Chapter VII: Part 7

The fame as well as the face of Red Jacket, is generally familiar to the citizens of the United States and the Canadas; and for the information of those who have not known him, I will briefly say, that he has been for many years the head chief of the scattered remnants of that once powerful compact, the Six Nations; a part of whom reside on their reservations in the vicinity of the Senecas, amounting perhaps in all, to about four thousand, and owning some two hundred thousand acres of fine lands. Of this Confederacy, the Mohawks and Cayugas, chiefly emigrated to Canada, some fifty years ago, leaving the Senecas, the Tuskaroras, Oneidas, and Onondagas in the state of New York, on fine tracts of lands, completely surrounded with white population; who by industry and enterprize, are making the Indian lands too valuable to be long in their possession, who will no doubt be induced to sell out to the Government, or, in other words, to exchange them for lands West of the Mississippi, where it is the avowed intention of the Government to remove all the border tribes.[14]

Red Jacket has been reputed one of the greatest orators of his day; and, no doubt, more distinguished for his eloquence and his influence in council, than as a warrior, in which character I think history has not said much of him. This may be owing, in a great measure, to the fact that the wars of his nation were chiefly fought before his fighting days; and that the greater part of his life and his talents have been spent with his tribe, during its downfall; where, instead of the horrors of Indian wars, they have had a more fatal and destructive enemy to encounter, in the insidious encroachments of pale faces, which he has been for many years exerting his eloquence and all his talents to resist. Poor old chief—not all the eloquence of Cicero and Demosthenes would be able to avert the calamity, that awaits his declining nation—to resist the despoiling hand of mercenary white man, that opens and spreads liberally, but to entrap the unwary and ignorant within its withering grasp.

This talented old man has for many years past, strenuously remonstrated both to the Governor of New York, and the President of the United States, against the continual encroachments of white people; whom he represented as using every endeavour to wrest from them their lands—to destroy their game, introducing vices of a horrible character, and unknown to his people by nature! and most vehemently of all, has he continually remonstrated against the preaching of missionaries in his tribe; alleging, that the “black coats” (as he calls the clergymen), did more mischief than good in his tribe, by creating doubts and dissensions amongst his people! which are destructive of his peace, and dangerous to the success, and even _existence_ of his tribe. Like many other great men who endeavour to soothe broken and painful feelings, by the kindness of the bottle, he has long since taken up whiskey-drinking to excess; and much of his time, lies drunk in his cabin, or under the corner of a fence, or wherever else its _kindness_ urges the necessity of his dropping his helpless body and limbs, to indulge in the delightful _spell_. He is as great a drunkard as some of our most distinguished law-givers and law-makers; and yet _ten times more culpable_, as he has little to do in life, and wields the destinies of a nation in his hands![15]

There are no better people to be found, than the Seneca Indians—none that I know of that are by Nature more talented and ingenious; nor any that would be found to be better neighbours, if the arts and abuses of white men and whiskey, could be kept away from them. They have mostly laid down their hunting habits, and become efficient farmers, raising fine crops of corn, and a great abundance of hogs, cattle and horses, and other necessaries and luxuries of life.

I-RO-QUOIS.

One of the most numerous and powerful tribes that ever existed in the Northern regions of our country, and now one of the most completely annihilated. This tribe occupied a vast tract of country on the River St. Lawrence, between its banks and Lake Champlain; and at times, by conquest, actually over-run the whole country, from that to the shores of Lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan. But by their continual wars with the French, English, and Indians, and dissipation and disease, they have been almost entirely annihilated. The few remnants of them have long since merged into other tribes, and been mostly lost sight of.[16] Of this tribe I have painted but one, _Not-o-way_ (the thinker, +plate+ 206). This was an excellent man, and was handsomely dressed for his picture. I had much conversation with him, and became very much attached to him. He seemed to be quite ignorant of the early history of his tribe, as well as of the position and condition of its few scattered remnants, who are yet in existence. He told me, however, that he had always learned that the Iroquois had conquered nearly all the world; but the Great Spirit being offended at the great slaughters by his favourite people, resolved to punish them; and he sent a dreadful disease amongst them, that carried the most of them off, and all the rest that could be found, were killed by their enemies—that though he was an Iroquois, which he was proud to acknowledge to me, as I was to “make him live after he was dead;” he wished it to be generally thought, that he was a Chippeway, that he might live as long as the Great Spirit had wished it when he made him.[17]

[13] Since the above was written, the whole of this tribe have been
removed beyond the Missouri, having sold out their lands in the
state of Illinois to the Government.

[14] Since the above was written, the Senecas and all the other
remnants of the Six Nations residing in the state of New York,
have agreed in Treaties with the United States to remove to tracts
of country assigned them, West of the Mississippi, twelve hundred
miles from their reservations in the state of New York.

[15] This celebrated chief died several years since, in his
village near Buffalo; and since his death our famous comedian,
Mr. Placide, has erected a handsome and appropriate monument over
his grave; and I am pleased also to learn, that my friend Wm. L.
Stone, Esq., is building him a still more lasting one in history,
which he is compiling, of the life of this extraordinary man, to an
early perusal of which, I can confidently refer the world for much
curious and valuable information.

