James Napier Bailey

“ But between the Indian of North America, and the African, there is a remarkable difference. The former never can be bowed to become the slave of man, to pay tribute, or to submit, by any hope of reward to live in vassalage. Free, like the son of Ishmael, he will die rather than yield his liberty; and he is, therefore, hunted down by the people who boast of civilisation and christianity, and who, while they value their own freedom, do not hesitate to extend their lands and property by the merciless destruction of the unoffending proprietor. ”

“ I am so fully impressed with their undeserved misery, and with the nobleness of their character, that I should esteem the devotion of my life in their cause the most honourable way in which it could be employed; but alas, years and circumstances prevent my doing more than making this feeble effort to rouse the energies of youthful talent in their behalf; and as benevolence pervades the youthful mind more powerfully than that of the aged, I am not without a hope that thousands will yet start up to advocate the cause of the Red Indians, and prosecute measures for the amelioration of their state. ”

“ The sight of the mighty Maranon or St Lawrence rolling their immense volumes of water towards the ocean, tends to excite a feeling of sublimity, rather than that light-heartedness of spirit which vents itself in loud peals of laughter, and which is generally connected with a keen perception of the ridiculous. The North American Indian is forced to associate with rocks and rivers and almost boundless forests from his infancy; he hears the tempest roll, and fancies that his Manitto speaks in thunder from the clouds ”

“ I have seen their wisest, bravest, and most considered; and I have seen the wretched families that hang round the large towns, to trade and to beg, intoxicated subdued, filthy, and miserable, the very outcasts of nature. I have seen much of the Creeks and Cherokees, whose civilization and improvement are so much vaunted. I have seen the wretched remains of the tribes on the lower Mississippi, that stroll about New Orleans. I have taken observations at Alexandria and Nachitoches of the Indians of those regions, and from the adjoining country of New Spain. ”

“ It is during a season of hunting or of war that the most strenuous exertions of courage, force, and activity are called forth. The savage of America, at such a time, appears to shake off the native indolence of his disposition. He becomes patient, active, courageous and indefatigable. All the powers of his mind and of his body are roused into exertion; and he performs feats of agility and of strength, and exhibits a degree of perseverance, which prove him to be in these respects equal to the natives of Europe. ”

“ Governor Clinton in his discourse to the New York Society, says that “the five nations, notwithstanding their horrible cruelty, are in one respect, entitled to singular commendation for the exercise of humanity; those enemies they spared in battle they made free; whereas, with all other barbarous nations slavery was the commutation of death. But it becomes not us, if we value the character of our forefathers; it becomes not the civilized nations of Europe who have had American possessions, to inveigh against the merciless conduct of the savage. ”

“ It is a mournful and painful truth that the whites have acted towards the savages of America in such a way as to prejudice them against the benefits and arts of civilization. The white people have robbed, plundered, and murdered the Indians, thrown their chiefs into jail, and treated them as if they were made to be trampled on ”

“ Such, nevertheless, is the spectacle which an Indian nation exhibits to the eye of a stranger. I have been a witness to it for a long series of years, and after much observation and reflection to discover the cause of this phenomenon, I think I have reason to be satisfied that it is in a great degree to be ascribed to the pains which the Indians take to instil at an early age honest and virtuous principles into the minds of their children, and to the method which they pursue in educating them. ”

“ The chosen people of the Lord made slaves of some of the nations they conquered; and those they did not enslave they destroyed with a cruelty as relentless as it was atrocious. What more natural than for those who believe in the same God and draw their religion from the same source, to act in the same manner? The examples of murder, pillage, bloodshed, profligacy, and abominations of all kinds to be found in the Old Testament, would rather tend to deteriorate the character of the Indians than improve it, were the contents of that book made known to them. ”

“ I find that there is nothing barbarous and savage in this nation, by anything I can gather, excepting that every one gives the title of barbarity to every thing that is not in use in his own country: as indeed we have no other level of truth and reason than the example and idea of the opinions and customs of the place wherein we live. There is always the true religion; there the perfect government, and the most exact and accomplished usance of things. They (the Indians) are savages at the same rate that we say fruits are wild which nature produces of herself and by her own ordinary progress ”

