Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers Part 31

Mr. Trowbridge writes: "The money pressure is nearly or quite over in New York, but we feel it here in a dreadful degree. The want of public disburs.e.m.e.nts this year, upon which we have always rested our hopes with so much confidence, added to the over-introduction of goods for a year or two past, has produced this state of things, and I sometimes think that there will be no great improvement in this generation."

_29th_. _Medical Causes of Depopulation_.--The causes of Indian depopulation are wars, the want of abundance of food, intemperance, and idleness. Dr. Pitcher, in a letter of this date, says: "In your note (to 'Sanillac') on the subject of the diminution in numbers of our aboriginal neighbors, you have seized upon the most conspicuous, and, during their continuance, the most fatal causes of their decline. With the small-pox you might, however, a.s.sociate the measles, which, in consequence of their manner of treating the fever preceding the eruption, viz., the use of vapor and cold baths combined, most commonly tends to a mortal termination. To these two evils, propagated by the diffusion of a specific virus, may be added the prevalence of general epidemics, such as influenza, &c., whose virulence expends its force without restraint upon the Indians. They are not (as you are aware) a people who draw much instruction from the school of experience, particularly in the department of medicine, and, when by the side of this fact you place the protean forms which the diseases of epidemic seasons a.s.sume, the inference must follow that mult.i.tudes of them perish where the civilized man would escape (of which I could furnish examples).

"It is the province of the science of medicine to preserve to society its feeble and invalid members, which, notwithstanding the war it wages upon the principle of political economists, augments considerably the sum of human life. The victims of the diseases of civilization do not balance the casualties, &c. of a ruder state of society, as may be seen by inspecting the tables of the rates of mortality for a century past.

"I will suggest to you the propriety of improving this opportunity for setting the public right on one point, and that is the effects of aboriginal manners upon the physical character. For my part, I have long since ceased to believe that they are indebted to their mode of life for the vigor, as a race, which they exhibit, but that the naturally feeble are destroyed by the vicissitudes to which they are exposed, and which, in part, gives them an appearance, hardy and athletic, above their civilized neighbors."

_Erroneous impressions of Indians_.--Maj. Whiting, of Detroit, says (27th inst.): "I dare say I may find many things which will suit our purposes well. Something new and genuine is what we want, and the source gives a.s.surance these things all bear that character. It is time the public should know that neither ladies nor gentlemen who have never crossed the lakes or the Alleghany, can have any but vague ideas of the children of the forest. An Indian might not succeed well in portraying life in New York, because he does not read much, and would have to trust pretty much, if not altogether, to imagination; but his task would differ only in degree from that of the literary pretender who has never traveled West beyond the march of fresh oysters (though by the way, these have been seen in Detroit), and yet thinks he can penetrate the shadows and darkness of the wilderness. They put a hatchet in his hand, and stick a feather in his cap, and call him 'Nitche Nawba.' If I recollect right, in Yamoyden a soup was made of some white children.

Indians have not been over dainty at times, and no doubt have done worse things; but on such occasions their _modus operandi_ was not likely to be so much in accordance with the precepts of Madam Gla.s.s."

_Reviews_.--"I read over your last article in the N.A., and thought it had rather less point and connection than you had probably given it; but it still has much to recommend it. The remarks on language were more intelligible to me than any I have before seen, and have given me many clues which I have vainly sought for in preceding dissertations of the kind."

_Sept. 22d_. This day the patriarch of the place, John Johnston, Esq., breathed his last. He had attained the age of sixty-six. A native of the county of Antrim, in the north of Ireland; a resident for some thirty-eight years of this frontier; a gentleman in manners; a merchant, in chief, in the hazardous fur trade; a man of high social feelings and refinements; a cotemporary of the long list of men eminent in that department; a man allied to bishops and n.o.bles at home; connected in marriage with a celebrated Chippewa family of Algonquins; he was another Rolfe, in fact, in his position between the Anglo-Saxon and the Indian races; his life and death afford subjects for remark which are of the deepest interest, and would justify a biography, not a mere notice. I wrote a brief sketch for the _New York Albion_, and transmitted copies of the paper to some of his connections in Ireland.

