—a life which, as related to humanity,
is related mainly to Indians—it is thought best
not to mince matters, out of delicacy; but to tell the boy
pretty plainly what an Indian is, and what he must expect
from him. For however charitable it may be to
view Indians as members of the Society of Friends, yet
to affirm them such to one ignorant of Indians, whose
lonely path lies a long way through their lands, this, in
the event, might prove not only injudicious but cruel.
At least something of this kind would seem the maxim
upon which backswoods' education is based. Accordingly,
if in youth the backwoodsman incline to knowledge,
as is generally the case, he hears little from his
schoolmasters, the old chroniclers of the forest, but histories
of Indian lying, Indian theft, Indian double-dealing,
Indian fraud and perfidy, Indian want of
conscience, Indian blood-thirstiness, Indian diabolism—
histories which, though of wild woods, are almost as
full of things unangelic as the Newgate Calendar or the
Annals of Europe. In these Indian narratives and traditions
the lad is thoroughly grounded. “As the twig
is bent the tree's inclined.” The instinct of antipathy
against an Indian grows in the backwoodsman with the
sense of good and bad, right and wrong. In one breath
he learns that a brother is to be loved, and an Indian to
be hated.

“`Such are the facts,' the judge would say, `upon

which, if one seek to moralize, he must do so with an
eye to them. It is terrible that one creature should so
regard another, should make it conscience to abhor an
entire race. It is terrible; but is it surprising? Surprising,
that one should hate a race which he believes to
be red from a cause akin to that which makes some tribes
of garden insects green? A race whose name is upon
the frontier a memento mori; painted to him in every evil
light; now a horse-thief like those in Moyamensing;
now an assassin like a New York rowdy; now a treaty-breaker
like an Austrian; now a Palmer with poisoned
arrows; now a judicial murderer and Jeffries, after a
fierce farce of trial condemning his victim to bloody
death; or a Jew with hospitable speeches cozening
some fainting stranger into ambuscade, there to burk
him, and account it a deed grateful to Manitou, his god.

“`Still, all this is less advanced as truths of the Indians
than as examples of the backwoodsman's impression of
them—in which the charitable may think he does them
some injustice. Certain it is, the Indians themselves
think so; quite unanimously, too. The Indians, in
deed, protest against the backwoodsman's view of
them; and some think that one cause of their returning
his antipathy so sincerely as they do, is their moral indignation
at being so libeled by him, as they really believe
and say. But whether, on this or any point, the
Indians should be permitted to testify for themselves,
to the exclusion of other testimony, is a question that
may be left to the Supreme Court. At any rate, it has
been observed that when an Indian becomes a genuine

proselyte to Christianity (such cases, however, not being
very many; though, indeed, entire tribes are sometimes
nominally brought to the true light,) he will not in that
case conceal his enlightened conviction, that his race's
portion by nature is total depravity; and, in that way,
as much as admits that the backwoodsman's worst idea
of it is not very far from true; while, on the other hand,
those red men who are the greatest sticklers for the
theory of Indian virtue, and Indian loving-kindness, are
sometimes the arrantest horse-thieves and tomahawkers
among them. So, at least, avers the backwoodsman.
And though, knowing the Indian nature, as he thinks he
does, he fancies he is not ignorant that an Indian may
in some points deceive himself almost as effectually as in
bush-tactics he can another, yet his theory and his practice
as above contrasted seem to involve an inconsistency
so extreme, that the backwoodsman only accounts for it
on the supposition that when a tomahawking red-man
advances the notion of the benignity of the red race, it
it but part and parcel with that subtle strategy which
he finds so useful in war, in hunting, and the general
conduct of life.'

