 | CHAPTER I. The wigwam and the cabin |  |
1. CHAPTER I.
It was in the year 182—, that I first travelled in the vallies of
the great south-west. Circumstances, influenced in no slight degree
by an “errant disposition,” beguiled me to the Choctaw nation,
which, at that time, occupied the greater part of the space
below the Tennessee line, lying between the rivers Tombeckbe
and Mississippi, as low, nearly, as the town of Jackson, then, as
now, the capital of the State of Mississippi. I loitered for several
weeks in and about this region, without feeling the loss or the
weight of time. Yet, the reader is not to suppose that travelling
at that day was so simple a matter, or possessed many, if any of
the pleasant facilities of the present. Au contraire: It was then
a serious business. It meant travail rather than travel. The
roads were few and very hard to find. Indian foot-paths—with
the single exception of the great military traces laid out by General
Jackson, and extending from Tennessee to Lake Ponchar-train—formed
almost the only arteries known to the “Nation;”
and the portions of settled country in the neighbourhood, nominally
civilized only, were nearly in the same condition. Some
of the Indian paths, as I experienced, seemed only to be made for
the perplexity of the stranger. Like Gray's passages which
“led to nothing,” they constantly brought me to a stand. Sometimes
they were swallowed up in swamps, and, in such cases,
your future route upon the earth was to be discovered only by a
deliberate and careful survey of the skies above. The openings
in the trees over head alone instructed you in the course you
progress was as little pleasant as edifying, yet, in some respects,
it was not wanting in its attractions, also. To the young and
ardent mind, obstacles of this nature tend rather to excite than to
depress. They contain the picturesque in themselves, at times,
and always bring out the moral in the man. “To learn to rough
it,” is an educational phrase, in the dialect of the new countries,
which would be of great service, adopted as a rule of government
for the young in all. To “coon a log”—a mysterious process
to the uninitiated—swim a river—experiment, at a guess, upon
the properties of one, and the proprieties of another route—parley
with an Indian after his own fashion—not to speak of a hundred
other incidents which the civilized world does not often present—
will reconcile a lad of sanguine temperament to a number of annoyances
much more serious than will attend him on an expedition
through our frontier countries.
It was at the close of a cloudy day in November, that I came
within hail of the new but rude plantation settlements of Colonel
Harris. He had but lately transferred his interests to Mississippi,
from one of the “maternal thirteen”—had bought largely in the
immediate neighbourhood of the Choctaw nation, and had also
acquired, by purchase from the natives, certain reserves within
it, to which he chiefly owes that large wealth, which, at this day,
he has the reputation of possessing. In place of the stately residence
which now adorns his homestead, there was then but a
miserable log-house, one of the most ordinary of the country, in
which, unaccompanied by his family, he held his temporary
abiding place. His plantation was barely rescued from the dominions
of nature. The trees were girdled only the previous
winter, for his first crop, which was then upon the ground, and
an excellent crop it was for that immature condition of his fields.
There is no describing the melancholy aspect of such a settlement,
seen in winter, on a cloudy day, and in the heart of an immense
forest, through which you have travelled for miles, without glimpse
of human form or habitation. The worm-fence is itself a gloomy
spectacle, and the girdled trees, erect but dead, the perishing
skeletons of recent life, impress you with sensations not entirely
unlike those which you would experience in going over some
have not yet been removed. The fences of Col. Harris were low
in height, though of great extent. They were simply sufficient
to protect the fields from the random assaults of cattle. Of his
out-houses, the most respectable in size, solidity and security, was
the corn crib. His negro-houses, like the log-house in which he
himself dwelt, were only so many temporary shanties, covered
with poles and thatched with bark and pine-straw. In short,
every thing that met my eye only tended the more to frown upon
my anticipations of a cheerful fireside and a pleasant arrangement
of the creature-comforts. But my doubts and apprehensions
all vanished at the moment of my reception. I was met by
the proprietor with that ease and warmth of manner which does
not seem to be conscious of any deficiencies of preparation, and
is resolved that there shall be none which sincere hospitality can
remedy. I was soon prepared to forget that there were deficiencies.
