Calvin Colton

“ May we long smoke the pipe of friendship. Before our chiefs went to see our great father, where is built the great council-house, we did not know the great nation. And we once drew our short knives against the long knives— (long swords of the whites) we took the tomahawk and rifle—and we said: We will have every scalp of them. But they were too many for us. And when our chiefs came back, and told us what they had seen, we said: we shall never dare to lift up our short knives against the long knives again. And so, we wish to live in peace. ”

“ But in the territory of Michigan is a world of lakes, created by the hand of God, of all dimensions and shapes, just fitted for the sports of fancy, of childhood, and of youth—for the relaxations of manly toil—for the occupation of leisure;—the shores of which are overhung with beautiful and wholesome shades—and the waters deep, and so clear, that the fish cannot play in their lowest beds, without betraying their motions to the observer, floating in his bark upon the surface. ”

“ The history of the American Indians is the Romance of Fact. It needs not xiii a single dash of the pencil—not a single ingredient of the sentimentality of poetry, to give it life and power over the feelings. The naked truth has in it more of poetry and a more energetic challenge on the affections, than any possible embellishment, or fictitious garniture, that could be thrown around it—more than any creations of fancy, with which it could be charged. Show that race, as they are and have been, and none of human kind can fail to be interested in them. ”

“ The pride of their nation, their wives and little ones, their cabins, their hunting and fishing grounds, their territories claimed by the prescriptive right of possession, the graves and spirits of their fathers—their own lives, dear to all, and now menaced by impending war;—every fact and circumstance, that is precious in present possession, or dear to hope;—all, that belongs to life, and all that is mysterious and awful in religion—are invoked, and brought in with all the power of their wild poetry and savage rhetoric, to shake off the lethargies of peace, and kindle the passions for war. ”

“ What child, whose vernacular tongue is English, has not listened to Indian story with an intensity of interest, which he can never cease to cherish; and with expectation of something new and newer still, from the wildness and fierceness of savage enterprise? Where is the man, however grave with philosophy and bowed with the weight of years, however accustomed to things prodigious, whose ear will not bend to the promise of him, who announces an untold page of Indian warfare? ”

“ I am like you, my great Father:—I love my country; I love my people; I love the manner, in which they live; and think myself and warriors brave. Spare me, then, my Father. Let me enjoy my country, pursue the buffalo, and the beaver, and the other wild animals of our wilderness; and I will trade the skins with your people. I have grown up and lived thus long without work. I am in hopes you will suffer me to die without it. We have yet plenty of buffalo, beaver, deer, and other wild animals; we have also an abundance of horses. We have every thing we want. ”

“ All his feelings and passions are too stout to be subdued by such inventions. He arms himself alike to endure them, and to inflict them. Such are the necessities, and such is the custom of Indian warfare. It knows no mercy. He becomes a war-stricken and blood-thirsty maniac, from the moment of his enlistment, till he falls 116 by the hand of his foe, or returns victorious to his home. He is elevated above the atmosphere, and thrown beyond the circumference of all ordinary human sympathies. For the time, he is not a man—he is more than a man. ”

“ If he fights, he must fight in his own way. In his creed, surprise is his lawful advantage, and extirpation his necessity. And under the same artificial and unnatural excitement, and with the same determination, and from the same coverts of the forest and the night, from which he pounces upon the foe of his own race, he springs also upon the unexpecting village of the white man, wraps it suddenly in flames, and if it be possible, leaves not a soul to tell the story of their calamity. ”

“ Till morning came again, the whole region rung with the most frightful savage yells;—yells, which, begun for amusement, threatened to end in blood. So untamed, fierce, and ungovernable are the passions of these wild children of the forest. But especially was it a perilous night, in consequence of the previous and generous distribution of strong drink, dealt out by those, who had instigated the exhibition. An Indian, mad with liquor and passion combined, is of all beings the most uncertain and dangerous. ”

“ He who has seen the troubled ocean after a storm, has only to imagine those heaving billows descending a mountain side, himself looking up from below on their downward course, and it is the very picture presented from the table rock of Niagara, as the spectator, turning his back on the chasm, with the cataract immediately on his left, faces the descending torrent, and lifts his eye on the mountain declivity of waters, which comes leaping, and rolling, and tumbling, as if from the clouds, or the azure heavens which peer above the tops of the waves. ”