“In further explanation of that deep abhorrence with
which the backwoodsman regards the savage, the judge
used to think it might perhaps a little help, to consider
what kind of stimulus to it is furnished in those forest
histories and traditions before spoken of. In which behalf,
he would tell the story of the little colony of
Wrights and Weavers, originally seven cousins from Virginia,
who, after successive removals with their families,

at last established themselves near the southern frontier
of the Bloody Ground, Kentucky: `They were strong,
brave men; but, unlike many of the pioneers in those
days, theirs was no love of conflict for conflict's sake.
Step by step they had been lured to their lonely resting-place
by the ever-beckoning seductions of a fertile and
virgin land, with a singular exemption, during the march,
from Indian molestation. But clearings made and
houses built, the bright shield was soon to turn its other
side. After repeated persecutions and eventual hostilities,
forced on them by a dwindled tribe in their neighborhood—persecutions
resulting in loss of crops and
cattle; hostilities in which they lost two of their number,
illy to be spared, besides others getting painful
wounds—the five remaining cousins made, with some
serious concessions, a kind of treaty with Mocmohoc,
the chief—being to this induced by the harryings of
the enemy, leaving them no peace. But they were
further prompted, indeed, first incited, by the suddenly
changed ways of Mocmohoc, who, though hitherto
deemed a savage almost perfidious as Cæsar Borgia, yet
now put on a seeming the reverse of this, engaging to
bury the hatchet, smoke the pipe, and be friends forever;
not friends in the mere sense of renouncing
enmity, but in the sense of kindliness, active and familiar.

“`But what the chief now seemed, did not wholly
blind them to what the chief had been; so that, though
in no small degree influenced by his change of bearing,
they still distrusted him enough to covenant with him,

among other articles on their side, that though friendly
visits should be exchanged between the wigwams and
the cabins, yet the five cousins should never, on any
account, be expected to enter the chief's lodge together.
The intention was, though they reserved it, that if ever,
under the guise of amity, the chief should mean them
mischief, and effect it, it should be but partially; so that
some of the five might survive, not only for their families'
sake, but also for retribution's. Nevertheless, Mocmohoc
did, upon a time, with such fine art and pleasing
carriage win their confidence, that he brought them
all together to a feast of bear's meat, and there, by stratagem,
ended them. Years after, over their calcined bones
and those of all their families, the chief, reproached for
his treachery by a proud hunter whom he had made captive,
jeered out, “Treachery? pale face! 'Twas they
who broke their covenant first, in coming all together;
they that broke it first, in trusting Mocmohoc.'”

“At this point the judge would pause, and lifting his
hand, and rolling his eyes, exclaim in a solemn enough
voice, `Circling wiles and bloody lusts. The acuteness
and genius of the chief but make him the more atrocious.'

“After another pause, he would begin an imaginary
kind of dialogue between a backwoodsman and a questioner:

“`But are all Indians like Mocmohoc?—Not all have
proved such; but in the least harmful may lie his germ.
There is an Indian nature. “Indian blood is in me,” is the
half-breed's threat.—But are not some Indians kind?—

Yes, but kind Indians are mostly lazy, and reputed simple—at
all events, are seldom chiefs; chiefs among the
red men being taken from the active, and those accounted
wise. Hence, with small promotion, kind Indians
have but proportionate influence. And kind
Indians may be forced to do unkind biddings. So “beware
the Indian, kind or unkind,” said Daniel Boone, who
lost his sons by them.—But, have all you backwoodsmen
been some way victimized by Indians?—No.—Well,
and in certain cases may not at least some few of you be
favored by them?—Yes, but scarce one among us so
self-important, or so selfish-minded, as to hold his personal
exemption from Indian outrage such a set-off
against the contrary experience of so many others, as
that he must needs, in a general way, think well of Indians;
or, if he do, an arrow in his flank might suggest a
pertinent doubt.

“`In short,' according to the judge, `if we at all credit
the backwoodsman, his feeling against Indians, to be
taken aright, must be considered as being not so much
on his own account as on others', or jointly on both
accounts. True it is, scarce a family he knows but some
member of it, or connection, has been by Indians maimed
or scalped. What avails, then, that some one Indian, or
some two or three, treat a backwoodsman friendly-like?
He fears me, he thinks. Take my rifle from me, give
him motive, and what will come? Or if not so, how
know I what involuntary preparations may be going
on in him for things as unbeknown in present time to
him as me—a sort of chemical preparation in the soul

for malice, as chemical preparation in the body for
malady.'