I felt myself very soon at home. I had letters to Col. Harris,
which made me particularly welcome, and in ten minutes we
were both in full sail amongst all the shallows and deeps of ordinary
conversation.
Not that we confined ourselves to these. Our discourse, after
a little while, turned upon a circumstance which I had witnessed
on riding through his fields and while approaching his dwelling,
which struck me with considerable surprise, and disturbed, in
some degree, certain pre-conceived opinions in my mind. I had
seen, interspersed with his negro labourers, a goodly number of
Indians of both sexes, but chiefly young persons, all equally and
busily employed in cotton picking. The season had been a protracted
one, and favourable, accordingly, to the maturing of great
numbers of the bolls which an early and severe winter must have
otherwise destroyed. The crop, in consequence, had been so
great as to be beyond the ability, to gather in and harvest, of the
“force” by which it was made. This, in the new and fertile
vallies of the south-west, is an usual event. In ordinary cases,
when this happens, it is the custom to buy other negroes from less
productive regions, to consummate and secure the avails of labour
of the original “force.” The whole of these, united, are then
addressed to the task of opening additional lands, which, should
extra number to secure and harvest, in season, the surplus fruits
of their industry. The planter is very readily persuaded to make
this purchase so long as the seeming necessity shall re-occur;
and in this manner has he continued expanding his interests, increasing
the volume of his lands, and incurring debt for these and
for his slaves, at exorbitant prices, in order to the production of a
commodity, every additional bag of which, disparages its own
value, and depreciates the productive power, in an estimate of
profit, of the industry by which it is produced. It will not be
difficult, keeping this fact in mind as a sample of the profligacy
of western adventure—to account, in part, for the insolvency and
desperate condition of a people in possession of a country naturally
the most fertile of any in the world.
The crop of Col. Harris was one of this description. It far
exceeded the ability of his “force” to pick it in; but instead of
buying additional slaves for the purpose, he conceived the idea
of turning to account the lazy Choctaws by whom he was surrounded.
He proposed to hire them at a moderate compensation,
which was to be paid them weekly. The temptation of gain was
greedily caught at by these hungering outcasts, and, for a few
dollars, or an equivalent in goods, groceries, and so forth, some
forty-five of them were soon to be seen, as busy as might be, in
the prosecution of their unusual labours. The work was light
and easy—none could be more so—and though not such adepts
as the negro, the Indian women soon contrived to fill their bags
and baskets, in the course of the day. At dark, you might behold
them trudging forward under their burdens to the log-house,
where the proprietor stood ready to receive them. Here he
weighed their burdens, and gave them credit, nightly, for the
number of pounds which they each brought in. The night of my
arrival was Saturday, and the value of the whole week's labour
was then to be summed up and accounted for. This necessarily
made them all punctual in attendance, and nothing could be
more amusing than the interest which they severally displayed as
Col. Harris took out his memorandum book, and proceeded to
make his entries. Every eye was fixed upon him, and an old Indian,
who, though he did not work himself, represented the interests
behind this gentleman, and watched, with looks of growing sagacity,
every stroke that was made in this—to him—volume of
more than Egyptian mystery and hieroglyphics. Meanwhile, the
squaws stood about their baskets with looks expressive of similar
interest, but at the same time of laudable patience. The negroes in
the rear, were scarcely less moved by curiosity, though a contemptuous
grin might be seen on nearly all their countenances,
as they felt their superiority in nearly every physical and intellectual
respect, over the untutored savages. Many Indians were
present who neither had nor sought employment. Of those employed,
few or none were of middle age. But these were not
wanting to the assemblage. They might be seen prowling about
the rest—watchful of the concerns of their wives, sons and
daughters, with just that sort and degree of interest, which the
eagle may be supposed to feel, who, from his perch on the tree-top
or the rock, beholds the fish-hawk dart into the water in pursuit
of that prey which he meditates to rend from his jaws as soon
as he shall re-ascend into the air. Their interest was decidedly
greater than that of the poor labourer. It was in this manner that
these vultures appropriated the fruits of his industry, and there
was no remedy. They commonly interfered, the moment it was
declared what was due to the employée, to resolve the pay into a
certain number of gallons of whiskey; so many pounds of tobacco;
so much gunpowder and lead. If the employer, as was
the case with Col. Harris, refused to furnish them with whiskey,
they required him to pay in money. With this, they soon made
their way to one of those moral sinks, called a grog-shop, which
English civilization is always ready to plant, as its first, most familiar,
and most imposing standard, among the hills and forests
of the savage.
