veracity, and I have myself seen one of them in pursuit of small birds.
“There is a small species of sparrow, that inhabits the forests near the settlements in this region, of a very interesting character. It matters not how intense the cold, it never deserts our woods, but remains hunting for insects in the cavities and among the branches of the trees with the most assiduous caution. They hatch their young in holes, which they perforate in decayed trees with their sharp bills. If a person happens to come near their nests during the time of incubation, it vociferates most strenuously against the intrusion, while its feathers expand, its eyes sparkle with rage, and it darts from branch to branch with the most astonishing rapidity. It is frequently to be seen near our houses in the winter, and in the most severe and inclement weather they will tend, by their chirping and gambols, to amuse and enliven our minds, while at the same time they afford us an entertaining study.
“Their wants are very small. If a piece of meat, weighing two or three pounds, is hung against some tree or fence near to our houses in the winter, we can have the pleasure of witnessing them merrily banqueting on it every day for several weeks.
“Sandpipers of the smaller kinds can swim on the surface of the water, dive beneath and remain under it with the same facility as the duck and other aquatic birds, although they do not make use of this property unless driven to extremity. This fact I can pledge my veracity on from personal observation. They need not use this power of swimming for the purpose of procuring food, as the substances on which they subsist are found on the margin of the water.”
CHAPTER LVIII.
Value of the equivalent territory granted to Michigan, by Congress, for the disputed Ohio boundary–Rapid improvement of Michigan–Allegan–Indian legend–Baptism and death of Kagoosh, a very aged chief at St. Mary’s–New system of writing Indian, proposed by Mr. Nash–Indian names for new towns–A Bishop’s notion of the reason for applying to Government for education funds under Indian treaties–Mr. Gallatin’s paper on the Indians–The temperance movement.
_1836. Oct. 27th_. I embarked this day, at Michilimackinack, with my family, for Detroit, to assume the duties of the superintendency at that point. Nothing, demanding notice, occurred on the passage; we reached our destination on the 30th. Political feeling still ran high respecting the terms of admission proposed by Congress to Michigan, and the convention, which recently met at Ann Arbor, refused their assent to these terms, under a mistaken view of the case, as I think, and the lead of rash and heady advisors; for there is no doubt in my mind that the large area of territory in the upper country, offered as an equivalent for the disputed boundary with Ohio, will be found of far greater value and importance to the State than the “seven mile strip” surrendered–an opinion, the grounds of which are discussed in my “Albion” letters. I expressed this opinion in the spring of the year, before the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, where I attended, on the invitation of Hon. Silas Wright, to impart information, which I was supposed to possess, on the geography and natural resources of the Lake Superior region.
_Nov. 2d/_. Mr. J.G. Palfrey, acting editor of the _N.A. Review_, invites me to become a contributor to the pages of that standard periodical.
_8th_. No territory in the Union has required so long, so very long a time for its appreciation, as Michigan, and now, that emigration is freely coming in, it is difficult to estimate the very rapid improvement of places. An instance of the kind occurs in the details of a letter which I have just received. “It may not be amiss,” says Mr. A.L. Ely, “to give you a short description of the growth of Allegan. The site was bought at government prices, in the spring of 1833, by two gentlemen now living at Bronson, namely, Anthony Cooly and Stephen Vickery. In November of that year, my father, who was then in Michigan looking for a location, both for him and myself, purchased for me one-third of the property, there being in all about 452 acres of land, for which he paid $1750. In June, 1834, we sent one family from Rochester, who built two log houses, and grubbed the ground for a mill race. In October, 1834, Mr. Sidney Ketchum, as agent for some gentlemen in Boston, purchased all the interests in the property, except those held by me, for something under $5,000.
“The winter of ’34 and ’35 was spent in making roads, and getting provisions together, and preparing to commence improvements. In April, 1835, we commenced the dam and canal for a double saw mill, which were completed that fall. In May, our plat was laid out in lots. In June, we commenced selling them. We have sold up to this date 175 lots. In June, 1835, the second family came into the place. In November, the first merchant commenced selling goods. In December, we commenced the erection of a small building for a church; it was completed in May, 1836, and a few days after, accidentally burnt down.
“There are now (Nov. 1836) in Allegan three stores, two large taverns, a cupola furnace, a chairmaker’s shop, two cabinet shops, two blacksmiths, a shoemaker’s shop, a tailor’s shop, a school house 20 by 40, costing $1200; about 40 frame buildings, and over 500 people.”
_10th_. I have for many years been collecting from the Indian lodges a species of oral fictitious legends, which attest in the race no little power of imagination; and certainly exhibit them in a different light from any in which they have been heretofore viewed. The Rev. Mr. McMurray, of St. Mary’s, transmits me a story of this kind, obtained some two months ago by his wife (who is a descendant, by the mother’s side, of Chippewa parents) from one of the natives. This tale impressed me as worthy of being preserved. I have applied to it, from one of its leading traits, the name of “The Enchanted Moccasons.” “I have written the story,” he remarks, “as near the language in which Charlotte repeated it as possible, leaving you the task to clothe it with such garb as may suit those which you have already collected, or as the substance will merit.”
_Sept. 7th_. Mr. McMurray (who is an Episcopal Missionary at St. Mary’s) announces the death of one of the principal and most aged chiefs of the Odjibwas, in that quarter of the country–Kagcosh. “He bade adieu to this world of trouble last evening at sunset. I visited him about two weeks since, and conversed with him on religious subjects, to which he gave the utmost attention, and on that occasion requested me to baptize him. I told him that I was willing to do so whenever I could, without leaving a doubt in my mind as to his preparedness for the rite. I, however, promised, if his mind did not change, to administer it soon. He sent for me the day before he died, and requested me again, without delay, to baptize him, which I did, and have every reason to believe that he understood and felt the necessity of it.”
This venerable chief must have been about ninety years of age. His head was white. He was about six feet two inches in height, lithe of form, and long featured, with a grave countenance, and cranial developments of decided intellectuality. He was of the Crane totem, the reigning family of that place, and the last survivor of seven brothers, of whom Shingabowossin, who died in the fall of 1828, was noted as the most distinguished, and as a good speaker. He was entitled to $500, under the treaty of 28th March, as one of the first class chiefs of his nation.
_Nov. 2d_. Rev. Mr. Nash presented me letters as a missionary to the Chippewas. He had prepared a new set of characters by which to write that language, and presented me a copy of it. Every one is not a Cadmus, and the want of success which has, therefore, attended the efforts at new systems of signs to express sounds, should teach men that it is easier, and there are more practical advantages attending the use of an old and well-known system, like that of the English alphabet, than a new and unknown system, however ingenious and exact. The misfortune is that all attempts of this sort, like new systems of notation with the Roman alphabet, are designed rather to show that their authors are inventive and exact, than to benefit the Indian race. For if an Indian be taught by these systems to read, yet he can read nothing but books prepared for him by this system; and the whole body of English literature, history, and poetry, is a dead letter to him. Above all, he cannot read the English version of the Bible.
_23d_. A friend asked me to furnish him an aboriginal name for a new town. I gave him the choice of several. He selected Algonac. In this word the particle _ac_, is taken from _ace_, land or earth; and its prefixed dissyllable _Algon_, from the word Algonquin. This system, by which a part of a word is made to stand for, and carry the meaning of a whole word, is common to Indian compound substantives. Thus _Wa-we-a-tun-ong_, the Algonquin name for Detroit, is made up from the term _wa-we_, a roundabout course, _atun_ a channel, and _ong_, locality. Our geographical terminology might be greatly mended by this system. At least repetition, by some such attention to-our geographical names, to the liability of misdirecting letters, might be, to a great extent, avoided.
_24th_. Mr. Bishop Rese, of the Catholic Church, called to make some inquiry respecting a provision in the late treaty, designed to benefit his church. I had traveled on the lake with the Bishop. He is a short, club nosed, smiling man, of a quizzical physiognomy. He asked me what I supposed was the cause of the press for the treaty appropriations for educations, by Protestant missions. I told him that I supposed the conversion of the souls of the Indians constituted the object of these applications. “Poh! poh!” said he, “it is the money itself.”
_Dec 19th_. Mr. Gallatin’s _Synopsis of the Indian Tribes_ is forwarded to me for a review. “The publication,” says Mr. Palfrey, “of the second volume of _Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society_ was delayed considerably beyond the time appointed. It was only a week ago that a copy reached me. I transmit it by mail. Should it not reach you within a week after the receipt of this, will you have the goodness to inform me, and I will forthwith let another copy try its fortune.”
_23d_. The temperance movement has excited the community of Detroit this season, as a subject essential to the cause of sound morals. Its importance is undeniable on all hands, but there is always a tendency in new measures of reform, to make the method insisted on a sort of moral panacea, capable of doing all things, to the no little danger of setting up a standard higher than that of the Decalogue itself. In the midst of this tendency to ultraism, the least particle of conservative opinion would be seized upon by its leaders as the want of a thorough acquiescence and heartiness in the cause. Rev. Mr. Cleaveland transmits me a resolution of the “Total Abstinence City Temperance Society,” for an address to be delivered in one week. “Do not, do not, do not,” he remarks, “say us nay.”
I determined to devote two or three winter evenings to gratify this desire.
CHAPTER LIX.
Difficulties resulting from a false impression of the Indian character–Treaty with the Saginaws–Ottawas of Grand River establish themselves in a colony in Barry County–Payments to the Ottawas of Maumee, Ohio–Temperance–Assassination of young Aitkin by an Indian at Leech Lake–Mackinack mission abandoned–Wyandots complain of a trespass from a mill-dam–Mohegans of Green Bay apply for aid on their way to visit Stockbridge, Mass.–Mohegan traditions–Historical Society–Programme of a tour in the East–Parental disobedience–Indian treaties–Dr. Warren’s Collection of Crania–Hebrew language–Geology–“Goods offer”–Mrs. Jameson–Mastodon’s tooth in Michigan–Captain Marryatt–The Icelandic language–Munsees–Speech of Little Bear Skin chief, or Mu-konsewyan.
OFFICE INDIAN AFFAIRS, DETROIT.
_1837. Jan. 5th_. Difficulties are reported as existing between a party of Indians (of about fifteen souls) of Bobish, and the settlers of Coldwater, Branch county, (township 8, S. range, 5 west.) About forty families have settled there within the last fall and summer. The Indians, who have been in the habit of making sugar and hunting on the public lands, are disposed not to relinquish these privileges, probably not understanding fully their right. Mutual threats have passed, which are repeated by Thomas G. Holden, who requests the interposition of the Department.
Settlers generally move into the new districts with strong prejudices against the Indians, whom they regard, mistakingly, as thirsting for blood and plunder. It only requires a little conciliation, and proper explanations, as in this case, to induce them at once to adopt the proper course.
_14th_. Articles of a new treaty were this day signed at my office, by the Saginaw chiefs, for the sale of all their reservations in Michigan. These reservations were made under the treaty of September 24th, 1819. They were ceded by them at Washington, in the spring of 1836, but the terms, and particularly the advance of money stipulated to be made, were deemed too liberal by the Senate, and, in consequence, the treaty was rejected. The object is now attained in a manner which, it is hoped, will prove satisfactory. By this, as the former treaty, this tribe are allowed the entire proceeds of the sale of their lands.
_20th_. Rev. Mr. Slater reports that the Ottawas of Grand River, who were parties to the treaty of 28th of March, have purchased lands in Barry county for the $6,400 allowed by the ninth article of the treaty, in trust for Chiminonoquet; and that a mission has been established on the lands purchased, which is called Ottawa Colony. Difficulties have occurred with pre-emption claimants in the same lands.