His coming out from that country was during the first presidency of Was.h.i.+ngton, and a few years before the breaking out of the Irish Rebellion. He had a deep sense of his country's injuries, and of the effect of the laws which pressed so heavily on her energies, political and commercial; but was entirely loyal, and maintained the highest tone of loyalism in argument. He saw deeply the evils, but not the remedy, which he thought to lay rather in future and peaceful developments.

He suffered greatly and unjustly in the war of 1812, in which his place was pillaged by the American troops, and some forty thousand dollars of his private property destroyed, contrary to the instructions of the American commandant. Low-minded persons who had been in his service as clerks, and disliked his pretensions to aristocracy, were the cause of this, and piloted the detachment up the river. He was, however, in nowise connected with the North-west Company, far less "one of its agents." He was a civil magistrate under Gov.-Gen. Prevost, and was honestly attached to the British cause, and he had never accepted any office or offers from the American government. The Canadian British authorities did not, however, compensate him for his losses, on the ground of his living over the lines, at a time, too, when Gen. Brock had taken the country and a.s.sumed the functions of civil and military governor over all Michigan. The American Congress did not acknowledge the obligation to sustain the orders to respect private property, the Chairman of the Committee of Claims reporting that the actors "might be prosecuted," and the old gentleman's last years were thus embittered, and he went down to the grave the victim of double misconceptions--leaving to a large family of the Indo-Irish stock little beyond an honorable and unspotted name.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

Treaty of St. Joseph--Tanner--Visits of the Indians in distress--Letters from the civilized world--Indian code projected--Cause of Indian suffering--The Indian cause--Estimation of the character of the late Mr.

Johnston--Autobiography--Historical Society of Michigan--Fiscal embarra.s.sments of the Indian Department.

1828. Tanner was a singular being--out of humor with the world, speaking ill of everybody, suspicious of every human action, a very savage in his feelings, reasonings, and philosophy of life, and yet exciting commiseration by the very isolation of his position. He had been stolen by the Indians in the Ohio Valley when a mere boy, during the marauding forays which they waged against the frontiers about 1777. He was not then, perhaps, over seven years of age--so young, indeed, as to have forgotten, to a great degree, names and dates. His captors were Saganaw Chippewas, among whom he learned the language, manners and customs, and superst.i.tions of the Indians. They pa.s.sed him on, after a time, to the Ottowas of L'Arbre Croche, near Mackinac, among whom he became settled in his p.r.o.nunciation of the Ottowa dialect of the great Algonquin family. By this tribe, who were probably fearful a captive among them would be reclaimed after Wayne's war and the defeat of the combined Indians on the Miami of the Lakes, he was transferred to kindred tribes far in the north-west. He appears to have grown to manhood and learned the arts of hunting and the wild magic notions of the Indians on the Red River of the North, in the territory of Hudson's Bay. Lord Selkirk, in the course of his difficulties with the North-west Company, appears to have first learned of his early captivity.

He came out to Mackinac with the traders about 1825, and went to find his relatives in Kentucky, with whom, however, he could not long live.

His habits were now so inveterately savage that he could not tolerate civilization. He came back to the frontiers and obtained an interpreters.h.i.+p at the U.S. Agency at Mackinac. The elements of his mind were, however, morose, sour, suspicious, antisocial, revengeful, and bad. In a short time he was out with everybody. He caused to be written to me a piteous letter. Dr. James, who was post surgeon at the place, conceived that his narrative would form a popular introduction to his observations on some points of the Indian character and customs, which was the origin of a volume that was some years afterwards given to the public.