It may be supposed that this experiment upon the inflexibility
of Indian character and habit—for it was an experiment which
had been in trial only a single week—was a subject of no little
curiosity to me, as it would most probably be to almost every
person at all impressed with the humiliating moral and social deterioration
which has marked this fast decaying people. Could it
possibly be successful? Could a race, proud, sullen, incommunicative,
the hope of certain compensation, to renounce the wild satisfaction
afforded by their desultory and unconstrained modes of life?
Could they be beguiled for a season into employments which,
though they did not demand any severe labours, at least required
pains-taking, regular industry, and that habitual attention to daily
recurring tasks, which, to their roving nature, would make life
a most monotonous and unattractive possession? How far the
lightness of the labour and the simplicity of the employment, with
the corresponding recompense, would reconcile them to its tasks,
was the natural subject of my inquiry. On this head, my friend,
Col. Harris, could only conjecture and speculate like myself. His
experiment had been in progress but a few days. But our speculations
led us to very different conclusions. He was a person of
very ardent character, and sanguine, to the last degree, of the
success of his project. He had no question but that the Indian,
even at his present stage, might be brought under the influence
of a judicious civilization. We both agreed that the first process
was in procuring their labour—that this was the preliminary step,
without taking which, no other could be made; but how to bring
them to this was the question.
“They can be persuaded to this,” was his conclusion. “Money,
the popular god, is as potent with them as with our own people.
They will do any thing for money. You see these now in
the field. They have been there, and just as busy, and in the
same number, from Monday last.”
“How long will they continue?”
“As long as I can employ and pay them.”
“Impossible! They will soon be dissatisfied. The men will
consume and squander all the earnings of the females and the
feeble. The very motive of their industry, money, to which you
refer, will be lost to them after the first payment. I am convinced
that a savage people, not as yet familiar with the elements of
moral prudence, can only be brought to habitual labour, by the
one process of coercion.”
“We shall see. There is no coercion upon them now, yet they
work with wonderful regularity.”
“This week will end it. Savages are children in all but physical
in that position of responsibility, and teach them that law, without
the due employment of which, any attempt to educate a child,
must be an absurdity—you must teach them obedience. They
must he made to know, at the outset, that they know nothing—
that they must implicitly defer to the superior. This lesson they
will never learn, so long as they possess the power, at any moment,
to withdraw from his control.”
“Yet, even were this to be allowed, there must be a limit.
There must come a time when you will be required to emancipate
them. In what circumstances will you find that time? You
cannot keep them under this coercion always; when will you set
them free?”
“When they are fit for freedom.”
“How is that to be determined? Who shall decide their fitness?”
“Themselves; as in the case of the children of Israel. The
children of Israel went out from bondage as soon as their own
intellectual advancement had been such as to enable them to
produce from their own ranks a leader like Moses:—one whose
genius was equal to that of the people by whom they had been
educated, and sufficient for their own proper government thereafter.”
“But has not an experiment of this sort already been tried in
our country?”
“Nay, I think not—I know of none.”