_31st_. Captain Simonton reports the payment of the annuity, amounting to $1,700, due to the Ottawas of Maumee, Ohio. The entire number of persons paid by him was four hundred and thirty-three, dividing a fraction under $4 per soul. In these payments old and young fare alike. Henry Connor, Esq., the interpreter present, confirms the report of the equal division, _per capita_, among the Indians, and the satisfaction which attended the payment, on their part.
_Feb. 1st_. Delivered an address at the Presbyterian Church, before a crowded audience, on the temperance movement, showing that the whole question to be decided was, in which class of moderate drinkers men elected themselves to be arranged, and that ardent spirits, as a beverage, were wholly unnecessary to a healthy constitution.
Transmitted to Mr. Palfrey a review of Mr. Gallatin’s “Synopsis of the Indian Tribes of America.”
_Feb. 1st_. Mr. William A. Aitkin writes from Sandy Lake: “Since I left you at St. Peter’s I have had a severe trial to go through. I came up by Swan River, but heard nothing there of the melancholy event which had taken place during my absence at Upper Red Cedar Lake. My eldest son had been placed at that place last fall, in charge of that post. You saw him, I believe, last summer; he was in charge of Leech Lake when you were at that place. He was a young man of twenty-two years of age, of a very amiable temper, humane and brave, possessed of the most unbounded obedience to my will, and of the most filial affection for my person. This, my son, was murdered in the most atrocious manner by a bloody monster of an Indian. My poor boy had arrived the evening previous to the bloody act, from a voyage to Red Lake. Early the next morning he sent off all the men he had to Lake Winnipeck, excepting one Frenchman, to bring up some things which he had left there in the fall. A short time after his men had gone, he sent the remaining man to bring some water from the river; the man returned into the house immediately, and told him an Indian had broken open the store, and was in it. He went very deliberately to the store, took hold of the villain, who tried to strike him with his tomahawk, dragged him out of the store and disarmed him of his axe, threw him on the ground, and then let him go–and was turned round in the act of locking the store-door. The villain stepped behind the door, where he had hid his gun, came on him unawares and shot him dead, without the least previous provocation whatever on the part of my poor lost boy. When arrived, I found the feelings of every one prepared for vengeance. I immediately, without one moment’s loss of time, proceeded to Leech Lake. In a moment there were twenty half-breeds gathered round, with Francis Brunette at their head, full-armed, ready to execute any commands that I should give them. We went immediately to the camp where the villain was, beyond Red Cedar Lake, determined to cut off the whole band if they should raise a finger in his defence. Our mutual friend, Mr. Boutwell, joined the party, with his musket on his shoulder, as a man and a Christian, for he knew it was a righteous cause, and that the arm of God was with him. We arrived on the wretches unawares, disarmed the band, and dragged the monster from his lodge. I would have put the villain to death in the midst of his relations, but Mr. Boutwell advised it would be better to take him where he might be made an example of. The monster escaped from us two days after we had taken him, but my half-breeds pursued him for six days and brought him back, and he is now on his way to St. Peter’s in irons, under a strong guard. My dear friend, I cannot express to you the anguish of my heart at this present moment.
“The Indians of all this department have behaved like villains during my absence, particularly the Indians of Leech Lake, committing the greatest depredations on our people, and would surely have murdered them if they had shown the least disposition to resist their aggravations. You will excuse me from giving you any other news at present. I’m not in a state of mind to do it.”
_Feb. 3d_. Rev. David Green, of Boston, communicates the determination of the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to break up and abandon the school and mission at Mackinack. This decision I have long feared, and cannot but deplore. The school is large, and the education of many of the pupils is such that in a few years they would make useful practicable men and women, and carry a Christian influence over a wide circle. By dispersing them now the labor is to some extent lost.
_6th_. Received, a vote of thanks of the Detroit Total Abstinence Society, for my temperance address of the 1st instant, which is courteously called “elegant and appropriate.” So, ho!
_22d_. A party of Wyandots from the River Huron, of Michigan, visited the office. They complain that trespasses are committed by settlers on the lands reserved to them. The trespasses arise from the construction of mill-dams, by which their grounds are overflowed. They asked whether they hold the reservation for fifty years or otherwise. I replied that they hold them, by the terms of the treaty, as long as they shall have any posterity to live on the lands. They only escheat to the United States in failure of this. But that I would send an agent to inquire into the justice of their complaint, and to redress it.
_24th_. Robert Kankapot presents himself with about twenty followers. He is a Stockbridge Indian of Green Bay, Wisconsin, on his way to the East. He is short of funds, and asks for relief. No annuity or other funds are payable, at this office, to this tribe. I deemed his plea, however, a reasonable one, and loaned him personally one hundred dollars.
I detained him with some historical questions. He says he is sixty-four years of age, that he was born in Stockbridge, on the head of the Housatonic River, in Massachusetts. From this town they take their present name. They are, however, the descendants of the ancient Mohegans, who lived on the sea coast and in the Hudson Valley. They were instructed by the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, the eminent theologian, who was afterwards president of Princeton College. Their first migration was into New Stockbridge, in Oneida County, New York, where the Oneida tribe assigned them lands. This was about the era of the American Revolution. They next went, about 1822, to Fox River of Green Bay, where they now reside. Their oldest chief, at that point, is Metoxon, who is now sixty-nine.
He says his remote ancestry were from Long Island (Metoacs), and that Montauk means great sea island. (This does not appear probable philologically.) He says the opposite coast, across the East River, was called _Monhautonuk_. He afterwards, the next day, said that Long Island was called _Paum-nuk-kah-huk._
_March 1st_. To a friend abroad I wrote: “I have written during the winter an article on Mr. Gallatin’s recently published paper on the Indian languages, entitled _A Synopsis of the Indian Tribes_, which is published by the American Antiquarian Society. It was with great reluctance that I took up the subject, and when I did, I have been so complete a fact hunter all my life, that I found it as difficult to lay it down. The result is probably an article too long for ninety-nine readers out of a hundred, and too short for the hundredth man.”
_8th_. Mr. Palfrey acknowledges the safe arrival of my article for the _North American Review_.
The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions decline $6000 for the abandoned missionary house at Mackinack, offered under the view of its being converted into a dormitory for receiving Indian visitors at that point under the provisions of the treaty of 1836.
_17th_. Received a letter of thanks from old Zachariah Chusco, the converted Jos-sa-keed, for kindness.
_23d_ Received a commission from Gov. Mason, appointing me a regent of the University of Michigan.
_22d_. The Historical Society of Michigan hold their annual meeting at my office. In the election for officers I was honored by being selected its President. A deep interest in historical letters had been manifested by this institution since its organization in 1828, particularly in the history of the aboriginal tribes, and means have been put on foot for the collection of facts. To these, the recent and extraordinary settlement of the country by emigration from the Bast, has added a new branch of inquiry, respecting town, county, and neighborhood settlements. Much of this is held in the memory of old persons, and will be lost if not gleaned up and preserved in the shape of narratives. Resolutions for this purpose were adopted, and an appeal made to the legislature to facilitate the collection of pamphlets and printed documents. Men live so rapidly now that few think of posterity; society hastens at a horse’s pace, and we pass over so large a surface in so short a time, that the historian and antiquarian will stand aghast, in a few years, and exclaim “would that more minute facts were within our reach!”
_23d_. The Department at Washington instructs me to examine additional and unsatisfied claims arising under the 5th article of the treaty of March 28th, 1836, and, after submitting them to the Indians, to report them for payment.
_28th_. Very different are the diurnal scenes enacted from those which passed before my eyes at the ice-closed post of Mackinack last winter. Yet in one respect they are entitled to have a similar effect on my mind; it is in the craving that exists to fill the intervals of business with some moral and intellectual occupation that may tend to relieve it of the tedium of long periods of leisure. When a visitor is dismissed, or a transaction is settled, and the door closes on a man habituated to mental labor, the ever-ready inquiry is, What next? To sit still–to do nothing absolutely but to turn over the thoughts of other men, though this be a privilege, is not ultimate happiness. There is still a void, which the desire to be remembered, or something else, must fill.
_31st_. Gen. Cass writes from Paris that he is on the eve of setting out, with his family, for the Levant, to embark on a tour to the East, to visit the ancient seats of oriental power. “We proceed directly to Toulon, where we shall embark on board the frigate Constitution. From thence we touch at Leghorn, Civita Vecchia, Naples, and Sicily, and then proceed to Alexandria. After seeing Cairo, the Pyramids, Memphis, and, I hope, the Red Sea, we shall proceed to Palestine, look at Jerusalem, see the Dead Sea, and other interesting places of Holy Writ, pass by and touch at Tyre and Sidon, land at Beyrout, and visit Damascus and Baalbec, and probably Palmyra; touch at Smyrna, proceed to Constantinople and the Black Sea, and then to Greece, &c.; after that to the islands of the Archipelago, then up the Adriatic to Venice and Trieste, and thence return to this place. So, you see, here is the programme of a pretty good expedition, certainly a very interesting one.”
_April 6th_. By letters received from Albany, a singular chapter of the inscrutable course and awards of Providence for parental disobedience and youthful deception is revealed. Alfredus, who departed from my office in Detroit early in March last, to receive a warrant as a cadet at West Point, has not appeared among his friends. He was a young man of good mind, figure, and address, and would doubtless have justified the judgment of his friends in giving him a military education. His father had been one of the patriots of 1776, and served on the memorable field of Saratoga. But the young man was smitten with the romance of going to Texas and joining the ranks of that country, striving for a rank among nations. This secret wish he carefully concealed from me, and, setting out with the view of returning to his father’s roof, and solacing his age by entering the military academy, he secretly took the stage to Columbus, Ohio. Thence he pushed his way to New Orleans and Galveston. The next intelligence received of him, was a careful measurement of his length, by unknown hands, and the statement that, in ascending the Brazos, he had taken the fever and died.
_10th_. Issued notice to claimants for Indian debts, under the 5th article of the treaty of March 28th, 1886; that additional claims would be considered, and that such claims, with the evidence in support of them, must be produced previous to the first of June next.
_26th_. Received notice of my election as a corresponding member of the Hartford Natural History Society, Connecticut.
I have filled the pauses of official duty, during the season, by preparing for the press the oral legends which have been gleaned from the Indians since my residence at Sault St. Marie, in the basin of Lake Superior, and at Michilimackinack, under the name of _Algic Researches_, vol. i.
_10th_. By the treaty of 9th May, 1836, with the Swan Creek and Black River Chippewas, the United States agree to furnish them thirteen sections of land West, in lieu of the cessions relinquished in Michigan, besides accounting to them for the nett proceeds of the land ceded. Measures were now taken to induce them to send delegates to the Indian territory west of the Missouri, to locate this tract, and an agent was appointed to accompany them.
_16th_. Received a copy of my article on Indian languages.
_17th_. The Saginaws, by the cession of the 14th of January, agreed to leave Michigan, and accept a location elsewhere; and they were now urged to send delegates to the head waters of the Osage River, where they can be provided with fine lands, and placed in juxtaposition to cognate tribes.
_29th_. Received a letter from the editor of the “Knickerbocker.” [79]
[Footnote 79: Birchen Canoe: Song of the Ship.]
_May 18th_. Received notice of my election as one of the vice presidents of the American Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, at New York.
_23d_. William Ward, Esq., of the War Office, Washington, D.C., writes: “I have received two communications from Dr. Warren, of Boston, on the subject of a collection of crania and bones of the aborigines. He is desirous of procuring specimens from the different tribes, and from the mounds in the different sections of the country.
“Trusting, in a great measure, to your readiness to co-operate in every effort to advance the cause of science, I have promised him to use the means my connection with the office might give me to forward his views. His high reputation must be known to you, and I am sure you will aid him to complete a collection which, I understand, he has been occupied many years in making.
“I gather from his letters, that he wishes to procure a few complete skeletons, and a number of crania, and that it will be desirable to have as much as possible of the history of each head.”
