Due 6,043 beavers at $4$24,172 00Average loss on four years' trade, from 1813 to 1816, at $2,014 per annum$8,056 00
Due 6,043 beavers at $4$24,172 00Average loss on four years' trade, from 1813 to 1816, at $2,014 per annum$8,056 00
Add:--
Item 2 as allowed in 1836$6,040 00" 6 " "$9,192 00" 7 " "$1,141 00" 8 " "$44 90$10,384 72$42,612 72Allowed in 1836$32,436 72$10,176 00
Item 2 as allowed in 1836$6,040 00" 6 " "$9,192 00" 7 " "$1,141 00" 8 " "$44 90$10,384 72$42,612 72Allowed in 1836$32,436 72$10,176 00
"Books are shown from 1816 to 1828, a period of twelve years; consequently twelve divided into 24,172 will give the average loss for the four years' trade, for which no books are shown. Mr. Edmonds made an error in computing the number of skins due; the other difference was, of course, in consequence. I am inclined to think Mr. E. was prejudiced against the claim, as I cannot see how he could so much reduce the number of skins due."
6th. The Rev. Mr. Potter, a missionary for sixteen years among the Cherokees, called and introduced himself to me. He said that he thought the Cherokees had received enough for their lands; that they were peaceably emigrating west, but had been delayed by low water in the streams. While thus waiting, about five hundred persons had died.
This gentleman had been stationed at Creek Path, where the morally celebrated Catherine Brown and her brother and parents lived. While there, he had a church of about sixty members, and thinks they exhibited as good evidences of Christianity as the same number of whites would do. He speaks in raptures of the country this people are living in, and are now emigrating from, in the Cumberland Mountains, as full of springs, a region of great salubrity, fertility, and picturesque beauty. Says a portion of the country, to which they are embarking west, is also fertile.
Florida, the papers of this date tell us, is now free from Indians. This can only be strictly true of the towns on the Apalachicola, &c. The majority of them are doubtless gone.
A Wyandot, of Michigan, named Thomas Short, complains that his lands, at Flat Rock, are overflowed by raising a mill-dam. Dispatched a special agent to inquire into and remedy this trespass.
The Swan Creeks complain that a Frenchman, named Yaks, having been permitted to live in one of their houses at Salt River, on rent, refuses to leave it, intending to set up a pre-emption right to the lands. I replied, "That is a matter I will inquire into. But you have ceded the land without stipulating for improvements, and cannot prevent pre-emptions."
7th. I received instructions from Washington, dated 29th Oct., to draw requisitions in favor of the Ottawas and Chippewas, for the amounts awarded for theirpublicimprovements in the lower peninsula, agreeably to the estimates of Messrs. MacDonnel and Clarke, under the treaty of March 28th, 1836.
Eshtonaquot (Clear Sky), principal chief of the Swan Creeks, states that his people will be ready to remove to their location on the Osage, by the middle of next summer. He states that his brother-in-law, an Indian, living at RiverAu Sables, in Upper Canada, reports that a large number of Potawattomies have fled to that province from Illinois; and that many of the Grand River Ottawas, during the past summer, visited the Manitoulines, and gave in their names to migrate thither. Little reliance can be placed on this information. Besides, the government does not propose to hinder the movements of the Indians.
Maj. Garland states that he was present, a few years ago, at Fort Snelling, Upper Mississippi, at the time the fracas occurred in which the Sioux fired on the Chippewas and killed four of their number. Col. Snelling exhibited the greatest decision of character on this occasion. He immediately put the garrison under arms, and seized four Sioux, and put them in hold till their tribe should surrender the real murderers. Next day the demand was complied with, by the delivery of two men, to replace two of the four hostages, the other two of the prisoners being, by hap, the murderers. The Indian agent vacillated as to the course to be adopted. Col. Snelling said that he would take the responsibility of acting. He then turned the aggressors over to the Chippewas, saying: "Punish them according to your law; and, if you do not, I will." The Chippewas selected nine of their party as executioners. They then told the prisoners to run, and shot them down as they fled. Two were shot on the very day after the murder, and two the following day, when they were brought in. One of the latter was a fine, bold, tall young fellow, who, having hold of the other prisoner's hand, observed him to tremble. He instantly threw his hand loose from him, declaring "that he was ashamed of being made to suffer with a coward."
8th. Col. Whiting exhibited to me, at his office, several bound volumes of MSS., being the orderly book of his father, an adjutant in a regiment of Massachusetts Continentals, during the great struggle of 1776. Many of the orders of Gen. Washington show the exact care and knowledge of details, which went to make up a part of his military reputation.
12th. Texas is involved in troubles with fierce and intractable bands of Indians. Among these the Camanches are prominent, who have shown themselves, in force, near Bexar, and in a conflict killed ten Americans with arrows.
Embark for New York--A glimpse of Texan affairs--Toltecan monuments--Indian population of Texas--Horrible effects of drinking ardent spirits among the Indians--Mr. Gallatin--His opinions on various subjects of philosophy and history--Visit to the South--Philadelphia--Washington--Indian affairs--Debt claim--Leave to visit Europe--Question of neutrality--Mr. Van Buren--American imaginative literature--Knickerbocker--Résumé of the Indian question of sovereignty.