“ Brothers,—My people are brave and numerous; but the white people are too strong for them alone. I wish you to take up the tomahawk with them. If we all unite, we will cause the rivers to stain the great waters with their blood. ”

“ Thus has been maintained for ages, without convulsions and without civil discords, this traditional government, of which the world perhaps does not offer another example; a government in which there are no positive laws, but only long established habits and customs; no code of jurisprudence, but the experience of former times; no magistrates, but advisers, to whom the people nevertheless pay a willing and implicit obedience; in which age confers rank, wisdom gives power, and moral goodness secures a title to universal respect. ”

“ The force of this passion is so well understood by the Americans themselves, that they always apply to it in order to excite the people to take up arms. If the elders of any tribe attempt to rouse their youth from sloth, if a chief wishes to allure a band of warriors to follow him in invading an enemy’s country, the most persuasive topics of their martial eloquence are drawn from revenge. ”

“ Whatever the child happens to dream of the most frequently, even if it happen to be the head of a bird, the foot of an animal, or any thing of the most worthless nature, becomes the symbol or figure under which the Okki reveals himself. With this figure, in the conceptions of his votary, the spirit becomes identified; the image is preserved with the greatest care—is the constant companion on all great and important occasions, and the constant object of consultation and worship. ”

“ As long as hunting continues to be the chief employment of man to which he trusts for subsistence, he can hardly be said to have occupied the earth.
“Nations which depend upon hunting are, in a great measure, strangers to the idea of property. As the animals on which the hunter feeds are not bred under his inspection, nor nourished by his care, he can claim no right to them, while they run wild in the forest. ”

“ The good spirits are called by the Hurons, Okkis, by the Algonquins, Mannitous. They suppose them to be the guardians of men, and that each has his own tutelary deity. In fact, every thing in nature has its spirit, though all have not the same rank nor the same influence. The animals they hunt have their spirits. If they do not understand any thing, they immediately say it is a spirit. If any man performs a remarkable exploit, or exhibits extraordinary talents, he is said to be a spirit, or in other words, his tutelary deity is supposed to be of more than ordinary power. ”

“ It is agreed on all hands that whatever vices may deform the character of the Indian warrior, he is in some respects characterized by a nobility of soul which is rarely met with in civilized nations. This very nobility causes him to look down upon the whites as a deceiving and treacherous race. He keeps his word sacred; if he pledges himself he performs his promise. The whites have broken almost every treaty they have made with the Indians. ”

“ What good end can be answered by teaching the North American Indians a religion which has ever been followed by destruction, pillage, rapacity and bloodshed, persecution for opinion, and a long catalogue of evils? and which, however good it may be in some of its precepts, is nevertheless utterly unable to restrain the avarice and cruelty of its followers. ”

“ On the surface of this lake they will embark in a stone canoe, and if their actions have been generally good, will be borne by a gentle current to their delightful and eternal abode. But if, on the contrary, their bad actions predominate, the stone canoe sinks, and leaves them up to their chins in the water to behold and regret the reward enjoyed by the good, and eternally struggling, but with unavailing endeavours, to reach the blissful island from which they are excluded for ever. ”

“ Private chiefs assemble small parties, and invade a hostile tribe, without consulting the rulers of the community. A single warrior, prompted by caprice or revenge, will take the field alone, and march several hundred miles to surprise and cut off a straggling enemy. The exploits of a noted warrior, in such solitary excursions, often form the chief part in the history of an American campaign; and their elders connive at such irregular sallies, as they tend to cherish a martial spirit, and accustom their people to enterprise and danger. ”

“ It is true the exhibition of perseverance and strength, on the part of the American savage, is not constant but casual. It is only when fierce passions stimulate him to exertion, that he puts forth all his powers. Nevertheless the casual exhibition of this strength and perseverance proves, that the opposite qualities are not essential to his nature; and seemingly warrants the conclusion that the indolence and want of energy which mark his character, are the results of that peculiar system of training to which he has been subjected. ”