Chapter I: MUST finish this general outline, by saying something of that religion (1)

which gave stability and effect to the virtues of this infant society. Their religion, then, like their original national character, had in it little of fervour or enthusiasm; their manner of performing religious duties was regular and decent, but calm, and to more ardent imaginations might appear mechanical. None ever doubted of the great truths of revelation, yet few seemed to dwell on the result with that lively delight which devotion produces in minds of keener sensibility. If their piety, however, was without enthusiasm, it was also without bigotry; they wished others to think as they did, without showing rancour or contempt towards those who did not. In many individuals, whose lives seemed governed by the principles of religion, the spirit of devotion seemed to be quiescent in the heart, and to break forth in exigencies; yet that monster in nature, an impious woman, was never heard of among them.

Indeed it was on the females that the task of religious instruction generally devolved; and in all cases where the heart is interested, who ever teaches, at the same time learns.

Before I quit this subject, I must observe a singular coincidence; not only the training of children, but of plants, such as needed peculiar care or skill to rear them, was the female province. Every one in town or country had a garden; but all the more hardy plants grew in the field, in rows, amidst the hills, as they were called, of Indian corn. These lofty plants sheltered them from the sun, while the same hoeing served for both; their cabbages, potatoes, and other esculent roots, with variety of gourds, grew to a great size, and were of an excellent quality. Kidney-beans, asparagus, celery, great variety of salads and sweet herbs, cucumbers, &c., were only admitted into the garden, into which no foot of man intruded, after it was dug in spring. Here were no trees, those grew in the orchard in high perfection. Strawberries and many high flavoured wild fruits of the shrub kind abounded so much in the woods, that they did not think of cultivating them in their gardens, which were extremely neat, but small, and not by any means calculated for walking in. I think I yet see what I have so often beheld both in town and country, a respectable mistress of a family going out to her garden, in an April morning, with her great calash, her little painted basket of seeds, and her rake over her shoulder, to her garden labours. These were by no means figurative,

“From morn till noon, from noon till dewy eve.”

A woman, in very easy circumstances, and abundantly gentle in form and manners, would sow, and plant, and rake, incessantly. These fair gardeners too were great florists; their emulation and solicitude in this pleasing employment, did indeed produce “flowers worthy of Paradise.” These, though not set in “curious knots,” were arranged in beds, the varieties of each kind by themselves; this, if not varied and elegant, was at least rich and gay. To the Schuylers this description did not apply; they had gardeners, and their gardens were laid out in the European manner.

Perhaps I should reserve my description of the manner of living in that country for that period, when by the exertions of a few humane and enlightened individuals it assumed a more regular and determinate form. Yet as the same outline was preserved through all the stages of its progression, I know not but that it may be best to sketch it entirely, before I go further; that the few and simple facts which my narrative affords may not be clogged by explanations relative to the customs, or any other peculiarities which can only be understood by a previous acquaintance with the nature of the country, its political relations, and the manners of the people; my recollection all this while has been merely confined to Albany, and its precincts. At New-York there was always a governor, a few troops, and a kind of little court kept; there too was a mixed, and in some degree, polished society. To this the accession of many families of French Huguenots, rather above the middling rank, contributed not a little; those conscientious exiles had more knowledge and piety than any other class of the inhabitants; their religion seemed indeed endeared to them, by what they had suffered for adhering to it. Their number and wealth was such, as enabled them to build not only a street, but a very respectable church in the new city. In this place of worship service continued to be celebrated in the French language within my recollection, though the original congregation was by that time much blended in the mass of general society. It was the custom of the inhabitants of the upper settlement, who had any pretensions to superior culture or polish, among which number Mr. Schuyler stood foremost, to go once in a year to New-York, where all the law-courts were held, and all the important business of the province transacted; here too they sent their children occasionally to reside with their relations, and to learn the more polished manners and language of the capital. The inhabitants of that city, on the other hand, delighted in a summer excursion to Albany. The beautiful, and in some places highly singular banks of the river, rendering a voyage to its source both amusing and interesting, while the primitive manners of the inhabitants diverted the gay and idle, and pleased the thoughtful and speculative.

Let me now be indulged in drawing a picture of the abode of my childhood just as, at this time, it presents itself to my mind.

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CHAP. VI.

Description of Albany—Manner of living there—Hermitage, &c.