[16] The whole of the Six Nations have been by some writers
denominated Iroquois—how correct this may be, I am not quite able
to say; one thing is certain, that is, that the Iroquois tribe did
not all belong to that Confederacy, their original country was on
the shores of the St. Lawrence; and, although one branch of their
nation, the Mohawks, formed a part, and the most effective portion
of that compact, yet the other members of it spoke different
languages; and a great part of the Iroquois moved their settlements
further North and East, instead of joining in the continual wars
carried on by the Six Nations. It is of this part of the tribe that
I am speaking, when I mention them as nearly extinct: and it is
from this branch of the family that I got the portrait which I have
introduced above.

[17] Since the above Letter was written, all the tribes and
remnants of tribes mentioned in it have been removed by the
Government, to lands West of the Mississippi and Missouri, given
to them, in addition to considerable annuities, in consideration
for the immense tracts of country they have left on the frontier,
and within the States. The present positions of these tribes, and
their relative locations to the civilized frontier and the wild,
unjostled tribes, can be seen on a map in the beginning of this
Volume. There are also other tribes there laid down, who have also
been removed by Treaty stipulations, in the same way, which are
treated of in subsequent Letters. The Government, under General
Jackson, strenuously set forth and carried out, the policy of
removing all the semi-civilized and border Indians, to a country
West of the Mississippi; and although the project had many violent
opponents, yet there were very many strong reasons in favour of it,
and the thing _has been at last done_; and a few years will decide,
by the best of all arguments, whether the policy was a good one or
not. I may have occasion to say more on this subject hereafter; and
in the mean time recommend the reader to examine their relative
positions, and contemplate their prospects between their mortal
foes on the West, and their acquisitive _friends_ following them up
from the East.

LETTER—No. 48.

ST. LOUIS.

Whilst I am thus taking a hasty glance at the tribes on the Atlantic Coast, on the borders of Mexico, and the confines of Canada, the reader will pardon me for taking him for a few minutes to the mouth of the Columbia, on the Pacific Coast; which place I have not yet quite reached myself, in my wild rambles, but most undoubtedly shall ere long, if my strolling career be not suddenly stopped. I scarcely need tell the reader where the Columbia River is, since its course and its character have been so often, and so well described, by recent travellers through those regions. I can now but glance at this remote country and its customs; and revert to it again after I shall have examined it in all its parts, and collected my materials for a fuller account.

FLAT HEADS.

These are a very numerous people, inhabiting the shores of the Columbia River, and a vast tract of country lying to the South of it, and living in a country which is exceedingly sterile and almost entirely, in many parts, destitute of game for the subsistence of the savage; they are mostly obliged to live on roots, which they dig from the ground, and fish which they take from the streams; the consequences of which are, that they are generally poor and miserably clad; and in no respect equal to the Indians of whom I have heretofore spoken, who live on the East of the Rocky Mountains, in the ranges of the buffaloes; where they are well-fed, and mostly have good horses to ride, and materials in abundance for manufacturing their beautiful and comfortable dresses.

The people generally denominated Flat Heads, are divided into a great many bands, and although they have undoubtedly got their name from the custom of flattening the head; yet there are but very few of those so denominated, who actually practice that extraordinary custom.

The _Nez Percés_ who inhabit the upper waters and mountainous parts of the Columbia, are a part of this tribe, though they are seldom known to flatten the head like those lower down, and about the mouth of the river. _Hee-oh’ks-te-kin_ (the rabbit skin leggings, +plate+ 207), and _H’co-a-h’co a-h’cotes-min_ (no horns on his head, +plate+ 208), are young men of this tribe. These two young men, when I painted them, were in beautiful Sioux dresses, which had been presented to them in a talk with the Sioux, who treated them very kindly, while passing through the Sioux country. These two men were part of a delegation that came across the Rocky Mountains to St. Louis, a few years since, to enquire for the truth of a representation which they said some white man had made amongst them, “that our religion was better than theirs, and that they would all be lost if they did not embrace it.”

Two old and venerable men of this party died in St. Louis, and I travelled two thousand miles, companion with these two young fellows, towards their own country, and became much pleased with their manners and dispositions.

The last mentioned of the two, died near the mouth of the Yellow Stone River on his way home, with disease which he had contracted in the civilized district; and the other one I have since learned, arrived safely amongst his friends, conveying to them the melancholy intelligence of the deaths of all the rest of his party; but assurances at the same time, from General Clark, and many Reverend gentlemen, that the report which they had heard was well founded; and that missionaries, good and religious men, would soon come amongst them to teach this religion, so that they could all understand and have the benefits of it.

When I first heard the report of the object of this extraordinary mission across the mountains, I could scarcely believe it; but on conversing with General Clark on a future occasion, I was fully convinced of the fact; and I, like thousands of others, have had the satisfaction of witnessing the complete success that has crowned the bold and daring exertions of Mr. Lee and Mr. Spalding, two Reverend gentlemen who have answered in a Christian manner to this unprecedented call; and with their wives have crossed the most rugged wilds and wildernesses of the Rocky Mountains, and triumphantly proved to the world, that the Indians, in their native wilds are a kind and friendly people, and susceptible of mental improvement.