_June 4th_. Michilimackinack. Received a copy of _Bush’s Grammar of the Hebrew Language_, and commenced comparing the Indian tongues with it. This language has twenty-two letters. In order to impress the elements upon my own mind, as well as improve theirs, I commenced teaching my children the language, just keeping ahead of them, and hearing their recitations every morning.
_26th_. Receive a letter of introduction from Governor Mason, by Mr. Massingberd, of England, an intelligent and estimable traveler in America.
_27th_. Dr. Edward Spring, son of the Rev. Gardiner Spring, of New York, visits the island with the view of a temporary practice.
_July 1st_. A copy of _Stuart’s Hebrew Grammar_ reached me this morning. I have a special motive in making myself acquainted with this ancient, and, as I find, simple tongue. The course of my investigation of the Algonquin language, has shown me the want of the means of enlarged comparison, which I could not institute without it.
_6th_. Major Whiting writes: “I have lately begun _Buckland’s Treatise,_ and a noble work it is; the subject he treats just in that way which will communicate the greatest amount of information to the reading public. That part which explains the bearing of the Scriptures on geology, will have a most salutary effect on the public mind. It was all important that such explanations should be given. Many good minds have been startled, and approached geology with averted eyes, apprehending that it ran counter to the great truths of the Bible. Viewed as the Bible generally has been, geological facts are likely to disturb the moral world. Either they must be disbelieved, or that literal interpretation of Genesis, so long received, must be abandoned. To make this abandonment, without having satisfactory reasons for it, would have risked much, that never should be put in jeopardy. It had come to this, geology must be sealed up and anathematized, or it must be reconciled with the Sacred Writ. Buckland has undoubtedly done the latter; and he has thus conferred an inestimable blessing on mankind.”
_12th_. A remarkable land claim, upon the Indians, who are parties to the late treaty of 1836, came before me. This consisted of a grant given by the Chippewas in 1760, to Major Robert Rodgers, of anti-revolutionary fame, to a valuable part of the upper region on Lake Superior. The present heir is James Chaloner Alabaster, who says the deed, of which a copy is furnished, has been in the possession of his family in England about sixty years. It appears to have been executed in due form for a consideration. It is prior to the proclamation of George III. interdicting grants.
_19th_. A band of Chippewas, originally hailing from Grand Island, in Lake Superior, but now living on the extreme northern head of Green Bay, visited the office. It embraced the eldest son of the late Oshawn Epenaysee (South Bird), who died, in the first class of chiefs, at Grand Island last fall. His name is Ado-wa-wa-e-go (something of an inanimate kind beating about in the water on shore). They requested that he might be recognized as their chief. On examination this request was acceded to, and I invested him with a flag.
_24th_. The department submitted a proposition to the Indians, to take half their annuities under the treaty of 1836, at the approaching payments, in goods, and half in silver. If the goods were declined, they were requested to receive the half annuity in silver, with the other annuities provided by the treaty, in kind, and to wait for the other moiety till the next year.
I submitted the offer to a full council of the chiefs and warriors this day. They debated it fully. A delegation visited the goods, which were shown by an agent. They decline receiving them, but agree to receive the half annuity in coin, and wait, as requested, for the other half till the next payment. This proposition was called the “goods offer,” and was much distorted by the public-press. I was blamed for having carried the offer into effect, whereas it was declined, and the half annuity in silver accepted, and the credit asked for, given for the rest.
_25th_. Two bands who had not united in this decision, namely, the bands of Point St. Ignace and Chenos, came in, by their chiefs, and yielded their assent to the arrangement of yesterday. Thus the consent became unanimous on the part of the Indians.
A notification, by a special messenger, to the Grand River Ottawas, is dispatched to attend the payments at this place on the 1st of September, and to signify their assent or dissent to the proposed arrangement. Rix Robinson and Louis Campeau, Esqrs., of that valley, and the Rev. Leonard Slater, of Barry, are requested to give this notice publicity.
_26th_. Mrs. Jameson embarks in an open boat for Sault Ste. Marie, accompanied by Mrs. Schoolcraft, after having spent a short time as a most intelligent and agreeable inmate under our roof. This lady, respecting whom I had received letters from my brother-in-law Mr. McMurray, a clergyman of Canada West, evinced a most familiar knowledge of artistic life and society in England and Germany. Her acquaintance with Goethe, and other distinguished writers, gave a life and piquancy to her conversation and anecdotes, which made us cherish her society the more. She is, herself, an eminent landscape painter, or rather sketcher in crayon, and had her portfolio ever in hand. She did not hesitate freely to walk out to prominent points, of which the island has many, to complete her sketches. This freedom from restraint in her motions, was an agreeable trait in a person of her literary tastes and abilities. She took a very lively interest in the Indian race, and their manners and customs, doubtless with views of benevolence for them as a peculiar race of man, but also as a fine subject of artistic observation. Notwithstanding her strong author-like traits and peculiarities, we thought her a woman of hearty and warm affections and attachments; the want of which, in her friends, we think she would exquisitely feel.
Mrs. Jameson several times came into the office and heard the Indians speaking. She also stepped out on the piazza and saw the wild Indians dancing; she evidently looked on with the eye of a Claude Lorraine or Michael Angelo.
_27th_. The term _ego_, added to an active Indian verb, renders it passive. I have given an example of this before in the case of a man’s name. Here is another: The verb _to carry_ is Be-moan in the Algonquin. By the pronominal prefix _Nim_, we have the sense _I carry_. By adding to the latter the suffix _ego_, the action is reflected and this sense is rendered passive.
_29th_. A treaty is concluded this day at Fort Snelling, St. Peter’s, between Governor H. Dodge and the Chippewa Indians, by which they cede a large and important tract to the United States.
_Aug. 1st_. A discovery of a tooth of the Mastodon has lately been made in the bed of the Papaw River, in Berrian County, Michigan. It is about six inches long and three broad. The enamel is nearly perfect, and that part of the tooth which was covered by it nearly whole, while the portion which must have been inserted in the socket is mostly broken off. The diluvian soil of the Michigan Peninsula is thus added to the wide area of the _mastodonic period_.
_2d_. Capt. Marryatt came up in the steamer of last night. A friend writes: “He is one of Smollett’s sea captains—much more of the Trunnion than one would have expected to find in a literary man. Stick Mackinack into him, with all its _rock-osities._ He is not much disposed to the _admirari_ without the _nil_–affects little enthusiasm about anything, and perhaps feels as little.” He turned out here a perfect sea urchin, ugly, rough, ill-mannered, and conceited beyond all bounds. Solomon says, “answer not a fool according to his folly,” so I paid him all attention, drove him over the island in my carriage, and rigged him out with my _canoe-elege_ to go to St. Mary’s.
_3d_. George Tucker, Professor in the University of Virginia, came up in the last steamer. I hasted, while it stayed, to drive him out and show off the curiosities of the island to the best advantage.
_5th_. Mrs. Schoolcraft writes from the _Sault_, that Mrs. Jameson and the children suffered much on the trip to that place from mosquitoes, but by dint of a douceur of five dollars extra to the men, which Mrs. Jameson made to the crew, they rowed all night, from Sailor’s encampment, and reached the Sault at 6 o’clock in the morning. “I feel delighted,” she says, “at my having come with Mrs. Jameson, as I found that she did not know how to get along at all at all. Mr. McMurray and family and Mrs. Jameson started off on Tuesday morning for Manitouline with a fair wind and fair day, and I think they have had a fine voyage down. Poor Mrs. Jameson cried heartily when she parted with me and my children; she is indeed a woman in a thousand. While here, George came down the rapids with her in fine style and spirits. She insisted on being baptized and named in Indian, after her _sail_ down the falls. We named her Was-sa-je-wun-e-qua (Woman of the Bright Stream), with which she was mightily pleased.”
_9th_. Delegates from the Saginaws, from the Swan Creek and Black Chippewas of Lower Michigan, stop, on their way, to explore a new location west, in charge of a special exploring agent.
Mr. Ord, recently appointed a sub-agent in this superintendency, reaches the island. He is the second person I have known who has made the names of his children an object of singularity. Mr. Stickney, who figured prominently in the Toledo War, called his male children One, Two, &c. Mr. Ord has not evidently differed in this respect from general custom, for the same reason, namely, an objection to _Christian_ prejudice for John and James, or Aaron and Moses. He has simply given them Latin nominatives, from the mere love he has apparently for that tongue. I believe he was formerly a Georgetown professor.
Capt. Marryatt embarked on board the steamer Michigan, on his return from the island, after having spent several days in a social visit, including a trip to the Sault, in company with Mr. Lay, of Batavia. While here, I saw a good deal of the novelist. His manners and style of conversation appeared to be those of a sailor, and such as we should look for in his own Peter Simple. Temperance and religion, if not morality, were to him mere cant words, and whether he was observed, either before dinner or after dinner–in the parlor or out of it–his words and manners were anything but those of a quiet, modest, English gentleman.
I drove Mr. Lay and himself out one day after dinner to see the curiosities of the island. He would insist walking over the arched rock. “It is a fearful and dizzy height.” When on the top he stumbled. My heart was in my throat; I thought he would have been hurled to the rocks below and dashed to a thousand pieces; but, like a true sailor, he crouched down, as if on a yardarm, and again arose and completed his perilous walk.
We spoke of railroads. He said they were not built permanently in this country, and attributed the fault to our excessive go-aheadiveness. Mr. Lay: “True; but if we expended the sums you do on such works, they could not be built at all. They answer a present purpose, and we can afford to renew them in a few years from their own profits.”
The captain’s knowledge of natural history was not precise. He aimed to be knowing when it was difficult to conceal ignorance. He called some well-characterized species of _septaria_ in my cabinet _pudding-stone,_ beautiful specimens of limpid hexagonal crystals of quartz, _common quartz_, &c.
Mr. George P. Marsh, of Vermont, brings me a letter of introduction. This gentleman has the quiet easy air of a man who has seen the world. His fine taste and acquirements have procured him a wide reputation. His translation of _Rusk’s Icelandic Grammar_ is a scholar-like performance, and every way indicative of the propensities of his mind for philological studies.
It is curious to observe, in this language, the roots of many English words, and it denotes through what lengths of mutations of history the stock words of a generic language may be traced. Lond, skip, flaska, sumar, hamar, ketill, dal, are clearly the radices respectively of land, ship, flask, summer, hammer, kettle, dale. This property of the endurance of orthographical forms gives one a definite illustration of the importance of language on history.
_12th_. A large party of Munsees and Delawares from the River Thames, in Upper Canada, reach the harbor in a vessel bound for Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Rev. Mr. Vogel, in whose charge they are, lands and visits the office with some of the principal men. He says that most of them have been known as “Christian Indians.” That the number recognized by this title on the Thames is 282, of whom 50 have been excommunicated. Of these Christian Indians, 84 have been left on the Thames, in charge of the Rev. Abraham Lukenbach.
Mr. Vogel has in his company 202 persons, but says that others, rendering their number 260 souls inclusive, are on their way by land. Thirteen of this party, with White Eyes, son of White Eyes of frontier war celebrity, came on the 9th instant, and have been lodged in the public dormitory. They are on their way, in the first place, to the Stockbridges, at Green Bay, and, finally, to their kindred, the Delawares, on the Kanzas.
_13th_. Early one morning I was agreeably surprised by the arrival of Mrs. Jameson, whom I had previously expected to spend some time with me, and found her a most agreeable, refined and intelligent guest, with none of the supercilious and conceited airs, which I had noticed in some of her traveling countrywomen of the class of authors.
_15th_. Mukonsiwyan, a Chippewa chief of the first class, calls, on his way back from a visit to the British annual meeting of the Indians, to get their subsidies at the Manitouline Islands. He was evidently piqued in not having received as much as he expected. He attempted to throw dust in the agent’s eyes by the following speech:–
“My father, I wish to warm myself by your fire. I have tried to warm myself by the British fire, but I could not, although I sat close by. They put on _green poplar_, which would throw out no heat. _This_ is the place where hard wood grows,[80] and I expect to be warmed by its heat.”