1838.Nov. 14th. I Embarked in a steamer, with my family, for New York, having the double object of placing my children at eligible boarding-schools, and seeking the renovation of Mrs. S.'s health. The season being boisterous, we ran along shore from river to river, putting in and putting out, in nautical phrase, as we could. On the way, scarlatina developed itself in my daughter. Fortunately a Dr. Hume was among the passengers, by whose timely remedies the case was successfully treated, and a temporary stop at Buffalo enabled us to pursue our way down the canal. Ice and frost were now the cause of apprehension, and our canal packet was at length frozen in, when reaching the vicinity of Utica, which we entered in sleighs. In conversation on board the packet boat on the canal, Mr. Thomas Borden, of Buffalo Bayou, Texas, stated that there is a mistake in the current report of the Camanche Indians being about to join the Mexicans. They are, perhaps, in league with the Spaniards of Nacogdoches, who now cry out for the federal constitution of 1824; but there is no coalition between them and the Mexicans. Lamar is elected president, the population has greatly increased within the last year, customs are collected, taxes paid, and a revenue raised to support the government. Mr. Borden said, he was one of the original three hundred families who went to Texas, with my early friend Stephen F. Austin, Esq., the founder of Texas, of whom he spoke highly.
"Hurry" was the word on all parts of our route; but, after reaching the Hudson, we felt more at ease, and we reached New York and got into lodgings, on the evening of the 24th (Nov.). The next day was celebrated, to the joy of the children, as "Evacuation Day," by a brilliant display of the military, our windows overlooking the Park, which was the focus of this turnout.
28th. In conversation with the Rev. Henry Dwight, of. Geneva, he made some pertinent remarks on the Toltecan monuments, and the skill of this ancient people in architecture, in connection with some specimens of antiquities just deposited in the New York Historical Society. This nation had not only preceded the Aztecs in time, as is very clearly shown by the traditions of the latter, but also, there is every reason to believe, in knowledge.
29th. Texas papers contain the following statistics of the Indian population of that Republic, of whom it is estimated that there may be 20,000. "The different tribes known as wild Indians, comprise about 24,000, west and south-west. There are on the north ten tribes, known as the 'Ten United Bands,' between the Trinity and Red River, numbering between 3 and 4000. Of these latter tribes, three are said to have wandered off beyond the Rio Grande and the Rocky Mountains. Of theComances, nearly one-half of the Indians known by that name are, and have always been,withoutthe limits, and press upon the tribes of New Mexico. In all it appears that we have within the limits of Texas, an Indian population of 20,000--of whom one-fifth may be accounted Warriors. There are one or two remnants of tribes (perhaps not more than fifty in number) living within the settlements of the whites, whom they supply with venison, and in that way support themselves.
"Some of these tribes are the hereditary enemies of Mexico, who has nevertheless furnished them with arms and ammunition, in the hope of inciting them against our people, at a risk to her own. If, looking beyond our borders, we turn our eyes to the north, we behold within striking distance of the United States frontier on the north-west, an indigenous Indian population of 150,000, and on their western frontier 46,000; in all between 2 and 300,000 Indians within the jurisdiction of the United States--against whom, were they to combine, they could at any moment direct a war force of 60,000 men."
These popular estimates, may serve the purpose of general comparison, but require some considerable abatements. There is a tendency to estimate the numbers of Indian tribes like those of flocks of birds and schools of fish. We soon get into thousands, and where the theme is guessing, thousands are soon added to thousands.
Dec. 4th. James L. Schoolcraft of Michilimackinack, in a letter of Nov. 10th, describes a most revolting scene of murder, which, owing to the effects of drinking, recently occurred at the Menomonie pay-ground at Grande Chute, Wisconsin.
"Since closing my letter of this morning, Lieut. Root, just from Fort Winnebago, informs me that he attended the payment of the Menomonies, at theGrande Chute; that liquor, as usual, had found its way to the place of payment, and that, in consequence, an Indian had killed two Indian women. That the individual (murderer) was taken to the tent of the agent, Colonel Boyd, but that, in consequence of the repeated and threatening demands of the Indians for the man, the agent was obliged to deliver him up to them, and that they then, in front of the tent, inflicted wounds of death, from six different blades, upon the body of the murderer, beat his brain out with clubs, and then threw his body upon a burning fire, after which he was dragged some distance, to which place he might be traced by attached embers strewed along the path.
"A child was crushed to death by a drunken Indian accidentally. Lieut. Root informs me that he left the ground, soon after the scene above alluded to, and that many of the Indians were armed with knives, and in much excitement."
6th. I visited Mr. Gallatin at his house in Bleecker Street, and spent the entire morning in listening to his instructive conversation, in the course of which he spoke of early education, geometric arithmetic, the principles of languages and history, American and European. He said, speaking of the
EARLY EDUCATION OF CHILDREN.--Few children are taught to read well early, and, in consequence, they never can become good readers. A page should, as it were, dissolve before the eye, and be absorbed by the mind. Reading and spelling correctly cannot be too early taught, and should be thoroughly taught.
Arithmetic.--G. There is no good arithmetic in which the reasons are given, so as to be intelligible to children. Condorcet wrote the best tract on the subject, while in confinement at a widow's house near Paris, before his execution. The language of arithmetic is universal, the eight digits serving all combinations. They were not introduced till 1200. The Russians count by sticks and beads. The Romans must have had some such method. M stood for 1000, D for 500, C for 100, L for 50, X for ten, V for five, and I for one. But how could they multiply complex sums by placing one under another.
LANGUAGES.--S. How desirable it would be if so simple a system could be applied to language.
G. Ah! it was not designed by the Creator. He evidently designed diversity. I have recently received some of the native vocabularies from Mackenzie--the Blackfeet and Fall Indians, &c. Parker had furnished in his travels vocabularies of the Nez Perces, Chinooks, &c.