A note he brought me in 1828, from a high source, procured him my notice. I felt interested in his history, received him in a friendly manner, and gave him the place of interpreter. He entered on the duties faithfully; but with the dignity and reserve of an Indian chief. He had so long looked on the dark side of human nature that he seldom or never smiled. He considered everybody an enemy. His view of the state of Indian society in the wilderness made it a perfect h.e.l.l. They were thieves and murderers. No one from the interior agreed with him in this.

The traders, who called him a bad man, represent the Indians as social when removed from the face of white men, and capable of n.o.ble and generous acts. He was, evidently, his own judge and his own avenger in every question. I drew out of him some information of the Indian superst.i.tions, and he was well acquainted practically with the species of animals and birds in the northern lat.i.tudes.

_30th_. A letter informs me that a treaty has just been concluded with the Potawattomies of St. Joseph's, who cede to the United States about a million and a half acres, comprising the balance of their lands in Michigan. I received, at the same time, a few lines from Gen. Ca.s.s, speaking a word for the captive, John Tanner, the object of which was to suggest his employment as an interpreter in the Indian Department.[57]

[Footnote 57: This man served a short time, but turned out, for eighteen years, to be the pest of that settlement, being a remarkably suspicious, lying, bad-minded man, having lost every virtue of the white man, and acc.u.mulated every vice of the Indian. He became more and more morose and sour because the world would not support him in idleness, and went about half crazed, in which state he hid himself one day, in 1836, in the bushes, and shot and killed my brother, James L. Schoolcraft. He then fled back to the Indians, and has not been caught. The musket with which this nefarious act was done, is said to have been loaned to him from the guard-house at Fort Brady. Dr. Bagg p.r.o.nounced the ball an ounce-ball, such as is employed in the U.S. service. The wad was the torn leaf of a hymn book. It was extensively reported by the diurnal press, that I had been the victim of this unprovoked perfidy.]

_October 31st_. The Indian visits, from remote bands, which were very remarkable this year, continued through the entire month of August, and beyond the date at which I dropped the notices of them, during September, when they were reduced, as party after party returned to the interior, to the calls of the ordinary bands living about the post, and, at furthest, to the foot of Lake Superior and the valley and straits of the St. Mary's. With them, or rather before them, went the traders with their new outfits and retinues, chiefly from Michilimackinac. As one after another departed, there was less need of that vigilance, "by night and by day," to see that none of the latter cla.s.s went without due license; that the foreign boatmen on their descriptive lists were duly bonded for; that no "freedmen" slipped in; and that no ardent spirits were taken in contrary to law. Gradually my public duties were thus narrowed down to the benevolent wants of the bands that were immediately around me, to seeing that the mechanics employed by the Department did their duties, and to keeping the office at Was.h.i.+ngton duly informed of the occurrences and incidents belonging to Indian affairs. All this, after the close of summer, requires but a small portion of a man's time, and as winter, which begins here the first of November, approached, I felt impelled to devote a larger share of attention to subjects of research or literary amus.e.m.e.nt. I missed two men in plunging into the leisure hours of my seventh winter (omitting 1825), in this lat.i.tude, namely, Mr. Johnston, whose conversation and social sympathies were always felt, and Dr. Pitcher, whose tastes for natural science and general knowledge rendered him a valuable visitor.

Letters from the civilized world tended to keep alive the general sympathies, which none more appreciate than those who are shut out from its circles. Mr. Edward Everett (Oct. 6th) communicates his sentiments favorably, respecting the preparation of an article for the _North American Review_. The Rev. Mr. Cadle (Oct. 7th) sends a package of Bibles and Prayer Books for distribution among the soldiers, which he entrusts to Mrs. S. The Rev. Mr. Wells, of Detroit, writes of some temporality. Mr. Trowbridge keeps me advised respecting the all important and growing importance of the department's fiscal affairs.