“Yes: an Indian boy was taken in infancy from his parents,
carried to one of the Northern States, trained in all the learning
and habits of a Northern college and society, associated only with
whites, beheld no manners, and heard no morals, but those which
are known to Christian communities. His progress was satisfactory—he
learned rapidly—was considered something of a prodigy,
and graduated with eclât. He was then left, with the same option
as the rest enjoyed, to the choice of a profession. And what
was his choice? Do you not remember the beautiful little poem
of Freneau on this subject? He chose the buck-skin leggins, the
moccasins, bow and arrows, and the wide, wild forests, where his
people dwelt.”
“Freneau's poem tells the story somewhat differently. The
as you tell them. But what an experiment it was! How very
silly! They take a copper-coloured boy from his people, and carry
him, while yet an infant, to a remote region. Suppose, in order
that the experiment may be fairly tried, that they withhold
from him all knowledge of his origin. He is brought up precisely
as the other lads around him. But what is the first discovery
which he makes? That he is a copper-coloured boy—that he is,
alone, the only copper-coloured boy—that wherever he turns he
sees no likeness to himself. This begets his wonder, then his curiosity,
and finally his suspicion. He soon understands—for his
suspicion sharpens every faculty of observation—that he is an
object of experiment. Nay, the most cautious policy in the world
could never entirely keep this from a keen-thoughted urchin.
His fellow pupils teach him this. He sees that, to them, he is an
object of curiosity and study. They regard him, and he soon
regards himself, as a creature set apart, and separated, for some
peculiar purposes, from all the rest. A stern and singular sense
of individuality and isolation is thus forced upon him. He asks
—Am I, indeed, alone?—Who am I?—What am I?—These inquiries
naturally occasion others. Does he read? Books give
him the history of his race. Nay, his own story probably meets
his eye in the newspapers. He learns that he is descended from
a nation dwelling among the secret sources of the Susquehannah.
He pries in all corners for information. The more secret his
search, the more keenly does he pursue it. It becomes the great
passion of his mind. He learns that his people are fierce warriors
and famous hunters. He hears of their strifes with the
white man—their successful strifes, when the nation could send
forth its thousand bow-men, and the whites were few and feeble.
Perhaps, the young pale faces around him, speak of his people,
even now, as enemies; at least, as objects of suspicion, and perhaps
antipathy. All these things tend to elevate and idealize, in
his mind, the history of his people. He cherishes a sympathy, even
beyond the natural desires of the heart, for the perishing race
from which he feels himself, “like a limb, cast bleeding and
torn.” The curiosity to see his ancestry—the people of his tribe
and country—would be the most natural feeling of the white boy,
passion in the bosom of the Indian, whose very complexion
forces him away from any connection with the rest! My
idea of the experiment—if such a proceeding may be called an
experiment—is soon spoken. As a statement of facts, I see nothing
to provoke wonder. The result was the most natural thing
in the world, and a man of ordinary powers of reflection might
easily have predicted it, precisely as it happened. The only
wonder is, that there should be found, among persons of common
education and sagacity, men who should have undertaken such
an experiment, and fancied that they were busy in a moral and
philosophical problem.”
“Why, how would you have the experiment tried?”
“As it was tried upon the Hebrews, upon the Saxons—upon
every savage people who ever became civilized. It cannot be
tried upon an individual: it must be tried upon a nation—at least
upon a community, sustained by no succour from without—having
no forests or foreign shores upon which to turn their eyes for
sympathy—having no mode or hope of escape—under the full
control of an already civilized people—and sufficiently numerous
among themselves, to find sympathy, against those necessary
rigours which at first will seem oppressive, but which will be the
only hopeful process by which to enforce the work of improvement.