LEADING FAMILIES.--S. The term Algonquin, as commonly understood, is not sufficiently comprehensive for the people indicated.
G. I intended to extend it by adding the term "Lenape." The Choctaw and the Muscogee is radically the same. The Chickasaw and Choctaw has been previously deemed one. Du Pratz wrote about the Mobilian language without even suspecting that it was the Choctaw.
G. The National Institute at Paris has printed Mr. Duponceau's Prize Essay on the Algonquin. Dr. James wrote unsuccessfully for the prize. Duponceau first mentioned you to me. He has freely translated from your lectures on the substantive, which gives you a European reputation.
PUBLISHERS ON PHILOLOGY.--G. There is no patronage for such works here. Germany and France are the only countries where treatises on philology can be published. It is Berlin or Paris, and of these Berlin holds the first place. In Great Britain, as in this country, there is not sufficient interest on the subject for booksellers to take hold of mere works of fact of this sort. They are given to reading tales and light literature, as here.
ORAL TALES OF THE INDIANS--G. Your "Indian Tales" and your "Hieroglyphics" would sell here; but grammatical materials on the languages will not do, unless they can be arranged as appendices.
S. I urged Governor Cass to write on this subject, and he declined.
G. Does he understand the languages?
S. Pronouns, in our Indian languages, are of a more permanent character than philologists have admitted. They endure in some form, in kindred dialects, the most diverse.
G. This is true, the sign is always left, and enables one, clearly enough, to trace stocks. Dialects are easily made. There are many in France, and they fill other parts of Europe. Every department in France has one.
DISCRIMINATING VIEWS OF PHILOLOGY AND PHILOLOGISTS.--G. It is not clear what Heckewelder meant by "whistling sound," in the prefix pronouns. I told Mr. Duponceau that it had been better that the gentleman's MSS. were left as he originally wrote them, with mere corrections as to grammar--that we should then, in fact, have hadIndianinformation. For Heckewelder thought and felt like a Delaware, and believed all their stories.[89]
[89]This admission of the re-composition of Mr. Heckewelder's letters, and the excellent missionary's general deficiency, furnishes a striking confirmation of the views and sagacity of a critic of theNorth American Review, writing on that topic, in 1825. And the more so, as those views were conjectural, but they were the conjectures of one who had personally known Mr. Heckewelder.
MONOSYLLABIC LANGUAGE.--G. You have asserted that all the Indian roots are monosyllables.
S. Most of them, not all. This is a branch to which I have paid particular attention; and if there is anything in Indian philology in which I deem myself at home, it is in the analysis of Indian words, the digging out of roots, and showing their derivatives and compounds.
G. The societies would print your observations on these topics. They are of much interest.
ORIGIN OF THE INDIAN LANGUAGE.--S. The Hebrew is based on roots like the Indian, which appear to have strong analogies to the Semitic family. It is not clearly Hindostanee, or Chinese, or Norse. I have perused Rafn's Grammar by Marsh. The Icelandic (language) clearly lies at the foundation of the Teutonic.
G. I have not seen this. The grammatical principles of the Hebrew[90]are widely different (from the Indian). There is, in this respect, no resemblance. I think the Indian language has principles akin to the Greek. The middle moods, or voices, in the Greek and Indian dialects are alike; they make the imperfect past, oraorist, in a similar manner.
[90]Mr. G. did not understand the Hebrew, and was not aware that the person he addressed had made a study of it in particular reference to the Indian.
PATOIS.--G. The great impediment to popular instruction in France, is the multiplicity ofpatois, and the tenacity of the peasantry for them. The same objection exists to the use of so many Indian dialects by such numbers of petty tribes. Pity these were not all abolished. They can never prosper without coming on to general grounds in this respect.
CHINESE.--Mr. Duponceau had published Col. Galindo's account of the Ottomic of Mexico, and likened it to the Chinese. It was the very reverse.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE.--S. The English language of Chaucer's day, is based on the Frisic, Belgic, and Low Dutch; and not on the Saxon. (Examples were given. He fully assented to this, and used his familiarity with European history to demonstrate it.)
G. There was, in fact, no Anglo-Saxon but that of Alfred, which was the old English. The early migrations were from Belgium. Doubtless the Teutons had made the conquest ascribed to them, but I think they did not revolutionize the language. They conquered the people, but not the language.
WASHINGTON IRVING.--G. Washington Irving is the most popular writer. Anything from his pen would sell.
JOHN JACOB ASTOR.--Several years ago, J. J. A. put into my hands the journal of his traders on the Columbia, desiring me to use it. I put it into the hands of Malte Brun, at Paris, who employed the geographical facts in his work, but paid but little respect to Mr. Astor, whom he regarded merely as a merchant seeking his own profit, and not a discoverer. He had not even sent a man to observe the facts in the natural history. Astor did not like it. He was restive several years, and then gave Washington Irving $5,000 to take up the MSS. This is the History of "Astoria."
RAFINESQUE.--This erratic naturalist being referred to, he said--
"Who is Rafinesque, and what is his character?"
NAPOLEON AND NERO.--Bonaparte was a mathematician; but, whatever he did, he did not appreciate other branches of science and research. On taking Rome, he carried to Paris all the Pope's archives, containing, in fact, the materials for the secret history of Europe. The papers occupied seventy large boxes, which were carefully corded and sealed, and put away in a garret of the Louvre at Paris, and never opened. On the restoration of the Bourbons, Louis XVIII. gave them back to the Pope's nuncio. The seals had never been broken.