I had long been of the opinion, that to ensure success, the exertions of pious men should be carried into the heart of the wilderness, beyond the reach and influence of civilized vices; and I so expressed my opinion to the Reverend Mr. Spalding and his lady, in Pittsburgh, when on their way, in their first Tour to that distant country. I have seen the Reverend Mr. Lee and several others of the mission, several years since the formation of their school; as well as several gentlemen who have visited their settlement, and from all, I am fully convinced of the complete success of these excellent and persevering gentlemen, in proving to the world the absurdity of the assertion that has been often made, “that the Indian can never be civilized or christianized.” Their uninterrupted transit over such a vast and wild journey, also, with their wives on horseback, who were everywhere on their way, as well as amongst the tribes where they have located, treated with the utmost kindness and respect, bears strong testimony to the assertions so often made by travellers in those countries, that these are, in their native state, a kind and excellent people.

I hope I shall on a future occasion, be able to give the reader some further detailed account of the success of these zealous and excellent men, whose example, of penetrating to the _heart_ of the Indian country, and _there_ teaching the Indian in the true and effective way, will be a lasting honour to themselves, and I fully believe, a permanent benefit to those ignorant and benighted people.

THE CHINOOKS.

Inhabiting the lower parts of the Columbia, are a small tribe, and correctly come under the name of Flat Heads, as they are almost the only people who strictly adhere to the custom of squeezing and flattening the head. +Plate+ 209, is the portrait of a Chinook boy, of fifteen or eighteen years of age, on whose head that frightful operation has never been performed. And in +plate+ 210, will be seen the portrait of a Chinook woman, with her child in her arms, her own head flattened, and the infant undergoing the process of flattening; which is done by placing its back on a board, or thick plank, to which it is lashed with thongs, to a position from which it cannot escape, and the back of the head supported by a sort of pillow, made of moss or rabbit skins, with an inclined piece (as is seen in the drawing), resting on the forehead of the child; being every day drawn down a little tighter by means of a cord, which holds it in its place, until it at length touches the nose; thus forming a straight line from the crown of the head to the end of the nose.

This process is seemingly a very cruel one, though I doubt whether it causes much pain; as it is done in earliest infancy, whilst the bones are soft and cartilaginous, and easily pressed into this distorted shape, by forcing the occipital up, and the frontal down; so that the skull at the top, in profile, will show a breadth of not more than an inch and a half, or two inches; when in a front view it exhibits a great expansion on the sides, making it at the top, nearly the width of one and a half natural heads.

By this remarkable operation, the brain is singularly changed from its natural shape; but in all probability, not in the least diminished or injured in its natural functions. This belief is drawn from the testimony of many credible witnesses, who have closely scrutinized them; and ascertained that those who have the head flattened, are in no way inferior in intellectual powers to those whose heads are in their natural shapes.

In the process of flattening the head, there is often another form of crib or cradle, into which the child is placed, much in the form of a small canoe, dug out of a log of wood, with a cavity just large enough to admit the body of the child, and the head also, giving it room to expand in width; while from the head of the cradle there is a sort of lever, with an elastic spring to it that comes down on the forehead of the child, and produces the same effects as the one I have above described.

The child is wrapped in rabbits’ skins, and placed in this little coffin-like looking cradle, from which it is not, in some instances, taken out for several weeks. The bandages over and about the lower limbs, and as high up as the breast, are loose, and repeatedly taken off in the same day, as the child may require cleansing; but the head and shoulders are kept strictly in the same position, and the breast given to the child by holding it up in the cradle, loosing the outer end of the lever that comes over the nose, and raising it up of turning it aside, so as to allow the child to come at the breast, without moving its head.

The length of time that the infants are generally carried in these cradles is three, five, or eight weeks, until the bones are so formed as to keep their shapes, and preserve this singular appearance through life.

This little cradle has a strap, which passes over the woman’s forehead whilst the cradle rides on her back; and if the child dies during its subjection to this rigid mode, its cradle becomes its coffin, forming a little canoe, in which it lies floating on the water in some sacred pool, where they are often in the habit of fastening the canoes, containing the dead bodies of the old and the young; or which is often the case, elevated into the branches of trees, where their bodies are left to decay, and their bones to dry; whilst they are bandaged in many skins, and curiously packed in their canoes, with paddles to propel, and ladles to bail them out, and provisions to last, and pipes to smoke, as they are performing their “long journey after death, to their contemplated hunting-grounds,” which these people think is to be performed in their canoes.