They must find this sympathy from beholding others, like
themselves in aspect, form, feature and condition, subject to the
same unusual restraints. In this contemplation they will be
content to pursue their labours under a restraint which they
cannot displace. But the natural law must be satisfied. There
must be opportunities yielded for the indulgence of the legitimate
passions. The young of both sexes among the subjected people,
must commune and form ties in obedience to the requisitions of
nature and according to their national customs. What, if the
Indian student, on whom the “experiment” was tried, had paid
his addresses to a white maiden! What a revulsion of the moral
and social sense would have followed his proposition in the mind
of the Saxon damsel;—and, were she to consent, what a commotion
in the community in which she lived. And this revulsion
and commotion would have been perfectly natural, and, accordingly,
between certain races of men, setting them apart, and requiring
them to be kept so, by subjecting them to the resistance and
rebuke of one of the most jealous sentinels of sense which we
possess—the eye. The prejudices of this sense, require that the
natural barriers should be maintained, and hence it becomes
necessary that the race in subjection, should be sufficiently numerous
to enable it to carry out the great object of every distinct
community, though, perchance, it may happen to be an inferior one.
In process of time, the beneficial and blessing effects of labour
would be felt and understood by the most ignorant and savage of
the race. Perhaps, not in one generation, or in two, but after the
fifth and seventh, as it is written, “of those who keep my commandments.”
They would soon discover that, though compelled
to toil, their toils neither enfeebled their strength nor impaired
their happiness—that, on the contrary, they still resulted in their
increasing strength, health, and comfort;—that their food, which
before was precarious, depending on the caprices of the seasons,
or the uncertainties of the chase, was now equally plentiful,
wholesome and certain. They would also perceive that, instead
of the sterility which is usually the destiny of all wandering
tribes, and one of the processes by which they perish—the fecundity
of their people was wonderfully increased. These discoveries—if
time be allowed to make them—would tacitly reconcile
them to that inferior position of their race, which is proper and
inevitable, so long as their intellectual inferiority shall continue.
And what would have been the effect upon our Indians—decidedly
the noblest race of aborigines that the world has ever known—if,
instead of buying their scalps at prices varying from five to fifty
pounds each, we had conquered and subjected them? Will any
one pretend to say that they would not have increased with the
restraints and enforced toils of our superior genius?—that they
would not, by this time, have formed a highly valuable and noble
integral in the formation of our national strength and character?
Perhaps their civilization would have been comparatively easy—
the Hebrews required four hundred years—the Britons and
Saxons, possibly,. half that time after the Norman Conquest.
Differing in colour from their conquerors, though I suspect, with a
of the Roman invasion under Julius Cæsar, the struggle between
the two races must have continued for some longer time, but the
union would have been finally effected, and then, as in the case
of the Englishman, we should have possessed a race, in their
progeny, which, in moral and physical structure, might have
challenged competition with the world.”
“Ay, but the difficulty would have been in the conquest.”
“True, that would have been the difficulty. The American
colonists were few in number and feeble in resource. The nations
from which they emerged put forth none of their strength in
sending them forth. Never were colonies so inadequately provided—so
completely left to themselves; and hence the peculiar
injustice and insolence of the subsequent exactions of the British,
by which they required their colonies to support their schemes of
aggrandizement and expenditure by submitting to extreme taxation.
Do you suppose, if the early colonists had been powerful,
that they would have ever deigned to treat for lands with the roving
hordes of savages whom they found on the continent? Never!
Their purchases and treaties were not for lands, but tolerance.