Bonaparte hated Tacitus. He was an aristocrat, he said, and lied in his history. He had blackened the character of Nero merely because he was a republican. "That may be, sire," said ----, "but it is not the generally received opinion, and authorities sustain him." "Read Suetonius," said he. "Truly," said M. Gallatin, "it is there stated that the people strewed flowers on Nero's grave for years."
ALGIC RESEARCHES.--The oral legends of the Indians collected by me being adhered to, he said, "Take care that, in publishing your Indian legends, you do not subject yourself to the imputations made against Macpherson."
On leaving the hall, whither he came to see me out, he said: "I am seventy-eight, and (assuming a gayer vein) in a good state of preservation." He was then a little bent, but preserved in conversation the vivacity of his prime. He had, I think, been a man of about five feet ten or eleven inches. His accent and tone of voice are decidedly French. His eye, which is black and penetrating, kindled up readily. He wore a black silk cap to hide baldness.
15th. A singular coincidence of the names and ages of Indian chiefs, is shown in the following notice from a Russian source:--
"We have just received from Nova Archangesk, an account of the death of the chief of one of the most powerful tribes of North America, Black Hawk, who was suddenly carried off on the banks of the River Moivna, in the seventy-first year of his age. The loss of this chief, who kept up friendly relations with the authorities of the Russian colony, and was always hostile to the English, is felt in a lively manner by the Russian government, who rested great hopes on the influence exercised by Black Hawk, not only over his own tribe, but also over all the neighboring nations. The Czar has ordered the new governor-general of the Russian colony in America to endeavor by all means to secure the friendship of the three sons of Black Hawk, the eldest of whom, now forty-eight years of age, has succeeded his father in the government of the tribe."--Le Commerce.
22d. I left New York on the 12th, in the cars, with Mrs. Schoolcraft and the children, for Washington, stopping at the Princeton depot, and taking a carriage for Princeton. I determined to leave my son at the Round Hill School, in charge of Mr. Hart, and the next day went to Philadelphia, where I accepted the invitation of Gen. Robert Patterson to spend a few days at his tasteful mansion in Locust street. I visited the Academy of Natural Sciences, and examined Dr. Samuel George Morton's extensive collection of Indian crania. While here, I placed my daughter in the private school of the Misses Guild, South Fourth Street. I attended one of the "Wistar parties" of the season, on the 15th, at Mr. Lea's, the distinguished bookseller and conchologist, and reached the city of Washington on the 21st, taking lodgings at my excellent friends, the Miss Polks.
24th. Submitted an application to the department for expending a small part of the Indian education fund, for furthering the general object, by publishing, for the use of teachers and scholars, a compendious dictionary, and general grammar of the Indian languages.
25th. In a conference with Mr. Murray, of Pennsylvania, a recent commissioner to adjust Indian claims at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, he gave me Mr. Robert Stuart's testimony respecting the Indian trade, to read. It appears from the document that the gain on trade of the American Fur Company, from 1824 to 1827, was $167,000. From 1827 to 1834 it was $195,000. From the aggregate of ten years' business, there is to be deducted $45,000, being a loss from 1817 to 1824, which leaves a profit on seventeen years' trade of $317,000.
Mr. Murray presented me a copy of the Commissioner's report. These claims have not yet received the action of the department. The commissioners set out with requiring of traders high evidence of theindividualindebtedness by Indians. They finally decided that the Winnebago debts werenational. They went further--they approved and adopted the decision of a meeting of the claimants themselves, as to the application to individual firms, of the fund. This decision was subsequently sanctioned byeightWinnebago chiefs, who were stated to be authorized to act for the nation.
The error, in all these cases, seems to be, that where a tribe has agreed to set apart a generic sum to satisfy debts, and the United States has accepted the trusteeship of determining the individual shares, that the Indians, who cannotread, or write, or understand figures, or accounts at all, and cannot possibly tell the arithmetical difference between one figure and another, should yet be made the subject of these minor appeals. The TRUSTEE himself should determinethat, by such testimony as he approves, and not appear to seek to bolster up the decisions of truth and faithfulness, by calling on Indian ignorance and imbecility, which is subject to be operated on by every species of selfishness.
25th. I applied to the department this day, by letter, for leave of absence from my post on the frontier, to visit Europe.
26th. I called on Mr. Poinsett, the Secretary of War, and received from him the permission which I had yesterday solicited. I also called on the President (Mr. Van Buren), who, in turning the conversation to the state of disturbances on the frontier, evinced the deepest interest that neutrality should be preserved, and asked me whether the United States Marshal at Detroit had faithfully performed his duty.
27th. Visited Mr. Paulding (Secretary of the Navy) in the evening. Found him a father aged bald-headed man, of striking physiognomy, prominent intellectual developments, and easy dignified manners. It was pleasing to recognize one of the prominent authors ofSalmagundi, which I had read in my schoolboy days, and never even hoped to see the author of this bit of fun in our incipient literature. For it is upon this, and the still higher effort of Irving's facetious History of New York, that we must base our imaginative literature. They first taught us that we had a right to laugh. We were going on, on so very stiff a model, that, without the Knickerbocker, we should not have found it out.
28th. I prepared a list of queries for the department, designed to elicit a more precise and reliable account of the Indian tribes than has yet appeared. It is astonishing how much gross error exists in the popular mind respecting their true character.
Talk of an Indian--why the very stareSays, plain as language, Sir, have you been there?Do tell me, has a Potawattomie a soul,And have the tribes a language? Now that's droll--They tell me some have tails like wolves, and others claws,Those Winnebagoes, and Piankashaws.