[Footnote 80: The island of Mackinack was formerly covered with a forest of rock-maple, ironwood, &c., and much of it is still characterized by these species.]
It was said that an _inferior_ quality of blankets had been issued at Manitouline. This was the _green poplar_. No guns and no kettles were given. This is the coldness and want of heat, although sitting close by the fire. On the contrary, large and extraordinary presents, and of the best quality, were issued here last season at the execution of the treaty of 1836. This is the _hard wood_ and _good heat_ thrown out to all. The figure derived appositeness from the prevalence of such species on the island.
CHAPTER LX.
Notions of foreigners about America–Mrs. Jameson–Appraisements of Indian property–Le Jeune’s early publication on the Iroquois–Troops for Florida–A question of Indian genealogy–Annuity payments–Indians present a claim of salvage–Death of the Prophet Chusco–Indian sufferings–Gen. Dodge’s treaty–Additional debt claims–Gazetteer of Michigan–Stone’s Life of Brant–University of Michigan–Christian Keepsake–Indian etymology–Small-pox breaks out on the Missouri–Missionary operation in the north-west–Treaty of Flint River with the Saginaws.
1837. _Aug. 16th_. A Mr. Nathan, an English traveler, of quiet and pleasing manners, was introduced. He had been to St. Mary’s Falls, and to the magnificent entrance into Lake Superior, of whose fine scenery he spoke in terms of admiration. It seems to me that Englishmen and Englishwomen, for I have had a good many of both sexes to visit me recently, look on America very much as one does when he peeps through a magnifying glass on pictures of foreign scenes, and the picturesque ruins of old cities, and the like. They are really very fine, but it is difficult to realize that such things are. It is all an optical deception.
It was clearly so with Marryatt, a very superficial observer; Miss Martineau, who was in search of something ultra and elementary, and even Mrs. Jameson, who had the most accurate and artistic eye of all, but who, with the exception of some bits of womanly heart, appeared to regard our vast woods, and wilds, and lakes, as a magnificent panorama, a painting in oil. It does not appear to occur to them, that here are the very descendants of that old Saxa-Gothic race who sacked Rome, who banished the Stuarts from the English throne, and who have ever, in all positions, used all their might to battle tyranny and oppression, who hate taxations as they hate snakes, and whose day and night dreams have ever been of liberty, that dear cry of _Freiheit_, whichever war made “Germania” ring. It has appeared to me to be very much the same with the Austrian and Italian functionaries who have wandered as far as Michilimackinack within a few years, but who are yet more slow to appreciate our institutions than the English. The whole problem of our system, one would judge, seems to them like “apples of ashes,” instead of the golden fruits of Hesperides. They alike mistake realities for fancies; real states of flesh and blood, bone and muscle, for cosmoramic pictures on a wall. They do not appear to dream how fast our millions reduplicate, what triumphs the plough, and the engine, and loom, are making, how the principles of a well guarded representative system are spreading over the world, and what indomitable moral, and sound inductive principles lie at the bottom of the whole fabric.
Troops arrived from St. Mary’s this day, to garrison the Fort, to keep order during the annuity payments. The chiefs from St. Mary’s send over a boat for their share of the treaty, tobacco, salt, rice, &c.
_18th_. Mr. Conner, the sub-agent, writes that the Saginaws are afflicted by want and threatened by starvation; and, to render their condition extreme, the small-pox has broken out amongst them. Ordered relief to be given in the cases specified.
_20th_. Mrs. Jameson writes to Mrs. Schoolcraft, from Toronto: “If I were to begin by expressing all the pain it gave me to part from you, I should not know when or where to end. I do sometimes thank God, that in many different countries I possess friends worthy that name; kind hearts that feel _with_ and _for_ me; hearts upon which my own could be satisfied to rest; but then that parting, that forced, and often hopeless separation which too often follows such a meeting, makes me repine. I will not say, pettishly, that I could wish _never_ to have known or seen a treasure I cannot possess: no! how can I think of you and feel regret that I have known you? As long as I live, the impression of your kindness, and of your character altogether, remains with me; your image will often come back to me, and I dare to hope that you will not forget me _quite_. I am not so unreasonable as to ask you to write to me; I know too well how entirely your time is occupied to presume to claim even a few moments of it, and it is a pity, for ‘we do not live by bread alone,’ and every faculty and affection implanted in us by the good God of nature, craves the food which he has prepared for it, even in this world; so that I do wish you had a little leisure from eating and drinking, cares and household matters, to bestow on less important things, on me for instance! poor little me, at the other side of the world.
“Mrs. McMurray has told you the incidents of our voyage to the Manitouline Island, from thence to Toronto; it was all delightful; the most extraordinary scenery I ever beheld, the wildest! I recall it as a dream. I arrived at my own house at three o’clock on the morning of the 13th, tired and much eaten by those abominable mosquitoes, but otherwise better in health than I have been for many months. Still I have but imperfectly achieved the object of my journey; and I feel that, though I seized on my return every opportunity of seeing and visiting the Indian lodges, I know but too little of them, of the women particularly. If only I had been able to talk a little more to my dear Neengay! how often I think of her with regret, and of you all! But it is in vain to repine. I must be thankful for what I have gained, what I have seen and done! I have written to Mrs. McMurray, and troubled her with several questions relative to the women. I remark generally, that the propinquity of the white man is destruction to the red man; and the farther the Indians are removed from us, the better for them. In their own woods, they are a noble race; brought near to us, a degraded and stupid race. We are destroying them off the face of the earth. May God forgive us our tyranny, our avarice, our ignorance, for it is very terrible to think of!”
_21st_. Judge McDonnel, of Detroit, reached the island with Captain Clark of St. Clair, these gentlemen having been engaged since spring, in a careful and elaborate appraisement of the Indian improvements, under the 8th article of the treaty of 28th March, 1836. They commenced their labor in the Grand River Valley, and continued it along the entire eastern coast of Lake Michigan, to Michilimackinack, not omitting anything which could, by the most liberal construction, be considered “as giving value to the lands ceded.” Not an apple tree, not a house, or log wigwam, and not an acre, once in cultivation, though now waste, was omitted.
They report the whole number of villages in this district at twenty-two, the whole number of improvements at 485, and the gross population at 3,257 souls. This population live in log and bark dwellings of every grade, cultivate 2477 acres of land, on which there are 3,212 apple trees; besides old fields, the aggregate value of which is put at $74,998. They add that these appraisements have been deemed everywhere fully satisfactory to the Indians.
_23d_. A poor decrepit Indian woman, who was abandoned on the beach by her relatives some ten days ago, applied for relief. It is found that she has been indebted for food in the interim to the benevolence of Mrs. Lafromboise.
_23d_. “I take the liberty,” says A. W. Buel, Esq., of Detroit, “of addressing you concerning the little book in my possession, touching the early history of New France and the Iroquois. You may recollect, perhaps, that on one occasion last winter or spring, when you were in this city, I had some conversation with you concerning it. It is written in French, of old orthography, and was published at Paris, A. D. 1658. It purports to have been written by a Jesuit, Paul Le Jeune; I am however, inclined to think that it was not all written by him, inasmuch as the orthography of the same Indian words varies in different parts of the book. It is rather a small duodecimo volume and contains about 210 pages, of rather coarse print. To give you a better idea of the contents, I will mention the titles of the several chapters.” These are omitted.
“A few others are appended. The early history of the Iroquois, and of our own country, even after its settlement by Europeans, you are well aware, is buried in great obscurity. Even Charlevoix’s _Histoire de Nouvelle France_, I believe, has never been translated into English. I have never seen it, if it has been. That work I suppose to be at present the starting point in the history of the Iroquois and New France, as regards minuteness of detail.
“This little book (Le Jeune) was published a considerable time previous. It appears by it that the Jesuits had, for several years previously, sent some letters; but I am confident that this is the first book ever published touching directly and minutely the history of the Iroquois. Caleb Atwater, in his book on western antiquities, speaks of a little work published in Latin at Paris, I think, in 1664, as the first touching the history of New France and the Iroquois. I could not at first decide whether it be of much value, I thought it to be such a book as would immediately find its way to the missionaries, and so small as to be easily overlooked. I became at once so far interested in it, as to translate it into English, not certain that I should ever make any further use of it. I have, however, been solicited by some, either to publish a translation of it, or a compendium of the principal matter contained in it, and beg to trouble you so much as to ask your views of the probability of the utility of doing so. Will the task be equal to the reward?”
_25th_. Troops from Green Bay pass Mackinack on their way to Florida, to act in the campaign against the Seminoles–a weary long way to send reinforcements; but our army is so small, and has so large a frontier to guard, that it must face to the right and left as often as raw recruits under drill.
_26th_. Received a copy of the _Miner’s Free Press_ of Wisconsin of the 11th of August, containing an abstract of a treaty concluded by Gov. Dodge with the Chippewas of the Upper Mississippi, ceding an important tract of country, lying below the Crow-wing River.
_Sept. 3d_. The old chief Saganosh died.
_4th_. The Chippewas of Sault Ste. Marie got into a difficulty, among each other, respecting the true succession of the principal chieftainship, and the chiefs came in a body to leave the matter to me. The point of genealogy to be settled runs through three generations, and was stated thus:–
Gitcheojeedebun, of the Crane totem, had four sons, namely, Maidosagee, Bwoinais, Nawgitchigomee, and Kezhawokumijishkum. Maidosagee, being the eldest, had nine sons, called, Shingabowossin, Sizzah, Kaugayosh, Nattaowa, Ussaba, Wabidjejauk, Muckadaywuckwut, Wabidjejaukons, and Odjeeg. On the principles of Indian descent, these were all Cranes of the proper mark, but the chieftainship would descend in the line of the eldest son’s children. This would leave Shingabowossin’s eldest son without a competitor. I determined, therefore, to award the first chiefs medal to Kabay Noden, the deceased chief Shingabowossin’s eldest son.
_10th_. The annuity payments commence.
Major Jno. Garland, U.S.A., having succeeded Major Whiting as the general disbursing officer on this frontier, arrived early in the month. This officer has been engaged, with his assistants and the aid of the Indian department, about a week, in preparing the pay rolls of the Indian families, and correcting the lists for deaths, births, and new families. All the payments which were made in silver, at the agency, in my presence, were divided _per capita_. This business of counting and division took three days, during which time the proportionate share of $21,000, in half dollars, was paid. The annuities in provisions, tobacco, &c., were delivered in bulk to the chiefs of villages, to be divided by them.
Mr. John J. Blois, of Detroit, proposes to publish a gazetteer of Michigan, and writes requesting statistical information, &c., of the upper country, an Indian nomenclature, &c.
Mr. Palfrey writes proposing to me to review Stone’s _Life of Brant_, and Mr. Dearborn, the publisher at New York, sends me the proofs.
_15th_. The payments are finished, and the Indians begin to disperse. I invested Kabay Noden with his father’s medal, and his uncle, Muckadaywuckwut, with a flag; recommending at the same time the division of the St. Mary’s Chippewas into three bands, agreeably to fixed geographical boundaries.
Having finished the business of the payments, the disbursing agent embarks on board of the steamer Michigan, and the island, which has been thronged for three weeks with Indians, Indian traders, and visitors, began immediately to empty itself of population. During this assemblage, to pay the Ottawas and Chippewas their annuity, great care and exactitude have been observed by the concurrently acting officers of the army and the Indian department, to carry out strictly the agreements made with them in the spring, by which the payment of half their annuity in silver, due for 1837, was postponed till 1838. Yet it was reported in a few days, and reiterated by the press, that the Indians had been defrauded out of half their annuities, and that goods, and those of a bad quality, had been given them for silver. And my name was coupled with the transaction, although the Indians of all nations who were under my charge, in the State of Michigan, had, from first to last, been treated with the kindness and justice of a father. The Government at Washington came in for no little abuse. Mrs. Jameson wrote from Toronto, asking “whether it was true that a Miami chief had offered $70,000 to enable the Indian Department to pay their debt to the Indians in specie.”