They bought permission to remain without molestation. The
amount professedly given for land, was simply a tribute paid to
the superior strength of the Indian, precisely as we paid it to Algiers
and the Musselmens, until we grew strong enough to whip
them into respect. If, instead of a few ships and a few hundred
men, timidly making their approaches along the shores of Manhattan,
Penobscot and Ocracocke, some famous leader, like
Æneas, had brought his entire people—suppose them to be the
persecuted Irish—what a wondrous difference would have taken
place. The Indians would have been subjected—would have
sunk into their proper position of humility and dependence; and,
by this time, might have united with their conquerors, producing,
perhaps, along the great ridge of the Alleghany, the very noblest
specimens of humanity, in mental and bodily stature, that the
world has ever witnessed. The Indians were taught to be insolent
by the fears and feebleness of the whites. They were flattered
by fine words, by rich presents, and abundance of deference,
until the ignorant savage, but a single degree above the
more than a day ahead—took airs upon himself, and became one
of the most conceited and arrogant lords in creation. The colonists
grew wiser as they grew stronger; but the evil was already
done, and we are reaping some of the bitter fruits, at this day, of
seed unwisely sown in that. It may be that we shall yet see the
experiment tried fairly.”
“Ah, indeed—where?”
“In Mexico—by the Texians. Let the vain, capricious, ignorant,
and dastardly wretches who now occupy and spoil the
face and fortunes of the former country, persevere in pressing
war upon those sturdy adventurers, and their doom is written. I
fear it may be the sword—I hope it may be the milder fate of
bondage and subjection. Such a fate would save, and raise them
finally to a far higher condition than they have ever before enjoyed.
Thirty thousand Texians, each with his horse and rifle,
would soon make themselves masters of the city of Montezuma,
and then may you see the experiment tried upon a scale sufficiently
extensive to make it a fair one. But your Indian student,
drawn from
“Susquehannah's farthest springs,”
picture as that of the prisoner described by Sterne. His chief
employment, day by day, would consist in notching upon his stick,
the undeviating record of his daily suffering. It would be to him
an experiment almost as full of torture, as that of the Scottish
Boot, the Spanish Thumb-screw—or any of those happy devices
of ancient days, for impressing pleasant principles upon the mind,
by impressing unpleasant feelings upon the thews, joints and sinews.
I wish that some one of our writers, familiar with mental analysis,
would make this poem of Freneau, the subject of a story. I think
it would yield admirable material. To develope the thoughts and
feelings of an Indian boy, taken from his people, ere yet he has
formed such a knowledge of them, or of others, as to have begun
to discuss or to compare their differences—follow him to a college
such as that of Princeton or Cambridge—watch him within its
walls—amid the crowd, but not of it—looking only within himself,
by active, sharp-witted lads of the Anglo-Norman race;
undergoing an hourly repeated series of moral spasms, as he hears
them wantonly or thoughtlessly dwell upon the wild and ignorant
people from whom he is chosen;—listening, though without
seeming to listen, to their crude speculations upon the great problem
which is to be solved only by seeing how well he can endure
his spasms, and what use he will make of his philosophy if
he survives it—then, when the toils of study and the tedious restraints
and troubles of prayer and recitation are got over, to behold
and describe the joy with which the happy wretch flings by
his fetters, when he is dismissed from those walls which have witnessed
his tortures—even supposing him to remain (which is very
unlikely,) until his course of study is pronounced to be complete!
With what curious pleasure will he stop in the shadow of the first
deep forest, to tear from his limbs those garments which make
him seem unlike his people! How quick will be the beating at
his heart as he endeavours to dispose about his shoulders the
blanket robe in the manner in which it is worn by the chief warrior
of his tribe! With what keen effort—should he have had
any previous knowledge of his kindred—will he seek to compel
his memory to restore every, the slightest, custom or peculiarity
which distinguished them when his eyes were first withdrawn
from the parental tribe; and how closely will he imitate their indomitable
pride and lofty, cold, superiority of look and gesture,
as, at evening, he enters the native hamlet, and takes his seat in
silence at the door of the Council House, waiting, without a word,
for the summons of the Elders!”
“Quite a picture. I think with you, that, in good hands, such
a subject would prove a very noble one.”
“But the story would not finish here. Supposing all this to
have taken place, just as we are told it did—supposing the boy to
have graduated at college, and to have flung away the distinction
—to have returned, as has been described, to his savage costume
—to the homes and habits of his people;—it is not so clear that he
will fling away all the lessons of wisdom, all the knowledge of facts,
which he will have acquired from the tuition of the superior race.