30th. Mr. Paulding transmits a note of thanks for some Indian words. The euphony of the aboriginal vocabulary impresses most persons. In most of their languages this appears to result, in part, from the fact that a vowel and a consonant go in pairs--i.e.a vowel either precedes or follows a consonant, and it is comparatively rare that two consonants are required to be uttered together. There is but one language that has theth, so common in English.Shandghare, however, frequently sounded in the Chippewa. The most musical words are found in the great Muscogee and Algonquin families, and it is in these that the regular succession of vowels and consonants is found.
31st. The year 1838 has been a marked one in our Indian relations. The southern Indians have experienced an extensive breaking up, in their social institutions, and been thrown, by the process of emigration, west of the Mississippi, and the policy of the government on this head, which was first shadowed out in 1825, and finally sanctioned by the act of land exchanges, 1830, may be deemed as having been practically settled. The Cherokees, who required the movements of an army to induce them to carry out the principles of the treaty of New Echota, have made their first geographical movement since the discovery of the continent, a period of 331 years. How much longer they had dwelt in the country abandoned we know not. They clung to it with almost a death grasp. It is a lovely region, and replete with a thousand advantages and a thousand reminiscences. Nothing but the drum of the Anglo-Saxon race could have given them an effectual warning to go. Gen. Scott, in his well advised admonitory proclamation, well said, that the voice under which both he and they acted is imperative, and that by heeding it, it is hoped that "they will spare him the horror of witnessing the destruction of the Cherokees." The great Muskogee family had been broken up, by the act of Georgia, before. The Seminoles, who belong to that family, broke out themselves in a foolish hostility very late in 1835, and have kept up a perfectly senseless warfare, in the shelter of hummocks and quagmires since. The Choctaws and Chickasaws, with a wise forecast, had forseen their position, and the utter impossibility of setting up independent governments in the boundaries of the States. It is now evident to all, that the salvation of these interesting relics of Oriental races lies in colonization west. Their teachers, the last to see the truth, have fully assented to it. Public sentiment has settled on that ground; sound policy dictates it; and the most enlarged philanthropy for the Indian race perceives its best hopes in the measure.
Sentiments of loyalty--Northern Antiquarian Society--Indian statistics--Rhode Island Historical Society--Gen. Macomb--Lines in the Odjibwa language by a mother on placing her children at school--Mehemet Ali--Mrs. Jameson's opinion on publishers and publishing--Her opinion of my Indian legends--False report of a new Indian language--Indian compound words--Delafield's Antiquities--American Fur Company--State of Indian disturbances in Texas and Florida--Causes of the failure of the war in Florida, by an officer--Death of an Indian chief--Mr. Bancroft's opinion on the Dighton Rock inscription--Skroellings not in New England--Mr. Gallatin's opinion on points of Esquimaux language, connected with our knowledge of our archaeology.
1839.Jan. 1st. I called, amid the throng, on the President. His manners were bland and conciliatory. These visits, on set days, are not without the sentiment of strong personality in many of the visitors, but what gives them their most significant character is the general loyalty they evince to the constitution, and government, and supreme law of the land. The President is regarded, for the time, as the embodiment of this sentiment, and the tacit fealty paid to him, as the supreme law officer, is far more elevating to the self-balanced and independent mind than if he were a monarchad libitum, and not for four years merely.
2d. I received a notice of my election as a member of the Royal Northern Antiquarian Society of Copenhagen, of which fact I had been previously notified by that Society. This Society shows us how the art of engraving may be brought in as an auxiliary to antiquarian letters; but it certainly undervalues American sagacity if it conjectures that such researches and speculations as those of Mr. Magnusen, on the Dighton Rock, and what it is fashionable now-a-days to call the NEWPORT RUIN, can satisfy the purposes of a sound investigation of the Anti-Columbian period of American history.
There was a perfect jam this evening at Blair's. What sort of a compliment is it to be one of five or six hundred people, not half of whom can be squeezed into a small house, and not one of whom can pretend to taste a morsel without the danger of having server and all jammed down his throat.
3d. The mail hunts up everybody. Go where you will, and particularly to the seat of government, and letters will follow you. Whoever is in the service of government bears a part of the functions of it, though it be but an infinitesimal part. Mr. H. Conner, the Saginaw sub-agent, in a letter of this date, reports the Saginaws at one thousand four hundred and forty-three souls, and the Swan Creek and Black River Chippewas at one hundred and ninety-eight. One of the most singular facts in the statistics of the most of the frontier Indian tribes of the Lakes, is, in the long run, that they neitherincreasenordecline, but just keep up a sort of dying existence.
4th. Dr. Thomas H. Webb, Secretary of the Rhode Island Historical Society, announces the plan of that Society in publishing a series of works illustrating, in the first place, the history and language of the Indians, and soliciting me to become a contributor of original observations. The difficulty in all true efforts of our literary history is the want of means. A man must devote all his leisure in researches, and then finds that there is no way in which these labors can be made to aid in supplying him the means of subsistence. He must throw away his time, and yet buy his bread. There is no real taste for letters in a people who will not pay for them. It is too early in our history, perhaps, to patronize them as a general thing. Making and inventing new ploughs will pay, but not books.
9th. The Secretary of War confirms my leave of absence, to visit Europe, and extends it beyond the contingencies of a re-appointment, on the 4th of March next.