_23d_. The Indians Akukojeesh and Akawkoway brought a case of salvage for my action. They had found a new carriage body, and harness; a box of 7 by 9 glass, and 18 chairs, floating on the lake (Huron), N.E. of the island. They supposed the articles had been thrown overboard, in a recent storm, or by a vessel aground on the point of Goose Island, called Nekuhmenis. The Nekuh is a brant.
_30th_. Chusco dies.
Completed and transmitted the returns and abstracts of the year’s proceedings and expenditures.
_Oct 1st_. I sent the interpreter and farmers of the Department to perform the funeral rites for Chusco, the Ottawa jossakeed, who died yesterday at the house erected for him on Round Island. He was about 70 years of age; a small man, of light frame and walked a little bent. He had an expression of cunning and knowingness, which induced his people, when young, to think he resembled the muskrat, just rising from the water, after a dive. This trait was implied by his name. For many years he had acted as a jossakeed, or seer, for his tribe. In this business he told me that the powers he relied on, were the spirits [81] of the tortoise, crow, swan, and woodpecker. These he considered his familiar spirits, who received their miraculous power to aid him directly from _Mudjee Moneto_, or the Great Evil Spirit. After the establishment of the Mission at Mackinack, his wife embraced Christianity. This made him mad. At length his mind ran so much on the theme, that he fell into doubts and glooms when thinking it over, and finally embraced Christianity himself; and he was admitted, after a probation of a year or two, to church membership. I asked him, after this period, how he had deceived his people by the art of powwowing, or jugglery. He said that he had accomplished it by the direct influence of Satan. He had addressed him, on these occasions, and sung his songs to him, beating the drum or shaking the rattle. He adhered firmly to this opinion. He appeared to have great faith in the atonement of Christ, and relied with extraordinary simplicity upon it. He gave a striking proof of this, the autumn after his conversion, when he went with his wife, according to custom, to dig his potatoes on a neighboring island. The wife immediately began to dig. “Stop,” said he, “let us first kneel and return thanks for their growth.” He was aware of his former weakness on the subject of strong drink, and would not indulge in it after he became a church member.
[Footnote 81: Indians believe animals have souls.]
_3d_. Received an application for relief from the Black River Chippewas, near Fort Gratiot. It is astonishing how completely the resources of the Indians have failed with the game, on which they formerly relied. When a calamity arrives, such as a white settlement would surmount without an effort, they at once become objects of public charity. Kittemagizzi is their immediate cry. This is now raised by the Black River band, under the influence of small-pox.
_14th_. Received a copy of the treaty of the 29th of July last with the Chippewas. This tribe, like all the other leading tribes of the race, is destined to fritter away their large domain for temporary and local ends, without making any general and permanent provision for their prosperity. The system of temporary annuities will, at last, leave them without a home. When the buffalo, and the deer, and the beaver, are extinct, the Indian must work or die. In a higher view, there is no blessing which is not pronounced in connection with _labor_ and _faith_. These the nation falter at.
_18th_. Finished my report on the additional debt claim, under the treaty of 1836, agreeably to the instructions of the Commission of Indian Affairs, of the 23d March last, and to the published notice of April 10th. These claims on the debt fund of the treaty have received the best consideration of the agent and the Indian chiefs, with the aid of a secretary authorized at Washington, and the result is forwarded with confidence to head-quarters.
_19th_. My arduous duties during the summer had thrown some of my private correspondence in the rear. It may now be proper to notice some of it. A letter (Aug. 20th) from St. Mary’s says: “The schooner John Jacob Astor arrived on the 18th instant from the head of Lake Superior, and the captain brings us information of Mr. Warren’s arrival at La Pointe. He attended the treaty at St. Peter’s, concluded by Gov. Dodge. The Indians are to receive $700,000 in annuities for twenty years, $100,000 to the half-breeds, and $70,000 for Indian creditors.”
“Captain Stanard brought down a specimen of native copper, similar to the piece of forty-nine pounds weight in your cabinet. It was at De l’Isle, fifteen leagues on the north shore from Fond du Lac.”
Mr. John T. Blois, of Detroit (Sept. 20th), informs me that he is preparing a Gazetteer of Michigan. “Of the topics,” he remarks, “I had proposed to submit to your consideration, one was the etymology of the Indian nomenclature, to the extent it has been adopted in the application of proper names to our lakes, rivers, and other inanimate objects. In the preparation of my work, this subject has frequently presented itself to my mind as one of interesting importance, and whose development is more auspicious, at the present time, than it may be at a future day. I had a particular desire to rescue the Indian names from that oblivion to which the negligence of the early settlers of other States has permitted them to descend, by the substitution, for no reasonable cause, of insignificant English or French names, without regard to either good taste or propriety.
“I wish, among other things, to ask of you the favor to inform me of the origin and signification of the name of our adopted State, Michigan.”
A correspondent at Detroit (J.L.S.) writes (21st Sept.): “Bills have been introduced into both Houses to carry out the President’s sub-treasury system, and ’tis said Calhoun will support the measure. These bills, which were introduced by Wright and Cambreleng, propose that treasury notes shall be issued not to exceed $12,000,000.”
Mr. Palfrey (25th Sept.) suggests my reviewing Col. Stone’s “Life of Joseph Brant,” and the publishers (Geo. Dearborn and Co.) transmit me the proof sheets on sized paper. I sat down with enthusiasm to read them (as far as sent) preparatory to a decision. Many things are desirable, and most worthy of commendation. But there were some errors of fact and opinions, which I could not pass over without bringing forward facts which I felt no capacity to manage, without giving offence to one whom I had every reason to regard as a friend. Brant had been the scourge of my native State during all the long and bloody war of the Revolution; and his enormities had the less excuse to be plastered over on account of his having received a Christian education, and speaking and writing his own language. He was doubtless a man much above his red brethren generally, for mental conception and boldness. It is true, I had heard all the terrific details of his cruelties from the lips of my father, who was an actor in the scenes described, at an age when impressions sink deep. But I had outlived my youthful impressions, and felt disposed to regard him as one of the most celebrated individuals of his race, which race I had learned to regard as one of the peculiar types of mankind. But I thought it injudicious to lay the story of the Revolution on his shoulders–with the real causes of which his life had about as much to do as the fly on the wagon-wheel, in turning it. I therefore on broad grounds declined it.
The establishment of the University of Michigan and its branches over the State, now excited considerable attention, and I began to receive letters from various quarters on the subject. “At a meeting of the people of this county (Kalamazoo),” says A. Edwards, Esq., “very advantageous offers were made to the Board, in case it was by them deemed proper to establish here one of the two branches contemplated within the senatorial district.”
Mr. Daniel B. Woods, Dorchester, Mass., writes me respecting an article for the “Christian Keepsake,” which has passed to the hands of the Rev. Mr. Clark, of Philadelphia.
_25th_. Letters were received to-day from the Secretaries of the Presbyterian, and from the Methodist Boards of Missions at New York, proposing the establishment of missions for the Ottawas and Chippewas, under the fourth article of the treaty of 1836. I advised Mr. Lowry, the organ of the former, and also the Methodist Society, to select positions south of this island in Lake Michigan.
_27th_. The first snow falls for the season.
_30th_. The chiefs of the Ottawas at L’Arbre Croche request that I would procure and send them vaccine matter, having heard that the small-pox existed at Grand River, and at Maskigo,
An Ottawa Indian, called Mis-kweiu-wauk (Red Cedar) brought a counterfeit half dollar, saying that he had received it at the payments, from Major Garland. It seemed to me that such was not the fact, but that he had been sent by some saucy fellow. But I thought prudent to give him a good half dollar in its place.
_Nov. 4th_. Information was received, that a strong party of Boisbrules and Indians, who went west from Red River early in the fall, to hunt the buffalo agreeably to their custom, were met and attacked by the Gros Venters and Sioux of the plains, and one hundred of their number killed in the affray.
_10th_. Completed arrangements to leave the office during the winter in charge of Mr. F. W. Shearman.
_11th_. Embarked at Mackinack on board the steamer “Madison,” for the lower country.
_18th_. Arrived at Detroit, and resumed the duties of the superintendency at that point. Charles Rodd reports that three hundred Saginaws have taken shelter on the St. Clair, from the ravages of the small-pox, that they will pass the winter in the vicinity of Point au Barques; and that, consequently, they will not attend the payments at Saginaw this fall.
_17th_. Asked H. Conner, Esq., the signification ‘of “Monguagon,” He replied, the true name is Mo-gwau-go [nong], and was a man’s name, signifying dirty backsides. It was the name of a Wyandot who died there. _Mo_, in the Algonquin, means excrement; _gwau_ is a personal term; _o_, the accusative; and _nong_, place. I observe that, in the Hebrew, the same word _Mo_, denotes semen. The mode of combination, too, is not diverse; thus, _mo-ab,_ in Hebrew, is a substantive of two roots, _mo_, semen, and _ab_, father.
Paukad [Hebrew], Hebrew, means to strike upon or against any person or thing. Pukatai Chip, is to strike anything animate or inanimate. Paukad, in the same tongue, means a stroke of lightning.
_17th_. Judge Riggs, who has charge of affairs at Saginaw, reports that about twenty Indians have been carried off by the small-pox, on the Shiawassa, and the same number on the Flint River. Says the disease was first brought to Saginaw by Mr. Gardiner D. Williams, and it was afterwards extended to the Flint by Mr. Campau.
_21st_. Rev. J. A. Agnew, of N.Y., addresses me as one of the Regents of the University, under a belief that the Board will, very soon, proceed to the election of a chancellor and professors. He takes a very just view of the importance of making it a fundamental point, to base the course of instruction on a sound morality, and of insuring the confidence of religious teachers of evangelical views,
_25th_. Mr. Conner brought me, some days ago, a cranium of an Indian, named B-tow-i-ge-zhig (Both Sides of the Sun), who was killed and buried near his house in a singular way.
It seems that another Indian, a young man, had fallen from a tree, and, in his descent, injured his testicles, which swelled up amazingly. Etowigezhig laughed at him, which so incensed the young fellow that he suddenly picked up a pot-hook and struck him on the skull. It fractured it, and killed him. So he died for a laugh. He was a good-natured man, about forty-five, and a good hunter. I gave the skull to Mr. Toulmin Smith, a phrenological lecturer.
_26th_. Mr. Cleaveland (Rev. John) preached his farewell sermon to the First Presbyterian Church, Detroit, from Jonah iii. 2: “Arise and go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.” This message he has faithfully and ably delivered to them for about five years that he has occupied this pulpit.
_27th_. A letter of this date, from Fort Union, on the Missouri, published in the St. Louis Bulletin, gives a frightful account of the ravages of the small-pox among the Mandans, Aurickerees, Minitares and Gros Venters, of the Missouri. This disease, which first broke out about the 15th of July, among the Mandans, carried off about fifteen hundred of that tribe. It left about one hundred and thirty souls.[82] It spread rapidly, and during the autumn carried off about half of the two tribes mentioned. It was carried to the Blackfeet, Crees, and Assinaboines, who also suffered dreadfully. Upwards of one thousand of the Blackfeet perished, and about five hundred Minitares. Whole lodges were swept away, and the desolations created were frightful.
[Footnote 82: The report that they were entirely extinguished was an error. The survivors fled to their relatives, the Minnitares, where they increased rapidly, when they returned to their ancient villages on the Missouri, where they now (1851) reside, numbering about five hundred souls.]