In +plate+ 210½ letter _a_, is an accurate drawing of the above-mentioned cradle, perfectly exemplifying the custom described; and by the side of it (letter _b_,) the drawing of a Chinook skull, giving the front and profile view of it. Letter _c_, in the same plate, exhibits an Indian skull in its _natural_ shape, to contrast with the _artificial_.[18]

This mode of flattening the head is certainly one of the most unaccountable, as well as unmeaning customs, found amongst the North American Indians. What it could have originated in, or for what purpose, other than a mere useless fashion, it could have been invented, no human being can probably ever tell. The Indians have many curious and ridiculous fashions, which have come into existence, no doubt, by accident, and are of no earthly use (like many silly fashions in enlightened society), yet they are perpetuated much longer, and that only because their ancestors practiced them in ages gone by. The greater part of Indian modes, however, and particularly those that are accompanied with much pain or trouble in their enactment, are most wonderfully adapted to the production of some good or useful results; for which the inquisitive world, I am sure, may for ever look in vain to this stupid and useless fashion, that has most unfortunately been engendered on these ignorant people, whose superstition forbids them to lay it down.

It is a curious fact, and one that should be mentioned here, that these people have not been alone in this strange custom; but that it existed and was practiced precisely the same, until recently, amongst the Choctaws and Chickasaws; who occupied a large part of the states of Mississippi and Alabama, where they have laid their bones, and hundreds of their skulls have been procured, bearing incontrovertible evidence of a similar treatment, with similar results.

The Choctaws who are now living, do not flatten the head; the custom, like that of the _medicine-bag_, and many others, which the Indians have departed from, from the assurances of white people, that they were of no use, and were utterly ridiculous to be followed. Whilst amongst the Choctaws, I could learn little more from the people about such a custom, than that “their old men recollected to have heard it spoken of”—which is much less satisfactory evidence than inquisitive white people get by referring to the grave, which the Indian never meddles with. The distance of the Choctaws from the country of the Chinooks, is certainly between two and three thousand miles; and there being no intervening tribes practicing the same custom—and no probability that any two tribes in a state of Nature, would ever hit upon so peculiar an absurdity, we come, whether willingly or not, to the conclusion, that these tribes must at some former period, have lived neighbours to each other, or have been parts of the same family; which time and circumstances have gradually removed to such a very great distance from each other. Nor does this, in my opinion (as many suppose), furnish any very strong evidence in support of the theory, that the different tribes have all sprung from one stock; but carries a strong argument to the other side, by furnishing proof of the very great tenacity these people have for their peculiar customs; many of which are certainly not general, but often carried from one end of the Continent to the other, or from ocean to ocean, by bands or sections of tribes, which often get “run off” by their enemies in wars, or in hunting, as I have before described; where to emigrate to a vast distance is not so unaccountable a thing, but almost the _inevitable result_, of a tribe that have got set in motion, all the way amongst deadly foes, in whose countries it would be fatal to stop.

I am obliged therefore, to believe, that either the Chinooks emigrated from the Atlantic, or that the Choctaws came from the West side of the Rocky Mountains; and I regret exceedingly that I have not been able as yet, to compare the languages of these two tribes, in which I should expect to find some decided resemblance. They might, however, have been near neighbours, and practicing a copied custom where there was no resemblance in their language.

Whilst among the Choctaws I wrote down from the lips of one of their chiefs, the following tradition, which seems strongly to favour the supposition that they came from a great distance in the West, and probably from beyond the Rocky Mountains:—_Tradition_. “The Choctaws, a great many winters ago, commenced moving from the country where they then lived, which was a great distance to the West of the great river, and the mountains of snow; and they were a great many years on their way. A great medicine-man led them the whole way, by going before with a red pole, which he stuck in the ground every night where they encamped. This pole was every morning found leaning to the East; and he told them that they must continue to travel to the East, until the pole would stand upright in their encampment, and that there the Great Spirit had directed that they should live. At a place which they named _Nah-ne-wa-ye_ (the sloping hill); the pole stood straight up, where they pitched their encampment, which was one mile square, with the men encamped on the outside, and the women and children in the centre; which is the centre of the old Choctaw nation to ‘this day.’”

In the vicinity of the mouth of the Columbia, there are, besides the _Chinooks_, the _Klick-a-tacks_, _Cheehaylas_, _Na-as_, and many other tribes, whose customs are interesting, and of whose manufactures, my Museum contains many very curious and interesting specimens, from which I have inserted a few outlines in +plate+ 210½, to which the reader will refer. Letter _d_, is a correct drawing of a Chinook canoe—_e_, a Na-as war-canoe, curiously carved and painted—_f_, two dishes or ladles for baling their canoes—_g_, a Stikeen mask, curiously carved and painted, worn by the mystery-men when in councils, for the purpose of calling up the Great or Evil Spirits to consult an the policy of peace or war—_h_, custom of the _Na-as_ women of wearing a block of wood in the under lip, which is almost as unaccountable as the custom of flattening the head. Letter _i_, is a drawing of the block, and the exact dimensions of one in the Collection, taken out of the lip of a deceased _Na-as_ woman—_k_, “wapito diggers,” instruments used by the women for digging the wapito, a bulbous root, much like a turnip, which the French Traders call _pomme blanche_, and which I have before described. Letter _l_, _pau-to-mau-gons_, or _po-ko-mo-kons_, war-clubs, the one made by the Indians from a piece of native copper, the other of the bone of the sperm whale. Letter _n_, two very curiously carved pipes, made of black slate and highly polished.