The author of "Sanillac" (Oct. 8th) acknowledges the reception and reading of my "Notes," with which he expresses himself pleased. The head of the Indian office writes, "The plan has been adopted of compiling a code of regulations for the Indian intercourse during the winter. For this duty, Gen. Clarke, of St. Louis, and Gen. Ca.s.s, of Detroit, have been selected." Such were some of the extraneous subjects which the month of October brought from without.

The month of November was not without some incidents of interest. From the first to the fifteenth, a number of Indian families applied for food, under circ.u.mstances speaking loudly in their favor. The misfortune is, that these poor creatures are induced to part with everything for the means of gratifying their pa.s.sion for drink, and then lingering around the settlements as long as charity offers to supply their daily wants. The usual term of application for this cla.s.s is, Kittemaugizzi, or Nim bukkudda, I am in want, or I am hungry. By making my office a study, I am always found in the place of public duty, and the latter is only, in fact, a temporary relief from literary labor. I have often been asked how I support solitude in the wilderness. Here is the answer: the wilderness and the busy city are alike to him who derives his amus.e.m.e.nts from mental employment.

_Nov. 7th_. The Indian Cause.--In a letter of this date from Mr. J.D.

Stevens, of the Mission of Michilimackinac, he suggests a colony to be formed at some point in the Chippeway country of Lake Superior, and inquires whether government will not patronize such an effort to reclaim this stock. The Indian is, in every view, ent.i.tled to sympathy. The misfortune with the race is, that, seated on the skirts of the domain of a popular government, they have no vote to give. They are politically a nonent.i.ty. The moral and benevolent powers of our system are with the people. Government has nothing to do with them. The whole Indian race is not, in the political scales, worth one white man's vote. Here is the difficulty in any benevolent scheme. If the Indian were raised to the right of giving his suffrage, a plenty of politicians, on the frontiers, would enter into plans to better him. Now the subject drags along as an incubus on Congress. Legislation for them is only taken up on a pinch. It is a mere expedient to get along with the subject; it is taken up unwillingly, and dropped in a hurry. This is the Indian system.

n.o.body knows really what to do, and those who have more information are deemed to be a little moon-struck.

_18th_. ESTIMATION OF MR. JOHNSTON.--Gov. Ca.s.s writes from Was.h.i.+ngton: "Mr. Johnston's death is an event I sincerely deplore, and one upon which I tender my condolements to the family. He was really no common man. To preserve the manners of a perfect gentleman, and the intelligence and information of a well-educated man, in the dreary wastes around him, and in his seclusion from all society but that of his own family, required a vigor and elasticity of mind rarely to be found."

NEW INDIAN CODE.--The loose and fragmentary character of the Indian code has, at length, arrested attention at Was.h.i.+ngton, and led to some attempts to consolidate it. A correspondent writes (Nov. 18th): "Gen.

Clarke has not yet arrived, but is expected daily. In the meantime, I have prepared an a.n.a.lysis of the subject, which has been approved by the department, and, on the arrival of Gen. Clarke, we shall be prepared to proceed to the compilation of our code, which, I do hope, will put things in a better situation for all."

The derangements in the fiscal affairs of the Indian department are in the extreme. One would think that appropriations had been handled with a pitchfork. A correspondent writes: "For 1827, we were promised $48,000, and received $30,000. For 1828, we were promised $40,000, and have received $25,000; and, besides these promises, were all the extra expenditures authorized to be incurred, amounting to not less than $15,000. It is impossible this can continue." And these derangements are only with regard to the north. How the south and west stand, it is impossible to say. But there is a screw loose in the public machinery somewhere.

_Dec. 5th_. AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--"It is to be regretted," writes Dr. Edwin James, "that our lamented friend (Mr. Johnston) had not lived to complete his autobiography. This deficiency const.i.tutes no valid objection to the publication of the memoirs, though it appears to me highly desirable that you should complete the sketch, so as to include the history of the latter portion of his life. In perfect accordance with the plan of such a continuation, you would embody much valuable detail in relation to the history and condition of this section of the country for the last thirty years. You must, doubtless, have access to all the existing materials, and to many sources of authentic information, which could, very appropriately, be given to the public in such a form."