10th. Attended a general and crowded party at Gen. Macomb's, in the evening, with Mrs. Schoolcraft. The General has always appeared to me a perfect amateur in military science, although he has distinguished himself in the field. He is a most polished and easy man in all positions in society, and there is an air and manner by which he constantly reveals his French blood. He has a keen perception of the ridiculous, and a nice appreciation of the mock gravity of the heroic in character, and related to me a very effective scene of this latter kind, which occurred at Mr. John Johnston's, at St. Mary's Falls, on the close of the late war. He had visited that place in perhaps 1815 or 1816, as military commander of the District of Michigan, in the suite of Major-Gen. Brown. They were guests of Mr. Johnston. In going up the river to see Gros Cape, at the foot of Lake Superior, the American party had been fired upon by the Chippewas, who were yet hostile in feeling. When the party returned to the house of Mr. Johnston, their host, the latter drew himself up in the spirit of the border times of Waverley, and, with the air and accent of a chief of those days--which, by the way, was not altogether unnatural to him--manifested the high gentlemanly indignation of a host whose hospitality had been violated. He exclaimed to his eldest son, "Let our followers be ready to repel this gross affront." The General's eye danced in telling it. The thing of the firing had been done--nobody was hurt--nobody was in fact in hostile array; and far less was the party itself alarmed. It had been some crack-brained Indian, I believe Sassaba, who yet smarted at the remembrance of the death of his brother, who was killed with Tecumseh in the Battle of the Thames.
11th. Left Washington, with my family, in the cars for Baltimore, where we lodged; reached Philadelphia the next day, at four P.M.; remained the 13th and 14th, and reached New York on the 16th, at 4 o'clock P.M.
14th. Mrs. Schoolcraft, having left her children at school, at Philadelphia and Princeton, remained pensive, and wrote the following lines in the Indian tongue, on parting from them, which. I thought so just that I made a translation of them.
Nyau nin de nain dumMay kow e yaun inAin dah nuk ki yaunWaus sa wa kom egAin dah nuk ki yaunNe dau nig ainse eNe gwis is ainse eIshe nau gun ug wauWaus sa wa kom egShe gwau go sha weenBa sho waud e weNin zhe ka we yeaIshe ez hau jau yaunAin dah nuk ke yaunAin dah nuk ke yaunNin zhe ke we yeaIshe ke way aun eNyau ne gush kain dum[FREE TRANSLATION.]Ah! when thought reverts to my country so dear,My heart fills with pleasure, and throbs with a fear:My country, my country, my own native land,So lovely in aspect, in features so grand,Far, far in the West. What are cities to me,Oh! land of my mother, compared unto thee?Fair land of the lakes! thou are blest to my sight,With thy beaming bright waters, and landscapes of light;The breeze and the murmur, the dash and the roar,That summer and autumn cast over the shore,They spring to my thoughts, like the lullaby tongue,That soothed me to slumber when youthful and young.One feeling more strongly still binds me to thee,There roved my forefathers, in liberty free--There shook they the war lance, and sported the plume,Ere Europe had cast o'er this country a gloom;Nor thought they that kingdoms more happy could be,White lords of a land so resplendent and free.Yet it is not alone that my country is fair,And my home and my friends are inviting me there;While they beckon me onward, my heart is still here,With my sweet lovely daughter, and bonny boy dear:And oh! what's the joy that a home can impart,Removed from the dear ones who cling to my heart.It is learning that calls them; but tell me, can schoolsRepay for my love, or give nature new rules?They may teach them the lore of the wit and the sage,To be grave in their youth, and be gay in their age;But ah! my poor heart, what are schools to thy view,While severed from children thou lovest so true!I return to my country, I haste on my way,For duty commands me, and duty must sway;Yet I leave the bright land where my little ones dwell,With a sober regret, and a bitter farewell;For there I must leave the dear jewels I love,The dearest of gifts from my Master above.NEW YORK,March 18th, 1839.
17th. Went, in the evening, to hear Mr. Stephens, the celebrated traveler, lecture before the Historical Society, at the Stuyvesant Institute, on Mehemet Ali. Public opinion places lecturers sometimes in a false position. An attempt was here made to make out Mehemet Ali a great personage, exercising much influence in his times. An old despotic rajah in a tea-pot! Who looks to him for exaltation of sentiment, liberality and enlargement of views, or as an exemplar of political truth? Mr. Stephens, however, knew the feeling and expectation of his audience, and drew a picture, which was eloquently done, and well received. This popular mode of lecturing is certainly better than the run-a-muck amusements of the day. But it panders to an excited intellectual appetite, and is anything but philosophical, historical, or strictly just.
18th. I received instructions from Washington, to form a treaty with the Saginaws, for the cession of a tract of ground on which to build a light-house on Saginaw Bay.
The next letter I opened was from Mrs. Jameson, of London, who writes that her plan of publication is, to divide the profits with her publishers, and, as these are honest men and gentlemen, she has found that the best way. She advises me to adopt the same course with respect to my Indian legends.[91]
[91]I followed this advice, but fell into the hands of the Philistines.
"I published," she says, "in my little journal, one or two legends which Mrs. Schoolcraft gave me, and they have excited very general interest. The more exactly you can (in translation) adhere to thestyleof the language of the Indian nations, instead of emulating a fine or correct English style--the more characteristic in all respects--the more original--the more interesting your work will be."
21st. I read the following article in the New York Herald:--
NEW INDIAN TRIBE.--Dr. Jackson, in his report of the geology of the public lands, states that at the mouth of the Tobique there is an Indian settlement, where a large tribe of Indians reside, and gain a livelihood by trapping the otter and beaver. These Indians are quite distinct from the Penobscot tribe, and speak a peculiar language.
Query. What is the name of this tribe? what language do they speak? and what evidence is there that they are not Souriquois or Miemacks, who have been known to us since the first settlement of Acadia and Nova Scotia?