THE city of Albany was stretched along the banks of the Hudson; one very wide and long street lay parallel to the river, the intermediate space between it and the shore being occupied by gardens. A small, but steep hill rose above the centre of the town, on which stood a fort, intended (but very ill adapted) for the defence of the place, and of the neighbouring country. From the foot of this hill, another street was built, sloping pretty rapidly down till it joined the one before mentioned that ran along the river. This street was still wider than the other; it was only paved on each side, the middle being occupied by public edifices. These consisted of a market-place, or guard-house, a town hall, and the English and Dutch churches. The English church, belonging to the Episcopal persuasion, and in the diocese of the bishop of London, stood at the foot of the hill, at the upper end of the street. The Dutch church was situated at the bottom of the descent where the street terminated; two irregular streets, not so broad, but equally long, ran parallel to those, and a few even ones open between them. The town, in proportion to its population, occupied a great space of ground. This city, in short, was a kind of semi-rural establishment; every house had its garden, well, and a little green behind; before every door a tree was planted, rendered interesting by being coeval with some beloved member of the family; many of their trees were of a prodigious size and extraordinary beauty, but without regularity, every one planting the kind that best pleased him, or which he thought would afford the most agreeable shade to the open portico at his door, which was surrounded by seats, and ascended by a few steps. It was in these that each domestic group was seated in summer evenings to enjoy the balmy twilight, or serenely clear moonlight. Each family had a cow, fed in a common pasture at the end of the town. In the evening they returned all together, of their own accord, with their tinkling bells hung at their necks, along the wide and grassy street, to their wonted sheltering trees, to be milked at their master’s doors. Nothing could be more pleasing to a simple and benevolent mind than to see thus, at one view, all the inhabitants of a town, which contained not one very rich or very poor, very knowing or very ignorant, very rude or very polished individual; to see all these children of nature enjoying in easy indolence, or social intercourse,

“The cool, the fragrant, and the _dusky_ hour,”

clothed in the plainest habits, and with minds as undisguised and artless. These primitive beings were dispersed in porches grouped according to similarity of years and inclinations. At one door young matrons, at another the elders of the people, at a third the youths and maidens, gaily chatting or singing together, while the children played round the trees, or waited near the cows, for the chief ingredient of their frugal supper, which they generally ate sitting on the steps in the open air. This picture, so familiar to my imagination, has led me away from my purpose, which was to describe the rural economy, and modes of living in this patriarchal city. At one end of the town, as I observed before, was a common pasture where all the cattle belonging to the inhabitants grazed together. A never-failing instinct guided each home to her master’s door in the evening, where, being treated with a few vegetables and a little salt, which is indispensably necessary for cattle in this country, they patiently waited the night; and after being milked in the morning, they went off in slow and regular procession to their pasture. At the other end of the town was a fertile plain along the river, three miles in length, and near a mile broad. This was all divided into lots, where every inhabitant raised Indian corn sufficient for the food of two or three slaves, (the greatest number that each family ever possessed,) and for his horses, pigs, and poultry: their flour and other grain they purchased from farmers in the vicinity. Above the town, a long stretch to the westward was occupied first by sandy hills, on which grew bilberries of uncommon size and flavour in prodigious quantities; beyond, rise heights of a poor hungry soil, thinly covered with stunted pines, or dwarf oak. Yet in this comparatively barren tract, there were several wild and picturesque spots, where small brooks, running in deep and rich bottoms, nourished on their banks every vegetable beauty; there, some of the most industrious early settlers had cleared the luxuriant wood from these charming little glens, and built neat cottages for their slaves, surrounded with little gardens and orchards, sheltered from every blast, wildly picturesque, and richly productive. Those small sequestered vales had an attraction that I know not how to describe, and which probably resulted from the air of deep repose that reigned there, and the strong contrast which they exhibited to the surrounding sterility. One of these was in my time inhabited by a hermit. He was a Frenchman, and did not seem to inspire much veneration among the Albanians. They imagined, or had heard, that he retired to that solitude in remorse for some fatal duel in which he had been engaged: and considered him as an idolator because he had an image of the Virgin in this hut. I think he retired to Canada at last; but I remember being ready to worship him for the sanctity with which my imagination invested him, and being cruelly disappointed because I was not permitted to visit him. These cottages were in summer occupied by some of the negroes who cultivated the grounds about them, and served as a place of joyful liberty to the children of the family on holidays, and a nursery for the young negroes, whom it was the custom to rear very tenderly, and instruct very carefully.

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CHAP. VII.

Gentle treatment of slaves among the Albanians—Consequent
attachment of domestics—Reflections on servitude.

In the society I am describing, even the dark aspect of slavery was softened into a smile. And I must, in justice to the best possible masters, say, that a great deal of that tranquillity and comfort, to call them by no higher names, which distinguish this society from all others, was owing to the relation between master and servant being better understood here than in any other place. Let me not be detested as an advocate for slavery, when I say that I think I have never seen people so happy in servitude as the domestics of the Albanians. One reason was, (for I do not now speak of the virtues of their masters,) that each family had few of them, and that there were no field negroes. They would remind one of Abraham’s servants, who were all born in the house, which was exactly their case. They were baptised too, and shared the same religious instruction with the children of the family; and, for the first years, there was little or no difference with regard to food or clothing between their children and those of their masters.