Besides these, the visitor will find in the Collection a great number of their very ingenious articles of dress; their culinary, war, and hunting implements, as well as specimens of their spinning and weaving, by which they convert dog’s hair and the wool of the mountain-sheep into durable and splendid robes, the production of which, I venture to say, would bid defiance to any of the looms in the American or British Factories.

The Indians who inhabit the rugged wildernesses of the Rocky Mountains, are chiefly the Blackfeet and Crows, of whom I have heretofore spoken, and the Shoshonees or Snakes, who are a part of the Camanchees, speaking the same language, and the Shoshokies or root diggers, who inhabit the southern parts of those vast and wild realms, with the Arapahoes and Navahoes, who are neighbours to the Camanchees on the West, having Santa Fe on the South, and the coast of California on the West. Of the Shoshonees and Shoshokies, all travellers who have spoken of them, give them a good character, as a kind and hospitable and harmless people; to which fact I could cite the unquestionable authorities of the excellent Rev. Mr. Parker, who has published his interesting Tour across the Rocky Mountains—Lewis and Clarke—Capt. Bonneville and others; and I allege it to be a truth, that the reason why we find them as they are uniformly described, a kind and inoffensive people, is, that they have not as yet been abused—that they are in their primitive state, as the Great Spirit made and endowed them with good hearts and kind feelings, unalloyed and untainted by the vices of the money-making world.

To the same fact, relative to the tribes on the Columbia river, I have been allowed to quote the authority of H. Beaver, a very worthy and kind Reverend Gentleman of England, who has been for several years past living with these people, and writes to me thus:—

“I shall be always ready, with pleasure, to testify my perfect accordance with the sentiments I have heard you express, both in your public lectures, and private conversation, relative to the much-traduced character of our Red brethren, particularly as it relates to their _honesty_, _hospitality_ and _peaceableness_, throughout the length and breadth of the Columbia. Whatever of a contrary disposition has at any time, in those parts, been displayed by them, has, I am persuaded been exotic, and forced on them by the depravity and impositions of the white Traders.”

[18] Besides these, there are a number of other skulls in the
Collection, most interesting specimens, from various tribes.

LETTER—No. 49.

ST. LOUIS.

In one of my last Letters from Fort Gibson, written some months since. I promised to open my note-book on a future occasion, to give some further account of tribes and remnants of tribes located in that vicinity, amongst whom I had been spending some time with my pen and my pencil; and having since that time extended my rambles over much of that ground again, and also through the regions of the East and South East, from whence the most of those tribes have emigrated; I consider this a proper time to say something more of them, and their customs and condition, before I go farther.

The most of these, as I have said, are tribes or parts of tribes which the Government has recently, by means of Treaty stipulations, removed to that wild and distant country, on to lands which have been given to them in exchange for their valuable possessions within the States, ten or twelve hundred miles to the East.

Of a number of such reduced and removed tribes, who have been located West of the Missouri, and North of St. Louis, I have already spoken in a former Letter, and shall yet make brief mention of another, which has been conducted to the same region—and then direct the attention of the reader to those which are settled in the neighbourhood of Fort Gibson, who are the Cherokees—Creeks—Choctaws—Chickasaws—Seminoles, and Euchees.

The people above alluded to are the

SHA-WA-NO’S.

The history of this once powerful tribe is so closely and necessarily connected with that of the United States, and the revolutionary war, that it is generally pretty well understood. This tribe formerly inhabited great parts of the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, (and for the last sixty years,) a part of the states of Ohio and Indiana, to which they had removed; and now, a considerable portion of them, a tract of country several hundred miles West of the Mississippi, which has been conveyed to them by Government in exchange for their lands in Ohio, from which it is expected the remainder of the tribe will soon move. It has been said that this tribe came formerly from Florida, but I do not believe it. The mere fact, that there is found in East Florida a river by the name of _Su-wa-nee_, which bears some resemblance to _Sha-wa-no_, seems, as far as I can learn, to be the principal evidence that has been adduced for the fact. They have evidently been known, and that within the scope of our authenticated history, on the Atlantic coast—on the Delaware and Chesapeak bays. And after that, have fought their way against every sort of trespass and abuse—against the bayonet and disease, through the states of Pennsylvania, Delaware and Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri, to their present location near the Konzas River, at least 1500 miles from their native country.

This tribe and the Delawares, of whom I have spoken, were neighbours on the Atlantic coast, and alternately allies and enemies, have retrograded and retreated together—have fought their enemies united, and fought each other, until their remnants that have outlived their nation’s calamities, have now settled as neighbours together in the Western wilds; where, it is probable, the sweeping hand of death will soon relieve _them_ from further necessity of warring or moving; and the _Government_, from the necessity or policy of proposing to them a yet more distant home. In their long and disastrous pilgrimage, both of these tribes laid claim to, and alternately occupied the beautiful and renowned valley of Wy-ô-ming; and after strewing the Susquehana’s lovely banks with their bones, and their tumuli, they both yielded at last to the dire necessity, which follows all civilized intercourse with natives, and fled to the Alleghany, and at last to the banks of the Ohio; where necessity soon came again, and again, and again, until the great _“Guardian” of all “red children”_ placed them where they now are.