Indian compound words are very composite.Aco, in the names of places once occupied by Algonquin bands, means,a limit, oras far as, and is intended to designate the boundary or reach of woods and waters.Ac-owmeans length of area.Accomacappears to mean, at the place of the trees, or, as far as the open lands extend to the woods:mac, in this word, may be either a derivative fromacké, earth, or, more probably,auk, a generic participle for tree or trunk.
21st. The editor of theNorth American Reviewdirects my attention to Delafield's Antiquities as the subject of a notice for his pages. Delafield appears to have undertaken a course of reading on Mexican antiquities. The result is given in this work, with his conjectures and speculations on the origin of the race. The cause of antiquarian knowledge is indebted to him for the first publication of the pictorial Aztec map of Butturini.
24th. Called on Mr. Ramsey Crooks, president of the American Fur Company, at his counting-house, in Ann street. He gave me an interesting sketch of his late tour from La Pointe, Lake Superior, to the Mississippi. The Chippewas were not paid at La Pointe till October. This made him late at the country. The St. Croix River froze before he reached the Mississippi, and he went down the latter, from St. Peter's, in a sleigh. Bonga had been sent to notify the Milles Lacs, Sandy Lake, and Leoch Lake Indians to come to the payments. When he reached Leech Lake, Guelle Plat had gone, with twenty-four canoes, to open a trade with the Hudson's Bay Factor, at Rainy Lake. Mr. Crooks thinks that the dissatisfaction among these bands can be readily allayed by judicious measures. Thinks the Governor of Wisconsin ought to call the chiefs together at some central point within the country, and make explanations. That the payments, in future, should be made atoneplace, and not divided. That the Leech Lake, and other bandsliving without the ceded district, ought not to participate in the annuities.
Mr. Crook's manner is always prompt and cordial. He concentrates, in his reminiscences, the history of the fur trade in America for the last forty years. I have always thought it a subject of regret, that such a man should not have kept a journal. There was much, it is true, that could not be put down, and he was always so exclusively an active business man that mere literary memoranda never attracted his attention; they were not adverse to his tastes. He has nearly, I should judge, recovered from the severe hardships and privations which attended his perilous journey across the Rocky Mountains, on the abandonment of Astoria, on the Pacific, in 1812.
29th. Texas and Florida continue to be the rallying points of Indian warfare. The frontier of Texas is harassed by wandering parties of Indians. A Mr. Morgan, who resided near the falls of Brazos, had been killed, and three women carried off by a band of fifteen savages. A company of rangers was sent in pursuit.
The Florida War still lingers, without decisive results. TheNew Orleans Beesays that General Taylor has been very active, the past season, in trying to bring it to a close. A writer from Tampa Bay, of the 25th instant, who appears to have good knowledge of matters, states three causes, particularly as opposing a successful prosecution and consummation of it, namely:--
"1st. An ignorance of the topography of Florida--the position of the numerous swamps and hummocks, the usual hiding-places of the Indians.
"2d. A want of proper interpreters.
"3d. A countervailing influence from some unknown quarter."
He supports his view as follows: "It is a well known fact that, previous to the year 1836, the portion of Florida south of the Military Road from Tampa to Garey's Ferry was unexplored and unknown, and since that time the only information has been derived from the hasty reconnoissances of officers, made in the progress of the several divisions of the army through the country. Since the organization of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, several have been sent to this country, and are now actively engaged in making surveys and plotting maps. Could the information they are expected to give have been known even before the commencement of the last campaign, it would have aided materially in the subjugation of the enemy. A correct knowledge of this country is needed more especially because such another theatre of war probably has not a place on the earth; a theatre so peculiarly favorable to the Indians and disadvantageous to the white man. Swamps may be delineated as well perhaps as any other natural object; butsuchswamps as are found in Florida, are not to be imitated in painting or described by words. As an instance, I may mention the Halpataokee or Alligator Water, which is made up of small islands, surrounded by water of various depths, through which for two miles the road of the army passed during the winter of 1838."
"2d. The only Interpreters are Seminole negroes, who, for the most part, find it difficult to understand English. As an instance of the numerous mistakes occurring daily, may be mentioned the following: The General told the interpreter to say to Nettetok Emathla, that 'patience and perseverance would accomplish everything.' While he was speaking to the Indian, the remark was made that he did not know the meaning of the sentence. When questioned the following day, he said 'patience and 'suverance mean a little book,' Our laughter convinced him he was mistaken, and he said 'patience mean you must be patien; I don't zackly know what 'suverance do mean, sar!' Numerous errors of this nature are doubtless occurring daily, and among a people who are so scrupulously nice and formal in their 'talks,' such trifling mistakes may be injurious.
"3d. We are now to speak of the most important difficulty in the way of termination of hostilities, and the removal of the Seminoles to their new homes beyond the 'Muddy Water.' That the Indians are and have been supplied by whites, Americans or Spaniards, is a point so decisively settled that 'no hinge is left whereon to hang a doubt.' However shameless it may appear, proofs are not wanting to establish the fact, so much to the discredit of our patriotism. When Coacoochee escaped from St. Augustine he carried with him bolts of calico and factory cloths, which he afterwards sold to the Indians in the woods for three chalks (six shillings) per yard. It was reported to Colonel Taylor, then at Fort Bassinger, by an Indian woman, who ran away from Coacoochee's camp, that he had one poney packed solely with powder; that he had plenty of lead, provisions, etc., and was determined never to come in or go to Arkansas. On several occasions when Indians have been killed or taken, or their camps surprised, new calico, fresh tobacco, bank bills, and other articles of acivilizedcharacter, have been found in their possession. Besides, this, the Indians are constantly reporting in their talks that some persons on the other side of the territory prevent the hostiles from complying with the treaty. Ethlo Emathla, Governor of the Tallahassees, promised the general to be in with his people on a specified day. It is reduced almost to a certainty that he has been prevented from doing so by the representations of some person or persons in a quarter, the name of which charity alone forbids to mention. The only object is, and for a long time has been, to keep entirely out of the way, to hide themselves from the whites, and every effort to bring them to battle, either by sending small or large parties among them, has proved useless.They will not fight, and thirty thousand men cannot find them, broken up as they are into small parties. What then is to be done? Protect the inhabitants of the frontiers, gradually push the Indians south, and at no distant day, the necessary, unavoidable and melancholy consummation must arrive, viz., the expulsion of the last tribe of red men from the soil over which they once roamed the sole lords and possessors."