A natural instinct, which is above all lessons, must be complied
have subsided, which led him to defeat the more immediate object
of his social training—there will be a gradual resumption
of the educational influence in his mind, and his intellectual
habits will begin to exercise themselves anew. They will be
provoked necessarily to this exercise by what he beholds around
him. He will begin to perceive, in its true aspects, the wretchedness
of that hunter-state, which, surveyed at a distance, appeared
only the embodiment of stoical heroism and the most elevated
pride. He will see and lament the squalid poverty of his people;
which, his first lessons in civilization must have shown him, is
due only to the mode of life and pursuits in which they are engaged.
Their beastly intoxication will offend his tastes—their
superstition and ignorance—the circumscribed limits of their capacity
for judging of things and relations beyond the life of the
bird or beast of prey—will awaken in him a sense of shame
when he feels that they are his kindred. The insecurity of their
liberties will awaken his fears, for he will instantly see that the
great body of the people in every aboriginal nation are the veriest
slaves in the world; and the degrading exhibitions which they
make in their filth and drunkenness, which reduce the man to a
loathesomeness of aspect which is never reached by the vilest
beast which he hunts or scourges, will be beheld by the Indian
student in very lively contrast with all that has met his eyes
during that novitiate among the white sages, the processes
of which have been to him so humiliating and painful. His
memory reverts to that period with feelings of reconciliation.
The torture is over, and the remembrance of former pain, endured
with manly fortitude, is comparatively a pleasure. A necessary
reaction in his mind takes place; and, agreeably to the laws of
nature, what will, and what should follow, but that he will seek
to become the tutor and the reformer of his people? They themselves
will tacitly raise him to this position, for the man of the
forest will defer even to the negro who has been educated by the
white man. He will try to teach them habits of greater method
and industry—he will overthrow the altars of their false gods—
he will seek to bind the wandering tribes together under one head
and in one nation—he will prescribe uniform laws of government.
offend the pride of the self-conceited and the mulish—the priesthood
will be the first to declare against him—and he will be murdered
most probably, as was Romulus, and afterwards deified.
If he escapes this fate, he will yet, most likely, perish from mortification
under failure, or, in consequence of those mental strifes
which spring from that divided allegiance between the feelings
belonging to his savage, and those which have had their origin in
his christian schools—those natural strifes between the acquisitions
of civilization on the one hand, and those instinct tendencies
of the blood which distinguish his connection with the inferior
race. In this conflict, he will, at length, when the enthusiasm
of his youthful zeal has become chilled by frequent and unexpected
defeat, falter, and finally fail. But will there be nothing
done for his people? Who can say? I believe that no seed
falls without profit by the wayside. Even if the truth produces
no immediate fruits, it forms a moral manure which fertilizes the
otherwise barren heart, in preparation for the more favourable
season. The Indian student may fail, as his teachers did, in
realizing the object for which he has striven; and this sort of
failure, is, by the way, one of the most ordinary of human allotment.
The desires of man's heart, by an especial Providence,
that always wills him to act for the future, generally aim at
something far beyond his own powers of performance. But the
labour has not been taken in vain, in the progress of successive
ages, which has achieved even a small part of its legitimate purposes.
The Indian student has done for his people much more
than the white man achieves ordinarily for his generation, if he
has only secured to their use a single truth which they knew not
before—if he has overthrown only one of their false gods—if he
has smitten off the snaky head of only one of their superstitious
prejudices. If he has added to their fields of corn a field of millet,
he has induced one farther physical step towards moral improvement.
Nay, if there be no other result, the very deference
which they will have paid him, as the elèvé of the white man,
will be a something gained of no little importance, towards inducing
their more ready, though still tardy, adoption of the laws
and guidance of the superior race.”
| CHAPTER I. The wigwam and the cabin | |