_28th_. Mr. F. Ayer writes from Pokegoma, on Snake River, of the St. Croix Valley of the Upper Mississippi: “Shall we be molested by government soon, or at a future time; or, in case the government sell the land to a company, or to individuals, will they consider our case and make any reservation in our favor?”
_Dec. 2d_. Rev. Oren O. Thompson writes in relation to Michilimackinack:–
“1. Have you a missionary engaged for that station?
“2. Do you feel the importance and necessity of obtaining one who is already acquainted with the Indian language?
“3. Do you wish to engage one for that station, who is in sentiment a Presbyterian?
“4. Are there appropriations for his support?
“5. What will be his business particularly?
“6. How long will he probably be wanted there?
“7. What, in your opinion, is the prospect of his usefulness there?”
_Dec. 1st_. Mr. Hamill, of Lawrenceville, N.J., responds to my inquiry for a suitable school for my son–a matter respecting which I am just now very solicitous.
_13th_. Set out by railroad for Flint River, accompanied by Major Garland and Mr. Conner. Weather very cold, and the snow forming a good road. At Pontiac, we took a double sleigh, and drove out to Flint Village. I was invited to his house by Mr. Hascall, who did everything to render the visit agreeable. Between 400 and 500 Indians were assembled. They appeared poorly clad, and needy, having suffered greatly from the small-pox during the autumn and winter. About 40 had died on the Shiawassa River, and some 30 on the Flint. After the Major had completed the payment of their annuities and delivery of goods, I opened a negotiation with them to complete the sale of their reservations.
_16th_. In a letter of this date, Dr. Greene, Sec. of the A.B.C., for F. Missions, adverts to the positions heretofore taken, by that board, respecting the missionary establishment at Mackinack. The moral position of that Board, with respect to _that_ Mission, appears to me to be wrong. This mission involves the mission cause, in some important respects, with the entire question of missionary operations over the North-west–reaching from lat. 42 deg. to 49 deg., with many degrees of longitude; for, from all this region, the Indian boys and girls of the mission have been collected. It began operations with them, I think, in 1822; and having, in this interval, expended many thousand dollars, and erected expensive buildings, it now drops the thing, just at the point when the Indians have commenced important cessions, and when their condition is such that they are not only inclined to receive interior teachers and evangelists, which have been raised at that central point, but, by these cessions to the government, they have provided funds for schools and teachers.
Merely because the excellent superintendent determined, two or three years ago, to leave this important point and enter into secular business, to provide for a growing family; and because the attraction of foreign fields carries young clergymen abroad, to the detriment of the home field, it does not, I think, fulfil the highest requisitions of duty to abandon the field, and thereby to leave it to be said that the Board doubts God’s purposes with regard to the red man. If the missionary himself, who has so many years conducted the concern with approbation, was not willing to trust his rewards to a higher power, but aimed, as it were, to steady himself by stretching forth his hand, it seems to me the race ought not to be the sufferers for such a course. They constitute a vastly more appropriate field of labor than the “millions of foreign lands,” who sit, to a large extent, unaffected by the Gospel. Not, indeed, that those fields should be neglected; but the Indian race, and these large families of it, are worthy of a warmer sympathy than I can see in Dr. Greene’s letters, or the decisions of the Board by whom he is governed.
_20th_. Signed a supplementary treaty with the Saginaws at Flint. By this treaty the Saginaws relinquish their reserves in this valuable and rapidly settling portion of the country, and agree to accept a location on the head waters of the Osage, which their chiefs, have explored. They are to occupy two of their reservations on the west shores of Saginaw Bay, for five years. The government is to pay them the entire proceeds of the land, as sold in the public land offices. They set apart funds for schools, and to pay their debts. This tribe has now no instructors. They have the reputation of being turbulent, and averse to all plans of improvement. Their history is fraught with deeds of violence. They made bloody inroads on the settlements of Western Virginia and Pennsylvania, after the close of the war of the Revolution, and brought away captives. One of these was the notorious and infamous John Tanner. They lived under a perfect dictator, in the person of Kish-ka-ko, who made and altered laws to suit a strong-willed savage mind. They were originally a band of Chippewa refugees. They settled here when the Sauks in the 17th century were driven off. Their name is derived from this. The true sound of the word is _Saukinong_, or Place of the Sauks. It has been improperly assimilated to Saganosh, _i.e._, Englishman.
_23d_. Rev. John A. Clark, of Philadelphia, writes, requesting a contribution to the “Christian Keepsake,” which denotes the interest in the Indian subject to be unabated.
CHAPTER LXI.
Tradition of Pontiac’s conspiracy and death–Patriot war–Expedition of a body of 250 men to Boisblanc–Question of schools and missions among the Indians–Indian affairs–Storm at Michilimackinack–Life of Brant–Interpreterships and Indian language–A Mohegan–Affair of the “Caroline”–Makons–Plan of names for new towns–Indian legends–Florida war–Patriot war–Arrival of Gen. Scott on the frontiers–Resume of the difficulties of the Florida war–Natural history and climate of Florida–Death of Doctor Lutner.
1838. _Jan. 1st_. OFFICE OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, DETROIT,–In the recent trip to Flint River, Mr. Henry Conner told me one day that he had been acquainted with the Indian person who, in 1763, informed Major Gladwyn, the commanding officer at Detroit, of Pontiac’s conspiracy.
The affair had other motives than Carver imagines. She thought more of saving the life of Major Gladwin than of saving the whole Anglo-Saxon race. She had been a very handsome person in her youth, being nearly white, though of Indian blood. Owing to her gallantries, her husband had bit off her nose. When an old woman, she became intemperate, and, on one of these occasions, at a sugar camp on the Clinton River, she fell backward into a boiling kettle of sap, and thus perished. Truly “the way of the transgressor is hard.”
He stated the tradition respecting Pontiac’s death as it was related by a chief who well knew the facts. The English made great efforts to conciliate a man of such powerful abilities and influence, and endeavored to enlist him as an ambassador among the Western Indians to bring them into their interests. Pontiac used deception in appearing to fall in with their views, and went on this business to the country of the Illinois, which was then about to be surrendered to them. They took the precaution to send with him, as an associate, a chief called Chianocquot, or the Big Cloud, who was strongly attached to their interests. When Pontiac reached the region of the Illinois posts, instead of persuading the Indians to peace and friendship with the English, he advised them not to surrender the country, and, in his addresses to them, he used the most persuasive arguments to dissuade them from permitting the surrendry at all, and gave vent to his natural feelings and sentiments in favor of the French and against the English.
This had been his policy at Detroit. He appeared instinctively to dread the advance of the English race, or, perhaps, really foresaw that their arts and industry, against the adoption of which he so vehemently inveighed, would uproot and crush the aboriginal race. Chianocquot was roused to anger by this duplicity and dispatched him.[83]
[Footnote 83: Nicollet, in his _Hydrographical Report_ in 1841, has placed this tradition in its proper light. He gives a somewhat different account of Pontiac’s death, which he states to have taken place when he was in liquor, and the blow was insidiously given.
A Kaskaskia Indian, it seems, was hired for a barrel of rum by an Indian trader to commit the act. The blow he inflicted by his club fractured the skull of his victim, who lingered a while, but eventually died of the wound. This was at Fort Chartres, in Illinois.]
Mr. Conner continued: Pontiac’s village and residence near Detroit was Peach Island and the main shore directly abreast of it, north-east. In the summer he lived on the island, and in the winter on the main land.
Pontiac was offended at the Indian who, during the siege, killed McDougel, and would have put him to death for the act had the murderer not fled. The man who did it had been absent, and did not know that this officer had received permission to return to the fort.
_4th_. Walter Lowrie, Esq., Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions at New York, writes that the Executive Committee have determined to establish a mission and school among the Chippewas and Ottawas of Lake Michigan as early in the spring as suitable men can be procured.
_8th_. The Canadian, or patriot war, is now at its height. The city has been kept in a perfect turmoil by it for weeks. The setting fire to outbuildings or deserted houses almost every dark night, appears to be connected with it. One dark night I stumbled and fell on an uneven pavement on a part of Jefferson Avenue, and immediately a voice cried “Hurrah for Canada!” There was an intense excitement among the lower classes in its favor, which it required a high degree of moral energy in the lovers of law and order to keep down.
This morning a conservative force of 250 volunteer militia embarked, at two P.M., in a steamer for Amherstburg (the Malden of the war of 1812), to demand the surrendry of the State arms recently taken from their place of deposit–the city jail. This demand is to be made of the patriot refugee force from Canada, who are about to take post on the island of Boisblanc, at the mouth of the Detroit River. It was a well-armed force, with muskets and cartridge-boxes well filled; but it was found that, on the way down the river, their cartridge-boxes had been relieved, by persons friendly to the patriots on board, of every particle of ammunition. The detachment returned about eleven o’clock at night, having proved wholly unsuccessful in the object of the movement.
Mr. Ball, a representative in the local legislature from Kent County, called this day to inquire into the propriety of establishing a sub-agency at Grand Rapids, on Grand River, for the ostensible benefit of the Ottawas in that quarter. The question of the division of funds between schools established for a part of the same people at Gull Prairie, under the care of Mr. Slater, and the separate school at Sault Ste. Marie, in Chippewa County, in the care of Mr. Bingham, both of which are under the general direction of the Baptist Missionary Board at Boston, was considered and approved, and letters written accordingly.
These efforts, at detached points, to improve the race must, we are inclined to believe, eventually fail. Two races so diverse in mind and habits cannot prosper together permanently; but the hope is that temporary good may be done. An Indian who is converted and dies in the faith, is essentially “a brand plucked out of the fire,” and no man can undertake to estimate the moral value of the act. A child who is taught to read and write is armed with two requisites for entering civilized life. But the want of general efficient efforts, unobstructed by local laws and deleterious influences, cannot but, in a few years, convince the Boards that the colonization of the tribes West is the best, if not the only hope of prosperity to the race _as a race_.
_9th_. Lieut. E. S. Sibley, U.S.A., sets out to pay the Grand River Indians. I commissioned Charles H. Oakes, Esq., to witness the pay rolls. Mr. Conner returns the same day from attending the payments of the Swan Creek and Black River bands. He reports the Indians on the American side of the lines not disposed to engage in the present unhappy contest in the Canadas. Exertions, he affirms, have been made by the British authorities to induce the Chippewas living in Canada, opposite to the mouth of Black River, to engage in the conflict against their revolted people, but without success. They threatened, if matters were pushed, to flee to the American side. He states, also, that a council to the same effect had been held with the Canada Indians opposite Peach Island, at the foot of Lake St. Glair, which resulted in the same declaration.
_12th_. The appraisement rolls transmitted to Washington by Messrs. Macdonnel & Clarke, the appraisers appointed under the 8th article of the treaty of 28th March, 1836, were judged to be too high; and the subject was referred for revision to Maj. Garland and myself. I this day transmitted a joint reply of the major and myself, stating how impossible it would be to revise so complex a subject without opportunities of personal examination in each case–a business which neither of us desires.
_16th_. Received the first winter express from Mackinack, transmitting reports from the various persons in official employ there. They report a great storm at that place on the 8th and 9th of December, 1837, in the course of which the light-house on Boisblanc was blown down, and other damage done by the rise of water.