_15th_. UNION OF THE PURSUITS OF NATURAL AND CIVIL HISTORY.--I brought forward, and had pa.s.sed at the last session of the Legislature, an act incorporating the Historical Society of Michigan. Dr. Pitcher, who has recently changed his position to Fort Gratiot, at the foot of Lake Huron, proposes the embracing of natural history among its studies. He finds his position, at that point, to be still unfavorable in some aspects, and not much, if anything, superior to what it was at St. Mary's.

_27th_. FISCAL PERPLEXITIES OF THE DEPARTMENT.--These were alluded to before. No improvement appears, but we are all destined to suffer. A friend, who is versed in the subject, writes from Was.h.i.+ngton: "The fact is, that nothing could be worse managed than the fiscal concerns of the department. Not the slightest regard has been paid to the apportionment made, and there is now due to our superintendency more than the sum of $40,000. You can well conceive how this happens, and I have neither time nor patience to enter into the details; suffice it to say, that I am promised by the Secretary that the moment the appropriation law pa.s.ses, which will probably be early in January, every dollar of arrearages shall be paid off. This is all the consolation I can furnish you, and, I suppose I need not say that I have left no stone unturned to effect a more desirable result. It is manifest, however, that the whole department will be exceedingly pressed for funds next year, as a considerable part of the appropriation must be a.s.signed to the payment of arrearages, which have been suffered to acc.u.mulate; and it is not considered expedient, in the present state of affairs, to ask for a specific appropriation. It will require at least two years to bring our fiscal concerns to a healthy state."

In fact, to meet these embarra.s.sments, many retrenchments became necessary; some sub-agencies were drawn in from the Indian country, mechanics and interpreters were dismissed, and things put on the very lowest scale of expenditure.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

Political horizon--Ahmo Society--Incoming of Gen. Jackson's administration--Amus.e.m.e.nts of the winter--Peace policy among the Indians--Revival at Mackinac--Money crisis--Idea of Lake tides--New Indian code--Anti-masonry--Missions among the Indians--Copper mines--The policy respecting them settled--Whisky among the Indians--Fur trade--Legislative council--Mackinac mission---Officers of Wayne's war--Historical Society of Michigan--Improved diurnal press.

_1829. Jan. 1st_. The administration of John Quincy Adams now draws to a close, and that of Gen. Jackson is antic.i.p.ated to commence. Political things shape themselves for these events. The close of the old year and the opening of the new one have been remarkable for heralding many rumors of change which precede the incoming of the new administration.

Many of these relate to the probable composition of Gen. Jackson's cabinet. Among the persons named in my letters is Gov. Ca.s.s, who has attracted a good deal of exterior notoriety during the last year. Within the territory, his superiority of talents and energy have never been questioned. Michigan would have much to lament by such a transference, for it is to be feared that party rancor, which he has admirably kept down, would break forth in all its accustomed violence.

_17th_. AHMO SOCIETY.--Under this aboriginal term, which signifies a bee, the ladies of the fort and village have organized themselves into a sewing society for benevolent purposes. I find myself honored with a letter of thanks from them by their secretary, Mrs. E.S. Russell. Truly, the example of Dorcas was not mentioned in vain in the Scriptures, for its effect is to excite the benevolent and charitable everywhere to do likewise. Every such little influence helps to make society better, and aids its sources of pleasing and self-sustaining reflection.

_February 12th_. A letter from the editor of the _North American Review_ acknowledges the receipt of a paper to appear in _its_ columns.