There are of this tribe remaining about 1200; some few of whom are agriculturists, and industrious and temperate, and religious people; but the greater proportion of them are miserably poor and dependent, having scarcely the ambition to labour or to hunt, and a passion for whiskey-drinking, that sinks them into the most abject poverty, as they will give the last thing they possess for a drink of it.

There is not a tribe on the Continent whose history is more interesting than that of the Shawanos, nor any one that has produced more extraordinary men.

The great Tecumseh, whose name and history I can but barely allude to at this time, was the chief of this tribe, and perhaps the most extraordinary Indian of his age.

The present chief of the tribe _Lay-law-she-kaw_ (he who goes up the river, +plate+ 211), is a very aged, but extraordinary man, with a fine and intelligent head, and his ears slit and stretched down to his shoulders, a custom highly valued in this tribe; which is done by severing the rim of the ear with a knife, and stretching it down by wearing heavy weights attached to it at times, to elongate it as much as possible, making a large orifice, through which, on parades, &c. they often pass a bunch of arrows of quills, and wear them as ornaments.

In this instance (which was not an unusual one), the rims of the ears were so extended down, that they touched the shoulders, making a ring through which the whole hand could easily be passed. The daughter of this old chief, _Ka-te-qua_ (the female eagle, +plate+ 212), was an agreeable-looking girl, of fifteen years of age, and much thought of by the tribe. _Pah-te-coo-saw_ (the straight man, +plate+ 213), a warrior of this tribe, has distinguished himself by his exploits; and when he sat for his picture, had painted his face in a very curious manner with black and red paint.

_Ten-squa-ta-way_ (the open door, +plate+ 214), called the “_Shawnee Prophet_,” is perhaps one of the most remarkable men, who has flourished on these frontiers for some time past. This man is brother of the famous Tecumseh, and quite equal in his _medicines_ or mysteries, to what his brother was in arms; he was blind in his left eye, and in his right hand he was holding his “_medicine fire_,” and his “_sacred string of beans_” in the other. With these mysteries he made his way through most of the North Western tribes, enlisting warriors wherever he went, to assist Tecumseh in effecting his great scheme, of forming a confederacy of all the Indians on the frontier, to drive back the whites and defend the Indians’ rights; which he told them could never in any other way be protected. His plan was certainly a correct one, if not a very great one; and his brother, the Prophet, exercised his astonishing influence in raising men for him to fight his battles, and carry out his plans. For this purpose, he started upon an embassy to the various tribes on the Upper Missouri, nearly all of which he visited with astonishing success; exhibiting his mystery fire, and using his sacred string of beans, which every young man who was willing to go to war, was to touch, thereby taking the solemn oath to start when called upon, and not to turn back.

In this most surprising manner, this ingenious man entered the villages of most of his inveterate enemies, and of others who never had heard of the name of his tribe; and manœuvred in so successful a way, as to make his medicines a safe passport for him to all of their villages; and also the means of enlisting in the different tribes, some eight or ten thousand warriors, who had solemnly sworn to return with him on his way back; and to assist in the wars that Tecumseh was to wage against the whites on the frontier. I found, on my visit to the Sioux—to the Puncahs, to the Riccarees and the Mandans, that he had been there, and even to the Blackfeet; and everywhere told them of the potency of his mysteries, and assured them, that if they allowed the fire to go out in their wigwams, it would prove fatal to them in every case. He carried with him into every wigwam that he visited, the image of a dead person of the size of life; which was made ingeniously of some light material, and always kept concealed under bandages of thin white muslin cloths and not to be opened; of this he made great mystery, and got his recruits to swear by touching a sacred string of white beans, which he had attached to its neck or some other way secreted about it. In this way by his extraordinary cunning, he had carried terror into the country as far as he went; and had actually enlisted some eight or ten thousand men, who were sworn to follow him home; and in a few days would have been on their way with him, had not a couple of his political enemies in his own tribe, followed on his track, even to those remote tribes, and defeated his plans, by pronouncing him an impostor; and all of his forms and plans an imposition upon them, which they would be fools to listen to. In this manner, this great recruiting officer was defeated in his plans, for raising an army of men to fight his brother’s battles; and to save his life, he discharged his medicines as suddenly as possible, and secretly travelled his way home, over those vast regions, to his own tribe, where the death of Tecumseh, and the opposition of enemies, killed all his splendid prospects, and doomed him to live the rest of his days in silence, and a sort of disgrace; like all men in Indian communities who pretend to _great medicine_, in any way, and fail; as they all think such failure an evidence of the displeasure of the Great Spirit, who always judges right.

This, no doubt, has been a very shrewd and influential man, but circumstances have destroyed him, as they have many other great men before him; and he now lives respected, but silent and melancholy in his tribe. I conversed with him a great deal about his brother Tecumseh, of whom he spoke frankly, and seemingly with great pleasure; but of himself and his own great schemes, he would say nothing. He told me that Tecumseh’s plans were to embody all the Indian tribes in a grand confederacy, from the province of Mexico, to the Great Lakes, to unite their forces in an army that would be able to meet and drive back the white people, who were continually advancing on the Indian tribes, and forcing them from their lands towards the Rocky Mountains—that Tecumseh was a great general, and that nothing but his premature death defeated his grand plan.