When a negro-woman’s child attained the age of three years, the first New-Year’s day after, it was solemnly presented to a son or daughter, or other young relative of the family, who was of the same sex with the child so presented. The child to whom the young negro was given, immediately presented it with some piece of money and a pair of shoes; and from that day the strongest attachment subsisted between the domestic and the destined owner. I have no where met with instances of friendship more tender and generous, than that which here subsisted between the slaves and their masters and mistresses. Extraordinary proofs of them have been often given in the course of hunting or Indian trading, when a young man and his slave have gone to the trackless woods together, in the cases of fits of the ague, loss of a canoe, and other casualties happening near hostile Indians. The slave has been known, at the imminent risk of his life, to carry his disabled master through trackless woods with labour and fidelity scarce credible; and the master has been equally tender on similar occasions of the humble friend who stuck closer than a brother; who was baptised with the same baptism, nurtured under the same roof, and often rocked in the same cradle with himself. These gifts of domestics to the younger members of the family were not irrevocable; yet they were very rarely withdrawn. If the kitchen family did not increase in proportion to that of the master, young children were purchased from some family where they abounded, to furnish those attached servants to the rising progeny. They were never sold without consulting their mother, who, if expert and sagacious, had a great deal to say in the family, and would not allow her child to go into any family with whose domestics she was not acquainted. These negro-women piqued themselves on teaching their children to be excellent servants, well knowing servitude to be their lot for life, and that it could only be sweetened by making themselves particularly useful, and excelling in their department. If they did their work well, it is astonishing, when I recollect it, what liberty of speech was allowed to those active and prudent mothers. They would chide, reprove, and expostulate in a manner that we would not endure from our hired servants; and sometimes exert fully as much authority over the children of the family as the parents, conscious that they were entirely in their power. They did not crush freedom of speech and opinion in those by whom they knew they were beloved, and who watched with incessant care over their interest and comfort. Affectionate and faithful as these home-bred servants were in general, there were some instances (but very few) of those who, through levity of mind, or a love of liquor or finery, betrayed their trust, or habitually neglected their duty. In these cases, after every means had been used to reform them, no severe punishments were inflicted at home. But the terrible sentence, which they dreaded worse than death, was passed—they were sold to Jamaica. The necessity of doing this was bewailed by the whole family as a most dreadful calamity, and the culprit was carefully watched on his way to New-York, lest he should evade the sentence by self-destruction.

One must have lived among those placid and humane people to be sensible that servitude—hopeless, endless servitude—could exist with so little servility and fear on the one side, and so little harshness or even sternness of authority in the other. In Europe, the footing on which service is placed in consequence of the corruptions of society, hardens the heart, destroys confidence, and embitters life. The deceit and venality of servants not absolutely dishonest, puts it out of one’s power to love or trust them. And if in hopes of having people attached to us, who will neither betray our confidence, nor corrupt our children, we are at pains to rear them from childhood, and give them a religious and moral education; after all our labour, others of their own class seduce them away to those who can afford to pay higher for their services. This is not the case in a few remote districts, where surrounding mountains seeming to exclude the contagion of the world, some traces of fidelity and affection among domestics still remain. But it must be remarked that, in those very districts, it is usual to treat inferiors with courtesy and kindness, and to consider those domestics who marry out of the family as holding a kind of relation to it, and still claiming protection. In short, the corruption of that class of people is, doubtless, to be attributed to the example of their superiors. But how severely are those superiors punished? Why this general indifference about home; why are the household gods, why is the sacred hearth so wantonly abandoned? Alas! the charm of home is destroyed, since our children, educated in distant seminaries, are strangers in the paternal mansion; and our servants, like mere machines, move on their mercenary track, without feeling or exciting one kind or generous sentiment. Home, thus despoiled of all its charms, is no longer the scene of any enjoyments but such as wealth can purchase. At the same time we feel there, a nameless, cold privation, and conscious that money can coin the same enjoyments with more variety elsewhere. We substitute these futile and evanescent pleasures for that perennial spring of calm satisfaction, “without o’erflowing full,” which is fed by the exercise of the kindly affections, and soon indeed must those stagnate where there are not proper objects to excite them. I have been forced into this painful digression by unavoidable comparisons. To return:—

Amidst all this mild and really tender indulgence to their negroes, these colonists had not the smallest scruple of conscience with regard to the right by which they held them in subjection. Had that been the case, their singular humanity would have been incompatible with continued injustice. But the truth is, that of law, the generality of those people knew little; and of philosophy, nothing at all. They sought their code of morality in the Bible, and there, imagined they found this hapless race condemned to perpetual slavery; and thought nothing remained for them but to lighten the chains of their fellow Christians, after having made them such. This I neither “extenuate,” nor “set down in malice,” but merely record the fact. At the same time, it is but justice to record also a singular instance of moral delicacy, distinguishing this settlement from every other in the like circumstances, though, from their simple and kindly modes of life, they were from infancy in habits of familiarity with these humble friends, yet being early taught that nature had placed between them a barrier, which was in a high degree criminal and disgraceful to pass, they considered a mixture of such distinct races with abhorrence, as a violation of her laws. This greatly conduced to the preservation of family happiness and concord. An ambiguous race, which the law does not acknowledge; and who (if they have any moral sense, must be as much ashamed of their parents as these last are of them) are certainly a dangerous, because degraded part of the community. How much more so must be those unfortunate beings who stand in the predicament of the bat in the fable, whom both birds and beasts disowned? I am sorry to say that the progress of the British army, when it arrived, might be traced by a spurious and ambiguous race of this kind. But of a mulatto born before their arrival I only remember a single instance; and from the regret and wonder it occasioned, considered it as singular. Colonel Schuyler, of whom I am to speak, had a relation so weak and defective in capacity, that he never was entrusted with any thing of his own, and lived an idle bachelor about the family. In process of time a favourite negro-woman, to the great offence and scandal of the family, bore a child to him, whose colour gave testimony to the relation. The boy was carefully educated; and when he grew up, a farm was allotted to him well stocked and fertile, but “in depth of woods embraced,” about two miles back from the family seat. A destitute white woman, who had somehow wandered from the older colonies, was induced to marry him; and all the branches of the family thought it incumbent on them now and then to pay a quiet visit to Chalk (for so, for some unknown reason, they always called him). I have been in Chalk’s house myself, and a most comfortable abode it was; but considered him as a mysterious and anomalous being.