_18th_. Received the Senate’s printed document, No. 1, containing the President’s annual message and all the Secretaries’ reports. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs recommends the abolition of sub-agencies, and the raising of the pay of interpreters–two measures recommended in my annual report. The department is very much in the hands of ignorant and immoral interpreters, who frequently misconceive the point to be interpreted. Could we raise up a set of educated and moral men for this duty, the department would stand on high grounds. Surely, a sort of normal institute could teach the principles of the Indian grammar, as well as the Greek. There is no _sound_ without a _meaning_, and no meaning conveyed without an orthographical _rule_. They do not _gabble_ at random, as some think. Their modes of utterance are, it is true, often defective, but they are not without grammatical _laws_, I inquired into this matter at my first entrance into the Indian country of the Algonquins, sixteen years ago. I found that verbs had eight classes of conjugations, and ten including the broad vowels; five declensions of nouns, and two sets of pronouns, one to be placed before and the other at the end of the verb and substantive. That all substantives could be changed into verbs; that there were a stock of adjective and prepositional participles, and that the mode of forming compounds and derivatives was varied, but all subject to the most exact rules. They have a very accurate appreciation of _sound_ and its varied meanings, and are pushed to use figures to help out or illustrate a meaning; but the excessive refinements of syntax, for which some contend, are theories in the minds of unpracticed collaborators.
_18th_. I wrote to Mr. Palfrey, E.N.A.R., declining to review Stone’s “Brant,” and apprizing him of the preparation of an article on the “North-west,” by Mr. I. Lanman. “I take this occasion to say that I have received the proof-sheets of some hundred and fifty pages of Col. Stone’s _Life of Brant_. It is a work somewhat discursive, and involves some critical points in Indian history and customs. I should not feel willing to commence a notice of it, without having the whole before me. The hero of the work hardly exerts influence enough on the revolutionary contest to justify the attempt of piling on him so much of the materials of that momentous contest, and I think, moreover, there is a perceptible attempt made to _whitewash_ a man who lived and died with no slight nor undeserved opprobrium.”
_19th_. Hendrick Apaumut, a Mohegan chief, of Wisconsin, applied for aid, in money, to facilitate his journey to Washington. What the Indians lack, in their business affairs, is system and method; foresight to plan, and stability to carry into effect.
Received a copy of the message of the President, communicating the thrilling circumstances of the recent massacre on board of the ill-fated steamer “Caroline,” and the gross outrage of national rights committed by the burning of that boat and the destruction of her crew. Palliatives for the act will undoubtedly be plead; but the act itself will probably make a hero, in the estimation of his countrymen, of Mr. McNab, if it does nothing more.
_22d_. The friends of education in Michigan, having assembled in convention, issue a circular calling attention to that vital subject, and recommend a “Journal of Public Instruction” to the patronage of the people. There can be no fear of our institutions as long as education is cherished.
_24th_. Maconse (the Little Bear), chief of the Swan Creeks, writes to Gov. Mason that it is reported some of his people are about to join the Canadian authorities to put down the partial revolt. The Governor, probably thinking I would better know how to deal with him, sends the letter to me. The fellow, whose moral code is not very high, only meant to give himself a little consequence by it. Both he and his people will take good care to keep out of harm’s way.
_24th_. Gov. Mason informs me that he has communicated to the Legislature of Michigan my plan for a system of Indian names communicated to him on the 12th instant, for the new counties and towns, founded on the idea of the avoidance of the number of dead letters reported as annually received at Washington, from their misdirection. This misdirection is supposed to arise chiefly from great repetition of old township, city, county, and village names. Let any one take up a gazetteer or post-office list who wishes to see this. Names that are sonorous and appropriate are rejected; but there is hardly a county in any of the new States without their Springfields, and Fairfields, and Oxfords, and Warwicks without number. Where they do not abound taste is often put to shame. Mud Creek, and Jack’s Corner, and Shingle Hollow are doubtless appropriate names compared to some. But cannot _we supply a remedy by drawing on the aboriginal vocabulary_?
_26th_. Completed the revision of a body of Indian oral legends, collected during many years with labor. These oral tales show up the Indian in a new light. Their chief value consists in their exhibition of aboriginal opinions. But, if published, incredulity will start up critics to call their authenticity in question. There are so many Indian tales fancied, by writers, that it will hardly be admitted that there exist any _real_ legends. If there be any literary labor which has cost me more than usual pains, it is this. I have weeded out many vulgarisms. I have endeavored to restore the simplicity of the original style. In this I have not always fully succeeded, and it has been sometimes found necessary, to avoid incongruity, to break a legend in two, or cut it short off.
The steamer “Robert Fulton” arrived at Detroit, with three companies of U.S. troops, under the command of Col. Worth, to keep up neutrality, put down the wild “patriot movement,” and prevent disturbances on the frontier.
_27th_. Mr. Trowbridge tells me that he has heard of the arrival of our minister to France (Gen. Cass), at Port Mahon, with his family, on his return to Paris, from his Mediterranean tour. He had carried out a letter to Com. Elliot, from the President, to offer him every facility in this trip to visit the sites of Oriental cities.
_30th_. Transmit to Washington a plan and estimates for building a dormitory at Mackinack, under the provision of the treaty of March, 1836. Such a building has been long called for at that point, where the Indians are often sojourners, without a place to sleep, or cook the provisions furnished them.
_Feb. 1st_. The _Knickerbocker Magazine says_: “That the Indian oratory contains many attributes of true eloquence. With a language so barren, and minds too free for the rules of rhetoric, they still attained a power of touching the feelings, and a sublimity of style, which rival the highest productions of their more cultivated enemies.”
_7th_. Mr. Palfrey, in a letter of this date, observes: “I have only to repeat that, in the preparation of the article (on Stone’s ‘Brant’–which I hope you will not think of giving up), I trust you will not hesitate to introduce, with the utmost freedom, whatever your respect for the truth of history, and distaste for the tricks of bookmaking, may dictate.”
_11th_. General Jessup writes to the department that, “we have committed the error of attempting to remove the Seminoles, when their lands were not required for agricultural purposes, when they were not in the way of the white inhabitants, and when the greater portion of their country was an unexplored wilderness, of the interior of which we were as ignorant as of the interior of China.” He recommends a line of occupancy west of the Kissamee and Okee Chubbe, which they may be allowed to occupy.
_20th_. W. Lowrie, Esq., S.P.B.F. Missions, in a letter of this date, says: “I was glad to see your suggestion to the government in relation to a cabinet and library in the Indian office.”
_22d_. Charles E. Anderson, Esq., of New York, announces his intention to visit Europe. “I will not leave here until the 15th of March, at least, when I shall take out my wife with me, and anticipate much gratification in presenting her to such a pattern of goodness and true feminine excellence as Mrs. Cass. Anything you wish to forward I will attend to with pleasure, and when in Paris will not forget the interesting subject of your letter, and will inform you what books may be obtained respecting the early history of the country.”
_26th_. Gen. Scott this day arrived at Detroit, with a view to quiet the disturbances on the lines, and see to the proper disposition of the troops along the chain of lakes to effect this end. I immediately called on him, and offered him any of the peculiar facilities, which are at the command of the Indian department, in sending expresses in the Indian country, &c.
_27th_. Major H. Whiting, U.S.A., writes from St. Augustine, Florida: “I have been favored with your letter of a month since, it having, I dare say, made all due diligence the post office arrangements admit. But the time shows the sort of intercourse I am doomed to have with my Detroit friends. I consider that the country ought to feel under obligations to one who serves her at such a sacrifice. Indeed, she can make us no adequate return, but to allow me to return–the only _return_ I ask. When, however, that favor will be granted is past my guessing. You ask when the war will terminate? You could not puzzle any of us more than by putting such a question. We are more at our wit’s end than the war’s end. And yet I do not see that anything has been left undone, that might have been done. The army has moved steadily toward its objects. But those objects are like a mirage, they are always nearly the same distance off. What can we do in such a case?
“The army for the last few weeks has been operating in a country that is more than half under water. It has often been difficult to find a spot dry enough for an encampment. If the troops do not all come out web-footed, it is because water can’t make a duck’s leg.
“I am on the lookout for specimens. I have one small alligator’s bones, and have laid in for those of a larger one, an old settler, no doubt going back to Bartram’s days. Alligators here have suffered more than the Indians in this war. I should judge that several hundreds have been killed from the boats as they pass up and down. They all have a bed just in the bank of the river, where they sleep in the sun, and the temptation is too great for any rifle, and they generally wake up a little too late. Mineral specimens here are not various. I have collected a few in order to show my friends, who can draw inferences from them. Shells have had a principal hand in the formation of this peninsula. They form the ninety-ninth part of the rock in this quarter. It is a most convenient formation, being worked almost as easily as clay, and yet it makes substantial walls. Frost, I presume, would play the deuce with it. But that is a thing not much known here. I have not yet had the pleasure to fix my northern eye on a piece of ice this winter, though there has been a cream thickness of it once or twice. A pitcher frozen over here makes more noise than the river frozen over at Detroit. The frogs have piped here all winter–happy dogs. I have been out at all times and in all places, and I don’t think my nose has been blue but once since I have been here–I have not been blue myself once. I have not yet been to Ponce de Leon’s spring. But there are some springs here of a wondrous look. They are so transparent that the fish can scarce believe themselves there in their own element. The Mackinack waters are almost turbid to them. They have a most sulphurous odour, and _might_ renew a man’s youth, but it must be at the expense of all sweet smells. I would rather keep on than go back on such conditions.
“In the fight which Lieut. Powell had with the Indians, a Doctor Lutner was killed, who was a scientific man, and had joined the expedition to botanize, &c. He had already done something in that way, and would have done much more. Such a life is a great loss.”
CHAPTER LXII.
Indiana tampered with at Grand River–Small-pox in the Missouri Valley–Living history at home–Sunday schools–Agriculture–Indian names–Murder of the Glass family–Dr. Morton’s inquiries respecting Indian crania–Necessity of one’s writing his name plain–Michigan Gazetteer in preparation–Attempt to make the Indian a political pack-horse–Return to the Agency of Michilimackinack–Indian skulls phrenologically examined–J. Toulmin Smith–Cherokee question–Trip to Grand River–Treaty and annuity payments–The department accused of injustice to the Indians.
1838. _March 2d_. LIEUT. E. S. SIBLEY, U.S.A., called at the office, and reported certain things which had been put into the heads of the Indians of Grand River, by interested persons, which they had at the recent annuity payments, requested him to state to me. Also, the fact of an outrage upon one of their number, committed by a white person, which should have been redressed at once by the civil magistrates. There is but one way of escape for the Indians living in white communities, that is, to place them, at once, under the protection, and subject to the penalties of our criminal and civil codes.
_3d_. Renewed and confirmatory accounts are published at St. Louis, of the desolating effects of the small-pox among the Indian tribes on the Missouri. In addition to the tribes mentioned in the first accounts as having suffered, the Upsarokees, or Crows, have been dreadfully afflicted. The various bands of the Pie-gans, Blood Indians, and Blackfeet, have lost great numbers. And the visitation of this appalling disease, against which they have no remedy, has been one of the severest ever felt by these tribes. Compared to it, the loss that the Saginaws and other local bands in Michigan have felt, is small; but it is an instructive fact, that the outbreak has been concurrent in point of time, on the Missouri and in Michigan, which would seem to imply a climatic condition of the atmosphere, on a wide scale, favorable to morbid eruptions.
_6th_. A.E. Wing, Esq., declines to deliver the annual address before the Michigan Historical Society, owing to other engagements. Few men who have capacity are found willing to devote the time necessary for the preparation of a literary address, even where the materials for it would appear to lie ready. The pressing practical calls of life, in a new country, where there is no hereditary wealth, appear to furnish a valid reason for this. But another reason is, that the materials and frame-work of an address are sought for at too great a distance, and are thought to lie too deeply buried, to be disinterred by any but extraordinary hands. This is a mistake. The subjects are at home, and exist not only in exploring old literary mines, but in the very circumstances around us. What more extraordinary than the current which throws such masses of people daily among us, tearing up, as it were, the old plan of life, and laying the foundations of new social ties in the wilderness. Not a county is settled in the West, the initial steps of which does not furnish legitimate materials for an address which would edify the living generation, and instruct those which are to follow us. A single century hence, and how much tradition will sleep in the grave that might now be rescued! Somebody has written a book “How to Observe,” but there is good need of another–“HOW TO THINK.”