“Not that the backwoodsman ever used those words,
you see, but the judge found him expression for his
meaning. And this point he would conclude with saying,
that, `what is called a “friendly Indian” is a very rare
sort of creature; and well it was so, for no ruthlessness
exceeds that of a “friendly Indian” turned enemy.
A coward friend, he makes a valiant foe.

“`But, thus far the passion in question has been
viewed in a general way as that of a community. When
to his due share of this the backwoodsman adds his private
passion, we have then the stock out of which is
formed, if formed at all, the Indian-hater par excellence.'

“The Indian-hater par excellence the judge defined to
be one `who, having with his mother's milk drank in
small love for red men, in youth or early manhood, ere
the sensibilities become osseous, receives at their hand
some signal outrage, or, which in effect is much the same,
some of his kin have, or some friend. Now, nature
all around him by her solitudes wooing or bidding him
muse upon this matter, he accordingly does so, till the
thought develops such attraction, that much as straggling
vapors troop from all sides to a storm-cloud, so
straggling thoughts of other outrages troop to the nucleus
thought, assimilate with it, and swell it. At last,
taking counsel with the elements, he comes to his resolution.
An intenser Hannibal, he makes a vow, the hate
of which is a vortex from whose suction scarce the

remotest chip of the guilty race may reasonably feel
secure. Next, he declares himself and settles his temporal
affairs. With the solemnity of a Spaniard turned
monk, he takes leave of his kin; or rather, these leave-takings
have something of the still more impressive
finality of death-bed adieus. Last, he commits himself
to the forest primeval; there, so long as life shall be his,
to act upon a calm, cloistered scheme of strategical, implacable,
and lonesome vengeance. Ever on the noiseless
trail; cool, collected, patient; less seen than felt;
snuffing, smelling—a Leather-stocking Nemesis. In the
settlements he will not be seen again; in eyes of old
companions tears may start at some chance thing that
speaks of him; but they never look for him, nor call;
they know he will not come. Suns and seasons fleet;
the tiger-lily blows and falls; babes are born and leap in
their mothers' arms; but, the Indian-hater is good as
gone to his long home, and “Terror” is his epitaph.'

“Here the judge, not unaffected, would pause again,
but presently resume: `How evident that in strict speech
there can be no biography of an Indian-hater par excel
lence, any more than one of a sword-fish, or other deep-sea
denizen; or, which is still less imaginable, one of a
dead man. The career of the Indian-hater par excellence
has the impenetrability of the fate of a lost steamer.
Doubtless, events, terrible ones, have happened, must
have happened; but the powers that be in nature have
taken order that they shall never becomes news.

“`But, luckily for the curious, there is a species of diluted
Indian-hater, one whose heart proves not so steely

as his brain. Soft enticements of domestic life too
often draw him from the ascetic trail; a monk who
apostatizes to the world at times. Like a mariner, too,
though much abroad, he may have a wife and family in
some green harbor which he does not forget. It is with
him as with the Papist converts in Senegal; fasting and
mortification prove hard to bear.'

“The judge, with his usual judgment, always thought
that the intense solitude to which the Indian-hater consigns
himself, has, by its overawing influence, no little
to do with relaxing his vow. He would relate instances
where, after some months' lonely scoutings, the
Indian-hater is suddenly seized with a sort of calenture;
hurries openly towards the first smoke, though he knows
it is an Indian's, announces himself as a lost hunter,
gives the savage his rifle, throws himself upon his charity,
embraces him with much affection, imploring the
privilege of living a while in his sweet companionship.
What is too often the sequel of so distempered a procedure
may be best known by those who best know the
Indian. Upon the whole, the judge, by two and thirty
good and sufficient reasons, would maintain that there
was no known vocation whose consistent following calls
for such self-containings as that of the Indian-hater par
excellence. In the highest view, he considered such a soul
one peeping out but once an age.

“For the diluted Indian-hater, although the vacations
he permits himself impair the keeping of the character,
yet, it should not be overlooked that this is the man
who, by his very infirmity, enables us to form surmises,

however inadequate, of what Indian-hating in its perfection
is.”

“One moment,” gently interrupted the cosmopolitan
here, “and let me refill my calumet.”

Which being done, the other proceeded:—