I have dwelt the longer on this singular instance of slavery, existing devoid of its attendant horrors, because the fidelity and affection resulting from a bond of union so early formed between master and servant contributed so very much to the safety of individuals, as well as the general comfort of society, as will hereafter appear.

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CHAP. VIII.

Education and early habits of the Albanians described.

The foundations both of friendship and still tender attachments, were here laid very early, by an institution which I always thought had been peculiar to Albany, till I found in Dr. Moore’s View of Society on the Continent an account of a similar custom subsisting in Geneva. The children of the town were all divided into companies, as they called them, from five or six years of age, till they became marriageable. How those companies first originated, or what were their exact regulations, I cannot say; though I, belonging to none, occasionally mixed with several, yet always as a stranger, though I spoke their current language fluently. Every company contained as many boys as girls. But I do not know that there was any limited number; only this I recollect, that a boy and a girl of each company, who were older, cleverer, or had some other pre-eminence above the rest, were called heads of the company, and, as such, obeyed by the others. Whether they were voted in, or attained their pre-eminence by a tacit acknowledgment of their superiority, I knew not; but however it was attained it was never disputed. The companies of little children had also their heads. All the children of the same age were not in one company; there were at least three or four of equal ages, who had a strong rivalry with each other; and children of different ages, in the same family, belonged to different companies. Wherever there is human nature there will be a degree of emulation, strife, and a desire to lessen others, that we may exalt ourselves. Dispassionate as my friends comparatively were, and bred up in the highest attainable candour and innocence, they regarded the company most in competition with their own with a degree of jealous animosity. Each company, at a certain time of the year, went in a body to the hills, to gather a particular kind of berries. It was a sort of annual festival, attended with religious punctuality. Every company had an uniform for this purpose; that is to say, very pretty light baskets made by the Indians, with lids and handles, which hung over the arm, and were adorned with various colours. One company would never allow the least degree of taste to the other in this instance; and was sure to vent its whole stock of spleen in decrying the rival baskets. Nor would they ever admit that the rival company gathered near so much fruit on these excursions as they did. The parents of these children seemed very much to encourage this manner of marshalling and dividing themselves. Every child was permitted to entertain the whole company on its birth-day, and once besides, during winter and spring. The master and mistress of the family always were bound to go from home on these occasions, while some old domestic was left to attend and watch over them, with an ample provision of tea, chocolate, preserved and dried fruits, nuts, and cakes of various kinds, to which was added cider or a syllabub, for these young friends met at four, and did not part till nine or ten, and amused themselves with the utmost gaiety and freedom in any way their fancy dictated. I speak from hearsay; for no to these meetings: other children or young people visit occasionally, and are civilly treated, but they admit of no person that does not belong to the company is ever admitted intimacies beyond their company. The consequence of these exclusive and early intimacies was, that, grown up, it was reckoned a sort of apostasy to marry out of one’s company, and indeed, it did not often happen. The girls, from the example of their mothers, rather than any compulsion, became very early notable and industrious, being constantly employed in knitting stockings, and making clothes for the family and slaves: they even made all the boys’ clothes. This was the more necessary, as all articles of clothing were extremely dear. Though all the necessaries of life, and some luxuries, abounded, money, as yet, was a scarce commodity. This industry was the more to be admired, as children were here indulged to a degree that, in our vitiated state of society, would have rendered them good for nothing. But there, where ambition, vanity, and the more turbulent passions were scarce awakened; where pride, founded on birth, or any external pre-eminence, was hardly known; and where the affections flourished fair and vigorous, unchecked by the thorns and thistles with which our minds are cursed in a more advanced state of refinement; affection restrained parents from keeping their children at a distance, and inflicting harsh punishments. But then they did not treat them like apes or parrots, by teaching them to talk with borrowed words and ideas, and afterwards gratifying their own vanity by exhibiting these premature wonders to company, or repeating their sayings. They were tenderly cherished, and early taught that they owed all their enjoyments to the divine source of beneficence, to whom they were finally accountable for their actions; for the rest they were very much left to nature, and permitted to range about at full liberty in their earliest years, covered in summer with some slight and cheap garb, which merely kept the sun from them, and in winter with some warm habit, in which convenience only was consulted. Their dress of ceremony was never put on but when their company were assembled. They were extremely fond of their children; but, luckily for the latter, never dreamed of being vain of their immature wit and parts, which accounts, in some measure, for the great scarcity of coxcombs among them. The children returned the fondness of their parents with such tender affection, that they feared giving them pain as much as ours do punishment, and very rarely wounded their feelings by neglect or rude answers. Yet the boys were often wilful and giddy at a certain age, the girls being sooner tamed and domesticated.