_7th_. A new and growing society has every kind of moral want. The necessity for education exists in a thousand forms; and if the friends of it do not bestir themselves, the enemies will. The friends of the Sunday School Union, in Michigan, feeling impressed with these views, issued a circular this day, making an appeal which deserves a hearty response. Michigan mind appears very active in every department.
_17th_. Received a circular (from Messrs. Baloh & Wales, of Marshall, Calhoun Co.) for the issue of an agricultural paper, adequate to the wants of that interest.
_29th_. Dr. D. Houghton, the agent of the Geological Survey of the State, which is in progress, commits to me, in a letter of this date, the topic of the Indian terminology, and the bestowal of new names, from the aboriginal vocabulary.
_30th_. An inquest was held this day, in Ionia, on the head waters of Grand River, on the bodies of a woman and two children, supposed (mistakingly) to have been murdered by the Indians. By the testimony adduced, it is shown that a Mr. Aensel D. Glass, of whose family the bodies consist, lived about four miles from the nearest neighbor. He had not been seen since the 14th of the month. On the 28th, a Mr. Hiram Brown, one of his nearest neighbors, went there on business, and found the house burned, and the bodies of his wife and children lying half burned in the area of the house (which was of logs), having been previously most horribly mutilated. No trace could be found of Mr. Glass, nor of a good rifle, two axes, and two barrels of flour, which he was known to have had.
Suspicion first fell on the Grand River Ottawas. I investigated the subject, and found this unjust. They are a peaceable, orderly, agricultural people, friendly to the settlers, and having no cause of dislike to them. Suspicion next fell on the Saginaws, who hunt in that quarter, and whose character has not recovered from the imputation of murder and plunder committed during the war of 1812. Petossegay was named as the probable aggressor. But on an investigation made by Mr. Conner, at Saginaw, this imputation was also found improbable, and he was dismissed, leaving the horrible mystery unexplained.[84]
[Footnote 84: Mr. Glass was subsequently, in 1841, found alive in Wisconsin.]
_April 1st_. Dr. Samuel George Morton, of Philadelphia, who is preparing a comprehensive work on aboriginal crania, writes:–“Your obliging letter, offering me any information you might possess that would promote my work on the skulls of the American tribes, makes me free to put to you the following inquiries, inasmuch as I am desirous of seeing as many tribes, and as many individuals as possible, in a limited space of time.
“When will the next annual payment be made at Mackinaw, and how many tribes, and what number of people do you think will assemble on that occasion?
“If I visit Mackinaw, can I readily cross the country to the Mississippi, and what length of time will be required on the journey?
“It is my intention to visit Mackinaw, or any adjacent place, that, in your judgment, will give me the greatest opportunity for seeing the Indians, and I shall await your advice thereon.
“My work progresses rapidly. Twenty of sixty plates are already finished, and I hope to complete the work before the close of the year. I shall soon have an opportunity of forwarding, as far as Detroit, a set of my plates for your inspection and acceptance.”
_10th_. Washington Irving writes: “I have to acknowledge the receipt of a letter informing me of my having been elected an honorary member of the Michigan Historical Society, of which, I perceive, you are President. Not being able to make out the name of the Corresponding Secretary, I have to ask the favor of you to assure the Society of the deep sense I entertain of the honor they have done me, and my ready disposition to promote the views of so meritorious an institution.” What is worthy of note herein is this, that the name which the distinguished writer could not make out, is that of one of our most fluent penmen, namely, C.C. Trowbridge, Esq., but who, on scrutiny, I perceive, writes his name worse than anything else, and so inconceivably bad that a stranger might not be able to guess it.
_16th_. Mr. John T. Blois, who is engaged on a Gazetteer of the State of Michigan, acknowledges the receipt from me of some details respecting the statistical and topographical departments of his work. The difficulty to be met with by all gazetteers of the new States, consists in this, that most classes of the data alter so much in a few years that the books do not present the true state of things. Towns and counties spring up like magic, and if old Aladdin had his lamp he could not more expeditiously cover the shores of streams, and valleys, and plains, with seats, mills, and various institutions belonging to our system.[85]
[Footnote 85: This was proved by the result. The work was published in Oct., 1838, and was a very creditable performance, but the author had been two or three or even four years about it, and the information was just this time out of date.]
_19th_. A memorial is got up in Ionia County, on Grand River, respecting the Indians, their feelings and their affairs. In it facts are distorted, opinions misapprehended, and the acts and policy of the government and its agents greatly misconceived in some things, and wholly misrepresented in others. And the paper, when examined by the lights of treaties and acts, as they really occurred, is to be regarded as the work of some ambitious man who wishes to get on the backs of the Indians to ride into office, or to promote, in some other way, selfish and concealed ends. All such attempts, though they may seem to “run well” for a time, and may result in temporary success, may be safely left to the counteraction of right opinions. For it has always remained an axiom of truth, verified by every day’s experience, “That he that diggeth a pit for his neighbor shall himself fall into it.”
_20th_. General Jo. M. Brown, of the militia, who with the valor of the redoubtable Peter Stuyvesant at Christina, marched into Toledo, “brimful of wrath and cabbage,” transmits the above precious memorial, not to the Department, or the President, to whom it is ostensibly addressed, but to the editor of a political party paper at Detroit, to “manufacture” public opinion, claiming, at the same time, very high motives for so very disinterested an act, in which the good of the Indians, and the integrity of public faith, are clearly held forth as the aim of the writer. The editor endorsing it with most high-sounding phrases, in which he speaks of it as taking fit place beside the most atrocious fictions, which have been conjured up by mistaken heads and zealous hearts, anxious to ride the aforesaid “Indian question,” in relation to the Cherokees and Florida Indians. When all this grandiloquent display of parental sympathy, and a sense of outraged justice, is stripped of its false garbs and put into the crucible of truth, the result is, that political capital can be made just now of the handling of the topic. A delay of a few months (owing to the fiscal crisis at Washington) in the payment of half the annuity for the year, and the neglect or refusal of a few bands to come for the other moiety, as ready in silver, and paid at the stipulated time and place, is made the subject of allusion in this political hue and cry. As to these bands, they are the most peaceable, corn-planting, and semi-agricultural bands in the State. They have been pre-eminently cultivators from an early date of their history, and have been so characteristically addicted to barter, in the products of their industry as to be called by the other Algonquin bands, Ottawas, or traders from the days of Champlain. They had probably as little to do with the Glass murder in Ionia, which is alleged as an instance of hostility to the United States, as Gen. Jo. M. Brown himself.
_20th_. Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz, one of our female writers, in a note of acknowledgment to the Hist. Soc., falls into the same quandary about making out the signature of one of our most expert and beautiful penmen, that Washington Irving did. She could by no means make out Mr. Trowbridge’s name, and addressed her reply to me.
_21st_. Having passed the winter at Detroit, I left the Superintendency office in charge of Mr. Lee, an efficient clerk, and embraced the sailing of one of the earliest vessels for the Upper Lakes, to return to Michilimackinack. Winter still showed some of its aspects there, although gardening at Detroit had been commenced for weeks. The difference in latitude is nearly four and a half degrees; the geographical distance is computed by mariners at 300 miles.
_May 1st._ In a communication from Mr. J. Toulmin Smith, he expresses his anxiety to procure some Indian skulls from the tribes of the Upper Lakes, to be employed in his lectures on phrenology; and, also, for the purpose of transmission to London. This gentleman lectured acceptably on this topic during the winter at Detroit. During these lectures, I gave him the skull of Etowigezhik, a Chippewa, who was killed on Mr. Conner’s farm about four or five years ago. He pronounced the anterior portion to exceed in measurement by one-half an inch the posterior, and drew conclusions favorable to the natural intellect.
_10th_. The Cherokee question assumes a definite crisis. Gen. Scott issues, under this date, a friendly proclamation to the Cherokees, calling on them to remove peaceably, under the terms of the treaty of 1835, telling them that more than two years had already elapsed after the time agreed on, and that they would be provided, in their removal to the west of the Mississippi, with food, clothing, and every means of transportation; and making a just and humane appeal to their sense of justice to remote; but assuring them that, if these considerations were allowed to pass unheeded, his instructions were imperative, and he had an army at his command, and would be compelled to order it to act in the premises. Such an appeal must be successful.
However much we may sympathize with the poetic view of the subject, and admire that spirit of the human heart which loves to linger about its ancient seats and homes, the question in this case has assumed a purely practical aspect founded on public transactions, which cannot be recalled. The inaptitude of the Indian tribes generally, for conducting the business of self-government, and their want of a wise foresight in anticipating the relative power and position of the two great opposing races in America, namely, the white and red, has been the primary cause of all their treaty difficulties. The treaties themselves are not violated in any respect, but being written by lawyers and legalists, the true intent of some of these provisions, or the relative condition of the parties at a given time, are not sometimes fully appreciated; and at other times, the Indian chiefs exercise diplomatic functions which their nation has not restored, as in the case of the Creeks of Georgia, or to the exercise of which the majority are actually opposed, as in the treaty of New Echota with the Cherokees. Some of their most intelligent and best minds led the way to and signed the treaty of final cession of New Echota, in 1835. But the compensation being found ample, and the provisions wise, and such as would, in the judgment of the United States Senate, secure their prosperity and advancement permanently, that body, on large consideration, yielded its assent, making, at the same time, further concessions to satisfy the malcontents. These are the final arrangements for leaving the land to which Gen. Scott, in his proclamation, alludes.
This tribe has lived in its present central position longer than the period of exact history denotes. They are first heard of under the name of “Achalaques,” by the narrator of De Soto’s Conquest of Florida, in 1540; within a dozen years of three centuries ago.
_June 2d_. I proceeded, during the latter part of May, to visit the Ottawas of the southern part of Michigan, to inquire about their schools under the treaty of ’36, and to learn, personally, their condition during the state of the rapid settlements pressing around them. I went to Chicago by steamboat, and there found a schooner for Grand River. Here I was pleased to meet our old pastor, Mr. Ferry, as a proprietor and pastor of the newly-planned town of Grand Haven. I had to wait here, some days, for a conveyance to the Grand Rapids, which gave me time to ramble, with my little son, about the sandy eminences of the neighborhood, and to pluck the early spring flowers in the valley. The “Washtenong,” a small steamer with a stern-wheel, in due time carried us up. Among the passengers was an emigrant English family from Canada, who landed at a log house in the woods. I was invited, at the Rapids, to take lodgings with Mr. Lewis Campeau, the proprietor of the village. The fall of Grand River here creates an ample water power. The surrounding country is one of the most beautiful and fertile imaginable, and its rise to wealth and populousness must be a mere question of time, and that time hurried on by a speed that is astonishing. This generation will hardly be in their graves before it will have the growth and improvements which, in other countries, are the results of centuries.
_5th_. I this day, in a public council at the court house, paid the Indians the deferred half annuity of last year (1837) in silver coin, and afterwards concluded a treaty with them, modifying the treaty of 28th March, 1836, so far as to make it obligatory on the government to pay their annuities here instead of Michilimackinack. The annuities in salt, tobacco, provisions and goods, were also delivered to them by agents appointed for the purpose. They expressed themselves, and appeared to be highly gratified, with the just fulfilment of every treaty obligation, and with the kind and benevolent policy and treatment of the American government.
I took this occasion to call their attention to the murder of the Glass family in Ionia, in the month of March last. They utterly disclaimed it, or any participation of any kind in its perpetration. They agreed to send delegates west, in accordance with the 8th art. of the treaty of ’36, to explore the country on the sources of the Osage River, for their future permanent residence. They were well content with their teachers and missionaries of all denominations. The Chief Nawequageezhig, in