30th. The oldest man in the Ottawa nation, a chief called Nish-caud-jin-in-a, or the Man of Wrath, died this day at L'Arbre Croche, Michigan. He was between ninety and one hundred years of age, withered and dry, and slightly bent, but still preserving the outlines of a man of strength, good figure, and intellect. What a mass of reminiscences and elements of history dies with every old person of observation, white or red.
Feb. 4th. Mr. James H. Lanman writes respecting the prospects of his publishing a history of Michigan--a subject which I gave him every encouragement to go forward in, while he lived in that State. The theme is an ambitious one, involving as it does the French era of settlements, and the day for handling it effectively has not yet arrived. But the sketches that may be made from easily-got, existing materials, may subserve a useful purpose, with the hope always that some new fact may be elicited, which will add to the mass of materials. "I have been delayed here," he says, "in preparing the book, and the delay has been occasioned by my publishers having failed. It is now, however, stereotyped, and will be out in about a fortnight."[92]
[92]He afterwards re-cast the work, and it was published by the Harpers as one of the volumes of their library.
21st. Mr. Bancroft writes to me, giving every encouragement to bring forward before the public my collections and researches on Indian history and language, and expressing his opinion of success, unless I should be "cursed with a bad publisher."
"Father Duponceau," he says, "won his prize out of your books, and Gallatin owes much to you. Go on; persevere; build a monument to yourself and the unhappy Algonquin race."
Making every allowance for Mr. Bancroft's enthusiastic way of speaking, it yet appears to me that I should endeavor to publish the results of investigations of Indian subjects. My connection with the Johnston family has thrown open to me the whole arcanum of the Indian's thoughts.
I wrote an article for Dr. Absalom Peter's Magazine, expressing my dissent from the very fanciful explanations of the Dighton Rock characters, as given by Mr. Magrusen in the first volume of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquarians, published at Copenhagen. It appears to me that those characters (throwing out two or three) are the IndianKekéwin--a species of hieroglyphics or symbolic devices, still in vogue among them. To this view of the matter Mr. Bancroft assents. "If you have a proof-sheet of your article on the Daneschrift, send it me. All they say about the Dighton Rock is, I think, the sublime of humbuggery."
What is said in the interpreted Sagas, of the Skroellings or Esquimaux being in New England at the date of Eric's voyage (A. D. 1001) is, I think, problematical. Those tribes are not known to have extended further south than the Straits of Belleisle, about 60°, or to parts of Newfoundland. The term deduced from the old journals appear to belong to the Esquimaux proper, rather than to the New England class of the Algonquins. The Esquimaux had the free use of the sound of the letterl, which was not used at all by the N.E. Indians.
Mr. Gallatin, in a letter of Feb. 22, in response to me on this subject, says: "The letterLoccurs in every Esquimaux dialect of which I have any knowledge. Thus heaven or sky, is in Greenland,Killak; Hudson's Bay,Keiluk; Kadick Islands,Kelisk; Kotzebue's Sound,Keilyak; Asiatic Tshuktchi,Kuelok.
"I am not so certain about thev, which I find used only by Egede, or Crantz (not distinguished from each other in my collection) for the Greenland dialect. In their conjurations I find 'we (sing. and dual) wash them' Ernikp-auvut, and Ernikp-auvuk. In the Mithradites, the same lettervis repeatedly used in dual examples of the Greenland and Labrador dialects, principally (as it appears to me) but not exclusively in the pronominal terminations,picksaukonik, akeetvor, tivut, Profetiv-vit! that is, good ours, debtors ours, a prophet art thou.
"By comparing this with the pronouns of the other Esquimaux dialects, I suspect thatooandwin these, are used instead ofv. But the difference may arise from that in the mother tongue, or in the delicacy of the ear, of those who have supplied us with other verbal and pronominal forms or vocabularies."
22d, The Indian names may be studied analytically.
Ches(pronounced by the Algonquin IndiansChees), signifies a plant of the turnip family.Beegis the plural, and denotes water existing in large bodies, such as accumulations in the form of lakes and seas. If these two roots be connected by the usual sound in Algonquin words, thus Ches-a-beeg, a sound much resembling Chesapeake would be produced. The Nanticokes, who inhabited this bay on its discovery, were of the Algonquin stock.
Potomac appears to be a clipped expression, derived, I believe, from Po-to-wau-me-ac. Po-to-wau, as we have it, in Potawattomie, means to make a fire in a place where fires, such as council fires, are usually made. Theacin the word is apparently fromakorwak, a standing tree. The whole appears descriptive of a burning tree, or a burning forest.
Megiddo in the Algonquin means he barks, or a barker. Hence me-giz-ze, an eagle or the bird that barks.