These youths were apt, whenever they could carry a gun, (which they did at a very early period,) to follow some favourite negro to the woods, and, while he was employed in felling trees, range the whole day in search of game, to the neglect of all intellectual improvement, and contract a love of savage liberty, which might, and in some instances did, degenerate into licentious and idle habits. Indeed, there were three stated periods in the year, when, for a few days, young and old, masters and slaves, were abandoned to unruly enjoyment, and neglected every serious occupation for pursuits of this nature.

We, who occupy countries fully inhabited, can form no idea of the multitude of birds and animals that nature provides to consume her waste fertility, in those regions unexplored by man. In the interior of the province, the winter is much colder than might be supposed, from the latitude in which it lies, which is only 42 deg. 36 min. and from the keen north winds which blow constantly for four or five months over vast frozen lakes and snowy tracts, in the direction of Canada. The snow too lies very deep; but when once they are visited by the south wind in March, its literally warm approach dissolves the snow like magic, and one never sees another wintry day till the season of cold returns. These southern winds seem to flow in a rapid current, uninterrupted by mountains or other obstacles, from the burning sands of the Floridas, Georgia, and the Carolinas, and bring with them a degree of warmth, that appears no more the natural result of the situation, than the intense cold of winter does in that season.

Along the sea banks, in all these southern provinces, are low, sandy lands, that never were or will be inhabited, covered with the berry-bearing myrtle, from which wax is extracted fit for candles. Behind these banks are woods and unwholesome swamps of great extent. The myrtle groves, formerly mentioned, afford shelter and food to countless multitudes of pigeons in winter, when their fruit is in season; while wild geese and ducks, in numbers nearly as great, pass the winter in the impenetrable swamps behind. Some time in the month of April, a general emigration takes place to the northward, first of the geese and ducks, and then of the pigeons; they keep the direction of the sea-coast till they come to the mouths of the great rivers, and then follow their course till they reach the great lakes in the interior, where nature has provided for them with the same liberality as in their winter haunts. On the banks of these lakes, there are large tracts of ground, covered with a plant taller and more luxuriant than the wild carrot, but something resembling it, on the seeds of which the pigeons feed all the summer, while they are breeding and rearing their young. When they pass in spring, which they always do in the same track, they go in great numbers, and are very fat. Their progression northward and southward, begins always about the vernal and autumnal equinoxes-and it is this that renders the carnage so great when they pass over inhabited districts. They begin to fly in the dawn, and are never seen after nine or ten o’clock in the morning, possibly feeding and resting in the woods all the rest of the day. If the morning be dry and windy, all the fowlers, (that is every body,) are disappointed, for then they fly so high that no shot can reach them; but in a cloudy morning, the carnage is incredible; and it is singular that their removal falls out at the times of the year that the weather, (even in this serene climate,) is generally cloudy. This migration, as it passed by, occasioned, as I said before, a total relaxation from all employments, and a kind of drunken gaiety, though it was rather slaughter than sport; and, for above a fortnight, pigeons in pies and soups, and every way they could be dressed, were the food of the inhabitants. These were immediately succeeded by wild geese and ducks, which concluded the carnival for that season, to be renewed in September. About six weeks after the passage of these birds, sturgeon of a large size, and in great quantities, made their appearance in the river. Now the same ardour seemed to pervade all ages in pursuit of this new object. Every family had a canoe—and on this occasion all were launched; and these persevering fishers traced the course of the sturgeon up the river, followed them by torchlight, and often continued two nights upon the water, never returning till they had loaded their canoes with this valuable fish, and many other, very excellent in their kinds, that come up the river at the same time. The sturgeon not only furnished them with good part of their food in the summer months, but was pickled or dried for future use or exportation.

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CHAP. IX.

Description of the manner in which the Indian Traders set out on their
first adventure.

TO return to the boys, as all young men were called here till they married. Thus early trained to a love of sylvan sports, their characters were unfolded by contingencies. In this infant society, penal laws lay dormant, and every species of coercion was unknown.

Morals, founded on Christianity, were fostered by the sweet influence of the charities of life. The reverence which children in particular, had for their parents, and the young in general for the old, was the chief bond that held society together. This veneration, being founded on esteem, certainly could only have existed thus powerfully in an uncorrupted community. It had, however, an auxiliary no less powerful.

Here, indeed, it might with truth be said,

“Love breath’d his infant sighs from anguish free.”