The Shawanos, like most of the other remnants of tribes, in whose countries the game has been destroyed, and by the use of whiskey, have been reduced to poverty and absolute want, have become, to a certain degree, agriculturists; raising corn and beans, potatoes, hogs, horses, &c., so as to be enabled, if they could possess anywhere on earth, a country which they could have a certainty of holding in perpetuity, as their own, to plant and raise their own crops, and necessaries of life from the ground.

The Government have effected with these people, as with most of the other dispersed tribes, an arrangement by which they are to remove West of the Mississippi, to lands assigned them; on which they are solemnly promised a home _for ever_; the uncertain definition of which important word, time and circumstances alone will determine.

Besides the personages whom I have above-mentioned, I painted the portraits of several others of note in the tribe; and amongst them _Lay-loo-ah-pe-ai-shee-kaw_ (the grass-bush and blossom), whom I introduce in this place, rather from the very handy and poetical name, than from any great personal distinction known to have been acquired by him.

+The CHER-O-KEES.+

Living in the vicinity of, and about Fort Gibson, on the Arkansas, and 700 miles west of the Mississippi river, are a third part or more of the once very numerous and powerful tribe who inhabited and still inhabit, a considerable part of the state of Georgia, and under a Treaty made with the United States Government, have been removed to those regions, where they are settled on a fine tract of country; and having advanced somewhat in the arts and agriculture before they started, are now found to be mostly living well, cultivating their fields of corn and other crops, which they raise with great success.

Under a serious difficulty existing between these people (whom their former solemn Treaties with the United States Government, were acknowledged a free and independent nation, with powers to make and enforce their own laws), and the state of Georgia, which could not admit such a Government within her sovereignty, it was thought most expedient by the Government of the United States, to propose to them, for the fourth or fifth time, to enter into Treaty stipulations again to move; and by so doing to settle the difficult question with the state of Georgia, and at the same time, to place them in peaceable possession of a large tract of fine country, where they would for ever be free from the continual trespasses and abuses which it was supposed they would be subjected to, if they were to remain in the state of Georgia, under the present difficulties and the high excited feelings which were then existing in the minds of many people along their borders.

_John Ross_, a civilized and highly educated and accomplished gentleman, who is the head-chief of the tribe, (+plate+ 215), and several of his leading subordinate chiefs, have sternly and steadily rejected the proposition of such a Treaty; and are yet, with a great majority of the nation remaining on their own ground in the state of Georgia, although some six or 7000 of the tribe have several years since removed to the Arkansas, under the guidance and controul of an aged and dignified chief by the name of _Jol-lee_ (+plate+ 217).

This man, like most of the chiefs, as well as a very great proportion of the Cherokee population, has a mixture of white and red blood in his veins, of which, in this instance, the first seems decidedly to predominate. Another chief, and second to this, amongst this portion of the Cherokees, by the name of Teh-ke-neh-kee (the black coat), I have also painted and placed in my Collection, as well as a very interesting specimen of the Cherokee women (+plate+ 216).

I have travelled pretty generally through the several different locations of this interesting tribe, both in the Western and Eastern divisions, and have found them, as well as the Choctaws and Creeks, their neighbours, very far advanced in the arts; affording to the world the most satisfactory evidences that are to be found in America, of the fact, that the Indian was not made to shun and evade good example, and necessarily to live and die a brute, as many speculating men would needs record them and treat them, until they are robbed and trampled into the dust; that no living evidences might give the lie to their theories, or draw the cloak from their cruel and horrible iniquities.

As I have repeatedly said to my readers, in the course of my former epistles, that the greater part of my time would be devoted to the condition and customs of the tribes that might be found in their primitive state, they will feel disposed to pardon me for barely introducing the Cherokees, and several others of these very interesting tribes, and leaving them and their customs and histories (which are of themselves enough for volumes), to the reader, who is, perhaps, nearly as familiar as I am myself, with the full and fair accounts of these people, who have had their historians and biographers.

The history of the Cherokees and other numerous remnants of tribes, who are the exhabitants of the finest and most valued portions of the United States, is a subject of great interest and importance, and has already been woven into the most valued histories of the country, as well as forming material parts of the archives of the Government, which is my excuse for barely introducing the reader to them, and beckoning him off again to the native and untrodden wilds, to teach him something new and unrecorded. Yet I leave the subject, as I left the people (to whom I became attached, for their kindness and friendship), with a heavy heart, wishing them success and the blessing of the Great Spirit, who alone can avert the _doom_ that would almost seem to be fixed for their unfortunate race.

The Cherokees amount in all to about 22,000, 16,000 of whom are yet living in Georgia, under the Government of their chief, John Ross, whose name I have before mentioned; with this excellent man, who has been for many years devotedly opposed to the Treaty stipulations for moving from their country, I have been familiarly acquainted; and, notwithstanding the bitter invective and animadversions that have been by his political enemies heaped upon him, I feel authorized, and bound, to testify to the unassuming and gentlemanly urbanity of his manners, as well as to the rigid temperance of his habits, and the purity of his language, in which I never knew him to transgress for a moment, in public or private interviews.

