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 fortitude the most rigorous test. But not merely is
the backwoodsman content to be alone, but in so 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 backwoods' 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 Caesar 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 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
excellence, 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 become
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:—