In consequence of the singular mode of associating together little exclusive parties of children of both sexes, which has been already mentioned, endearing intimacies, formed in the age of playful innocence, were the precursors of more tender attachments.

These were not wrought up to romantic enthusiasm, or extravagant passion, by an inflamed imagination, or by the fears of rivalry, or the artifices of coquetry, yet they had power sufficient to soften the manners and elevate the character of the lover.

I know not if this be the proper place to observe how much of the general order of society, and the happiness of a people, depend on marriage being early and universal among them; but of this more hereafter. The desire, (undiverted by any other passion,) of obtaining the object of their affection, was to them a stimulus to early and severe exertion. The enamoured youth did not listlessly fold his arms, and sigh over his hopeless or unfortunate passion. Of love not fed by hope, they had not an idea. Their attachments originated at too early an age, and in a circle too familiar, to give room for those first-sight impressions of which we hear such wonders. If the temper of the youth was rash and impetuous, and his fair one gentle and complying, they frequently formed a rash and precipitate union, without consulting their relations, when, perhaps, the elder of the two was not above seventeen. This was very quietly borne by the parties aggrieved. The relations of both parties met, and with great calmness consulted on what was to be done. The father of the youth or the damsel, whichever it was who had most wealth or fewest children, brought home the young couple; and the new married man immediately set about a trading adventure, which was renewed every season, till he had the means of providing a home of his own. Meantime the increase of the younger family did not seem an inconvenience, but rather a source of delight to the old people; and an arrangement begun from necessity, was often continued through choice for many years after. Their tempers, unruffled by the endless jealousies and competitions incident to our mode of life, were singularly placid, and that love of offspring, where children were truly an unmixed blessing, was a common sentiment which united all the branches of the family, and predominated over every other. The jarring and distrust—the petulance and egotism, which, distinct from all weightier considerations, would not fail to poison concord, were different families to dwell under one roof here, were there scarcely known. It is but justice to our acquired delicacy of sentiment to say, that the absence of refinement contributed to this tranquillity. These primitive people, if they did not gather the flowers of cultivated elegance, were not wounded by the thorns of irritable delicacy. They had neither artificial wants nor artificial miseries. In short, they were neither too wise to be happy, nor too witty to be at rest.

Thus it was in the case of unauthorized marriages. In the more ordinary course of things, love, which makes labour light, tamed these young hunters, and transformed them into diligent and laborious traders, for the nature of their trade included very severe labour. When one of the _boys_ was deeply smitten, his fowling-piece and fishing-rod were at once relinquished. He demanded of his father forty or at most fifty dollars, a negro boy, and a canoe; all of a sudden he assumed the brow of care and solicitude, and began to smoke, a precaution absolutely necessary to repel aguish damps and troublesome insects. He arrayed himself in a habit very little differing from that of the aborigines, into whose bounds he was about to penetrate, and in short commenced Indian trader. That strange, amphibious animal, who, united the acute senses, strong instincts, and unconquerable patience and fortitude of the savage, with the art, policy, and inventions of the European, encountered, in the pursuit of gain, dangers and difficulties equal to those described in the romantic legends of chivalry.

The small bark canoe in which this hardy adventurer embarked himself, his fortune, and his faithful _squire_, (who was generally born in the same house, and predestined to his service,) was launched amidst the tears and prayers of his female relations, amongst whom was generally included his destined bride, who well knew herself to be the motive of this perilous adventure.

The canoe was entirely filled with coarse strouds and blankets, guns, powder, beads, &c., suited to the various wants and fancies of the natives; one pernicious article was never wanting, and often made a great part of the cargo. This was ardent spirits, for which the natives too early acquired a relish, and the possession of which always proved dangerous and sometimes fatal to the traders. The Mohawks bringing their furs and other peltry, habitually to the stores of their wonted friends and patrons, it was not in that easy and safe direction that these trading adventures extended. The canoe generally steered northward towards the Canadian frontier. They passed by the flats and stonehook in the outset of their journey; then commenced their toils and dangers at the famous water-fall called the Cohoes, ten miles above Albany, where three rivers, uniting their streams into one, dash over a rocky shelf, and falling into a gulf below with great violence, raise clouds of mist, bedecked with splendid rainbows. This was the rubicon which they had to pass, before they plunged into pathless woods, engulfing swamps and lakes, the opposite shores of which the eye could not reach. At the Cohoes, on account of the obstruction formed by the torrent, they unloaded their canoe, and carried it above a mile further upon their shoulders, returning again for the cargo, which they were obliged to transport in the same manner. This was but a prelude to labours and dangers, incredible to those who dwell at ease. Further on, much longer carrying places frequently recurred—where they had the vessel and cargo to drag through thickets, impervious to the day, abounding with snakes and wild beasts, which are always to be found on the side of rivers.