_March 4th_, The administration of the government this day pa.s.ses into the hands of a man of extraordinary individuality of character, indomitable will, high purpose, and decided moral courage. He was fighting the Creeks and Seminoles when I first went to the West, and they told the most striking anecdotes of him, ill.u.s.trating each of these traits of character. Ten or eleven years have carried him into the presidential chair. Such is the popular feeling with respect to military achievements and strong individuality of character. Men like to follow one who shows a capacity to lead.

_31st_. The winter has pa.s.sed with less effect from the intensity of its cold and external dreariness, from the fact of my being ensconsed in a new house, with double window-sashes, fine storm-houses, plenty of maple fuel, books, and studies. Besides the fruitful theme of the Indian language, I amused myself, in the early part of the season, by writing a review for one of the periodicals, and with keeping up, throughout the season, an extensive correspondence with friends and men of letters in various parts of the Union. I revised and refreshed myself in some of my early studies, I continued to read whatever I could lay my hands on respecting the philosophy of language. Appearances of spring--the more deepened sound of the falls, the floating of large cakes of ice from the great northern depository, Lake Superior, and the return of some early species of ducks and other birds--presented themselves as harbingers of spring almost unawares. It is still wintry cold during the nights and mornings, but there is a degree of solar heat at noon which betokens the speedy decline of the reign of frosts and snows.

The Indians, to whom the rising of the sap in its capillary vessels in the rock-maple is the sign of a sort of carnival, are now in the midst of their season of sugar-making. It is one of their old customs to move, men, women, children, and dogs, to their accustomed sugar-forests about the 20th of March. Besides the quant.i.ty of maple-sugar that all eat, which bears no small proportion to all that is made, some of them sell a quant.i.ty to the merchants. Their name for this species of tree is In-in-au-tig, which means man-tree.

_April 5th_. PEACE POLICY.--The agent from La Pointe, in Lake Superior, writes: "My expressman from the Fond du Lac arrived on the 31st of last month, by whom I learned that the Leech Lake Indians were unsuccessful in their war excursion last fall, not having met with their enemies, the Sioux, and I trust my communication with Mr. Aitkin will be in time to check parties that may be forming in the spring.

"The state of the Indians throughout the country is generally in a critical way of starvation, the wild-rice crops and bear-hunts having completely failed last fall."

_21st_. REVIVAL OF RELIGION AT MACKINAC.--My brother James, who crossed the country on snow-shoes, writes: "Mr. Stuart, Satterlee, Mitch.e.l.l, Miss N. Dousman, Aitken, and some twenty others, have joined Ferry's church." This may be considered as the crowning point of the Reverend Mr. Ferry's labors at that point. This gentleman, if I mistake not, came up in the same steamer with me seven years ago. It is seed--seed literally sown in the wilderness, and reaped in the wilderness.

_29th_. MONEY CRISIS.--"The fact is," says a person high in power, "the fiscal concerns of the department have come to a dead stand, and nothing remains but to ascertain the arrearages, and pay them up. You well know how all this has happened (by diversions and misappropriations of the funds at Was.h.i.+ngton). Such management you can form no conception of.

There will be, during the year, a thorough change.

"I was glad to see your article. It is an able, and temperate, and practical view of the subject (_N.A.R._, Ap. 1829), grossly exaggerated, and grossly misunderstood."

_May 19th_. IDEA OF LAKE TIDES.--Maj. W. writes: "If you see _Silliman's Journal_, you will observe an article on the subject of the _Lake Tides_, as Gen. Dearborn calls them, in which he has inserted some hasty letters I wrote to him on this subject, without, however, ever expecting to see them in such a respectable guise. The Governor made some more extended observations at Green Bay. If you can give anything more definite in relation to the changes of Lake Superior, pray let me have a letter, and we will try to spread before Mr. Silliman a better view of the case. I have no idea that anything in the shape, of a tide exists, The Governor is of the same opinion."

To these opinions I can merely add, Amen. It requires more exact.i.tude of observation than falls to the lot of casual observers, to upset the conclusions of known laws and phenomena.