At this time, the most strenuous endeavours are making on the part of the Government and the state of Georgia, for the completion of an arrangement for the removal of the whole of this tribe, as well as of the Choctaws and Seminoles; and I have not a doubt of their final success, which seems, from all former experience, to attend every project of the kind made by the Government to their red children.[19]

It is not for me to decide, nor in this place to reason, as to the justice or injustice of the treatment of these people at the hands of the Government or individuals; or of the wisdom of the policy which is to place them in a new, though vast and fertile country, 1000 miles from the land of their birth, in the doubtful dilemma whether to break the natural turf with their rusting ploughshares, or string their bows, and dash over the boundless prairies, beckoned on by the alluring dictates of their nature, seeking laurels amongst the ranks of their new enemies, and subsistence amongst the herds of buffaloes.

Besides the Cherokees in Georgia, and those that I have spoken of in the neighbourhood of Fort Gibson, there is another band or family of the same tribe, of several hundreds, living on the banks of the Canadian river, an hundred or more miles South West of Fort Gibson, under the Government of a distinguished chief by the name of _Tuch-ee_ (familiarly called by the white people, “_Dutch_,” +plate+ 218). This is one of the most extraordinary men that lives on the frontiers at the present day, both for his remarkable history, and for his fine and manly figure, and character of face.

This man was in the employment of the Government as a guide and hunter for the regiment of dragoons, on their expedition to the Camanchees, where I had him for a constant companion for several months, and opportunities in abundance, for studying his true character, and of witnessing his wonderful exploits in the different varieties of the chase. The history of this man’s life has been very curious and surprising; and I sincerely hope that some one, with more leisure and more talent than myself, will take it up, and do it justice. I promise that the life of this man furnishes the best materials for a popular tale, that are now to be procured on the Western frontier.

He is familiarly known, and much of his life, to all the officers who have been stationed at Fort Gibson, or at any of the posts in that region of country.

Some twenty years or more since, becoming fatigued and incensed with civilized encroachments, that were continually making on the borders of the Cherokee country in Georgia, where he then resided, and probably, foreseeing the disastrous results they were to lead to, he beat up for volunteers to emigrate to the West, where he had designed to go, and colonize in a wild country beyond the reach and contamination of civilized innovations; and succeeded in getting several hundred men, women, and children, whom he led over the banks of the Mississippi, and settled upon the head waters of White River, where they lived until the appearance of white faces, which began to peep through the forests at them, when they made another move of 600 miles to the banks of the Canadian, where they now reside; and where, by the system of desperate warfare, which he has carried on against the Osages and the Camanchees, he has successfully cleared away from a large tract of fine country, all the enemies that could contend for it, and now holds it, with his little band of myrmidons, as their own undisputed soil, where they are living comfortably by raising from the soil fine crops of corn and potatoes, and other necessaries of life; whilst they indulge whenever they please, in the pleasures of the chase amongst the herds of buffaloes, or in the natural propensity for ornamenting their dresses and their war-clubs with the scalp-locks of their enemies.

+The CREEKS (or MUS-KO-GEES).+

Of 20,000 in numbers, have, until quite recently, occupied an immense tract of country in the states of Mississippi and Alabama; but by a similar arrangement (and for a similar purpose) with the Government, have exchanged their possessions there for a country, adjoining to the Cherokees, on the South side of the Arkansas, to which they have already all removed, and on which, like the Cherokees, they are laying out fine farms, and building good houses, in which they live; in many instances, surrounded by immense fields of corn and wheat. There is scarcely a finer country on earth than that now owned by the Creeks; and in North America, certainly no Indian tribe more advanced in the arts and agriculture than they are. It is no uncommon thing to see a Creek with twenty or thirty slaves at work on his plantation, having brought them from a slave-holding country, from which, in their long journey, and exposure to white man’s ingenuity, I venture to say, that most of them got rid of one-half of them, whilst on their long and disastrous crusade.

The Creeks, as well as the Cherokees and Choctaws, have good schools and churches established amongst them, conducted by excellent and pious men, from whose example they are drawing great and lasting benefits.

In +plates+ 219 and 220, I have given the portraits of two distinguished men, and I believe, both chiefs. The first by the name of _Stee-cha-co-me-co_ (the great king), familiarly called “Ben Perryman;” and the other. _Hol-te-mal-te-tez-te-neehk-ee_ (——), called “Sam Perryman.” These two men are brothers, and are fair specimens of the tribe, who are mostly clad in calicoes, and other cloths of civilized manufacture; tasselled and fringed oft by themselves in the most fantastic way, and sometimes with much true and picturesque taste. They use a vast many beads, and other trinkets, to hang upon their necks, and ornament their moccasins and beautiful belts.

+The CHOCTAWS.+

Of fifteen thousand, are another tribe, removed from the Northern parts of Alabama, and Mississippi, within the few years past, and now occupying a large and rich tract of country, South of the Arkansas and the Canadian rivers; adjoining to the country of the Creeks and the Cherokees, equally civilized, and living much in the same manner.