Their provision of food was necessarily small, for fear of overloading the slender and unstable conveyance already crowded with goods. A little dried beef and Indian cornmeal was their whole stock, though they formerly enjoyed both plenty and variety. They were, in a great measure, obliged to depend upon their own skill in hunting and fishing, and the hospitality of the Indians. For hunting, indeed, they had small leisure, their time being sedulously employed, in consequence of the obstacles that retarded their progress. In the slight and fragile canoes, they often had to cross great lakes, on which the wind raised a terrible surge. Afraid of going into the track of the French traders, who were always dangerous rivals, and often declared enemies, they durst not follow the direction of the river St. Lawrence; but, in search of distant territories and unknown tribes, were wont to deviate to the east and south-west, forcing their painful way towards the source of “rivers unknown to song,” whose winding course was often interrupted by shallows, and oftener still by fallen trees of great magnitude, lying across, which it was requisite to cut through with their hatchets, before they could proceed. Small rivers, which wind through fertile valleys, in this country, are peculiarly liable to this obstruction. The chestnut and hickory grew to so large a size in this kind of soil, that in time they became top-heavy, and are then the first prey to the violence of the winds; and thus falling, form a kind of accidental bridge over these rivers.

When the toils and dangers of the day were over, the still greater terrors of the night commenced. In this, which might literally be styled the howling wilderness, they were forced to sleep in the open air, which was frequently loaded with the humid evaporation of swamps, ponds, and redundant vegetation. Here the axe must be again employed to procure the materials of a large fire, even in the warmest weather. This precaution was necessary, that the flies and mosquitoes might be expelled by the smoke, and that the wolves and bears might be deterred by the flame from encroaching on their place of rest. But the light which afforded them protection created fresh disturbance, as the American wolves howl to the fires kindled to affright them—watching the whole night on the surrounding hills to keep up a concert which truly “rendered night hideous:” meantime the bull-frogs, terrible though harmless, and smaller kinds, of various tones and countless numbers, seemed all night calling to each other from opposite swamps, forming the most dismal assemblage of discordant sounds. Though serpents abounded very much in the woods, few of them were noxious. The rattle-snake, the only dangerous reptile, was not so frequently met with as in the neighbouring provinces, and the remedy which nature has bestowed as an antidote to his bite, was very generally known. The beauties of rural and varied scenery seldom compensated the traveller for the dangers of his journey. “In the close prison of innumerous boughs,” and on ground thick with underwood, there was little of landscape open to the eye. The banks of streams and lakes no doubt afforded a rich variety of trees and plants—the former of a most majestic size, the latter of singular beauty and luxuriance; but otherwise they only travelled through a grove of chestnuts or oak, to arrive at another of maple or poplar, or a vast stretch of pines and other evergreens. If, by chance, they arrived at a hill crowned with cedars, which afforded some command of prospect, still the gloomy and interminable forest, only varied with different shades of green, met the eye whichever way it turned, while the mind, repelled by solitude so vast, and silence so profound, turned inward on itself. Nature here wore a veil rich and grand, but impenetrable—at least this was the impression it was likely to make on an European mind; but a native American, familiar from childhood with the productions and inhabitants of the woods, sought the nuts and wild fruits with which they abounded—the nimble squirrel, in all its varied forms, the architect beaver, the savage raccoon, and the stately elk, where we should see nothing but awful solitudes, untrod by human foot. It is inconceivable how well these young travellers, taught by their Indian friends, and the experimental knowledge of their fathers, understood every soil and its productions. A boy of twelve years old would astonish you with his accurate knowledge of plants, their properties, and their relation to the soil and to each other. “Here,” said he, “is a wood of red oak, when it is grubbed up this will be loam and sand, and make good Indian corn ground. This chestnut wood abounds with strawberries, and is the very best soil for wheat. The poplar wood, yonder, is not worth clearing—the soil is always wet and cold. There is a hickory wood, where the soil is always rich and deep, and does not run out; such and such plants that dye blue or orange, grow under it.”

This is merely a slight epitome of the wide views of nature, that are laid open to these people from their very infancy—the acquisition of this kind of knowledge being one of their first amusements; yet those who were capable of astonishing you by the extent and variety of this local skill, in objects so varied and so complicated, never heard of a petal, corolla, or stigma in their lives, nor even of the strata of that soil, with the productions and properties of which they were so intimately acquainted.

Without compass or guide of any kind, the traders steered through these pathless forests. In those gloomy days, when the sun is not visible, or in winter, when the falling snows obscured his beams, they made an incision in the bark on the different sides of a tree; that on the north was invariably thicker than the other, and covered with moss in much greater quantity: and this never-failing indication of the polar influence, was to those sagacious travellers a sufficient guide. They had, indeed, several subordinate monitors. Knowing, so well as they did, the quality of the soil, by the trees or plants most prevalent, they could avoid a swamp, or approach with certainty to a river or high ground, if such was their wish, by means, that to us would seem incomprehensible. Even the savages seldom visited these districts, except in the dead of winter; they had towns, as they called their summer dwellings, on the banks of the lakes and rivers in the interior, where their great fishing places were. In the winter, their grand hunting parties were in places more remote from our boundaries, where the deer and other larger animals took shelter from the neighbourhood of man. These single adventurers sought the Indians in their spring haunts, as soon as the rivers were open; there they had new dangers to apprehend. It is well known that among the natives of America, revenge was actually a virtue, and retaliation a positive duty. While faith was kept with these people they never became aggressors; but the Europeans, by the force of bad example and strong liquors, seduced them from their wonted probity. Yet, from the first, their notion of justice and revenge was of that vague and general nature, that if they considered themselves injured, or if one of their tribe had been killed by an inhabitant of any one of our settlements, they considered any individual of our nation as a proper subject for retribution. This seldom happened among our allies; never, indeed, but when the injury was obvious, and our people very culpable. But the avidity of gain often led our traders to deal with Indians, among whom the French possessed a degree of influence, which produced a smothered animosity to our nation. When, at length, after conquering numberless obstacles, they arrived at the place of their destination, these daring adventurers found occasion for no little address, patience, and indeed courage, before they could dispose of their cargo, and return safely with the profits.

The successful trader had now laid the foundation of his fortune, and approved himself worthy of her for whose sake he encountered all these dangers. It is utterly inconceivable, how even a single season spent in this manner, ripened the mind, and changed the whole appearance—nay, the very character of the countenance of these demi-savages, for such they seemed on returning from among their friends in the forests. Lofty, sedate, and collected, they seem masters of themselves, and independent of others; though sunburnt and austere, one scarce knows them till they unbend. By this Indian likeness, I do not think them by any means degraded. One must have seen these people, (the Indians I mean,) to have any idea what a noble animal man is while unsophisticated. I have often been amused with the descriptions that philosophers, in their closets, who never in their lives saw man, but in his improved or degraded state, give of uncivilized people; not recollecting that they are at the same time uncorrupted. Voyagers, who have not their language, and merely see them transiently, to wonder and be wondered at, are equally strangers to the real character of man in a social though unpolished state. It is no criterion to judge of this state of society by the roaming savages, (truly such,) who are met with on these inhospitable coasts, where nature is niggardly of her gifts, and where the skies frown continually on her hard-fated children. For some good reason, to us unknown, it is requisite that human beings should be scattered through all habitable space, “till gradual life goes out beneath the pole;” and to beings so destined, what misery would result from social tenderness and fine perceptions. Of the class of social beings, (for such indeed they were,) of whom I speak, let us judge from the traders, who know their language and customs, and from the adopted prisoners, who have spent years among them. How unequivocal, how consistent is the testimony they bear to their humanity, friendship, fortitude, fidelity, and generosity; but the indulgence of the recollections thus suggested, has already led me too far from my subject.

The joy that the return of these youths occasioned was proportioned to the anxiety their perilous journey had produced. In some instances, the union of the lovers immediately took place before the next career of gainful hardships commenced. But the more cautious went to New-York in winter, disposed of their peltry, purchased a larger cargo, and another slave and canoe. The next year they laid out the profits of their former adventures in flour and provisions, the staple of the province; this they disposed of at the Bermuda Islands, where they generally purchased one of those light-sailing cedar schooners, for building of which those islanders are famous, and proceeding to the Leeward Islands, loaded it with a cargo of rum, sugar, and molasses.

They were now ripened into men, and considered as active and useful members of society, possessing a stake in the common weal.

The young adventurer had generally finished this process by the time he was one, or, at most, two and twenty. He now married, or if married before, which pretty often was the case, brought home his wife to a house of his own. Either he kept his schooner, and, loading her with produce, sailed up and down the river all summer, and all winter disposed of the cargoes he obtained in exchange, to more distant settlers; or he sold her, purchased European goods, and kept a store. Otherwise he settled in the country, and became as diligent in his agricultural pursuits as if he had never known any other.

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CHAP. X.

Marriages—Amusements—Rural excursions, &c. among the Albanians.

IT was in this manner that the young colonist made the transition from boyhood to manhood; from the disengaged and careless bachelor, to the provident and thoughtful father of a family; and thus was spent that period of life, so critical in polished society, to those whose condition exempts them from manual labour. Love, undiminished by any rival passion, and cherished by innocence and candour, was here fixed by the power of early habit, and strengthened by similarity of education, tastes, and attachments. Inconstancy, or even indifference among married couples, was unheard of, even where there happened to be a considerable disparity in point of intellect. The extreme affection they bore their mutual offspring, was a bond that forever endeared them to each other. Marriage, in this colony, was always early, very often happy, and very seldom, indeed, interested. When a man had no son, there was nothing to be expected with a daughter but a well-brought-up female slave, and the furniture of the best bed-chamber. At the death of her father, she obtained another division of his effects, such as he thought she needed or deserved, for there was no rule in these cases.

Such was the manner in which those colonists began life; nor must it be thought that those were mean or uninformed persons. Patriots, magistrates, generals, those who were afterwards wealthy, powerful, and distinguished, all—except a few elder brothers, occupied by their possessions at home—set out in the same manner; and, in after life, even in the most prosperous circumstances, they delighted to recount the “humble toils and destiny obscure,” of their early years.