“ The climate and aspects of the heavens seemed changed. The clouds, such, as a clear atmosphere and its brisk currents fold together in their fleecy robes, and toss along in sublime and majestic sport;—the shores and islets successively receding in one direction, and coming into view from another;—a new and fine steamer, dashing through the waves, with all her sails set to the breeze, and crammed with a population, like bees upon the hive, in a summer’s day, all life and bustle;—the toute ensemble presented a scene, as picturesque, as could well be grouped, under a traveller’s eye. ”

“ Louder still, and still more earnest, the beating rolls; and the voices of the band and all their instruments grow more clamorous and deafening; every few moments raising the war-whoop. Like as the bird, spell-bound and charmed by a serpent, flutters and circles in the air, struggling in vain to escape, and drawing nearer and nearer to the object of her dread—at last makes a sudden and desperate plunge;—so he springs upon the weapon of death, grasps it firmly in his hand, and lifts himself erect. ”

“ The lover of nature’s magnificence and nature’s beauties may wander there without fear of satiety—with ever growing and yet a keener appetite. He may choose his bed on the brow of the chasm, and near the fearful plunge, so that the walls of his habitation, and the couch on which he reposes, shall sympathise with the ceaseless vibrations of the earth and rocks, and himself literally be rocked to sleep by the hand and music of the mighty waters. ”

“ I have been painfully struck and often deeply affected, at the proofs I had at Green Bay, of the extreme and unguarded susceptibility of the Indians, of being injured in morals and manners, and of being precipitated to irretrievable ruin, by intercourse with vicious and unprincipled white men. To make a gain of their simplicity, is by no means the greatest offence. The dishonour sometimes done to the fairest of their women, is frightful. If the Government had any suitable parental care over the Indians, whom it calls children; and calls them so, I think, more in mockery, than in propriety ”

“ They had already began to plant their villages and raise their cabins on the beautiful banks of the Fox River;—they had formed interesting and friendly alliances with the wilder and untutored tribes of their newly adopted country;—all were agreed and resolved to cultivate the arts and manners of civilization;—their confidence of future repose and exemption from the incursions of white men was unbroken;—and all their prospects were bright, as the sun which made their corn to grow, and refreshing as the showers which softened the rich soil, in which it was planted. ”

“ The shelf of the cataract on the American side is to the eye and in fact higher than the point of the Horse Shoe, as it is called, where is the greatest depth and force of the river, as it leaps from the precipice. This single feature of superior elevation gives advantage to the American side, and in this particular it stands invested in a more majestic form. But the deep, and comparatively unperturbed current descending from the Horse Shoe, suggests the vastness of its volume, imparts to it the highest consideration, and chains the mind with the intensest interest. ”

“ And are these the people, who, as the white men say, can never be cultivated?—these the people to be driven from one place to another, “till they have no rest for the sole of their foot?”—till they are compelled “in the morning to say—would God it were evening—and in the evening, would God it were morning?”—whom it is right to rob, a virtue to abuse, and pardonable to have annihilated? ”

“ There stands before him a naked man, with visage painted horrible, whose every muscle demonstrates his custom to exertion and fatigue, who knows not how to smile; who never sleeps, or wakes, but that a weapon of death is girded to his side, or borne in his hand; who is a creature of passion, and inflexible in his purpose, when once resolved; who conceals his thoughts beneath his imperturbable countenance; who never betrays his emotions, however deep and strong they are;—who can be indifferent in such society? ”

“ Imagination always invests the horrible with greater horrors, than what legitimately belong to it. But with all the prunings of exact history, it must be confessed, that Indian warfare in America, is horrible enough. And I here undertake the task of explanation—and I will add, of some show of apology.
The American Indian, in his wild condition, it must be understood, is, in intellectual and moral culture, a barbarian. He is an improvident, uncultivated child of nature—prompted to action only by his present necessities. Yet he is a man. ”

“ Immediately the men darted from their lodges, with rifle in hand, while the women and children launched the canoes; and in the shortest imaginable space we were right on the shore, within thirty feet of this strange assemblage of human beings;—and pop—pop—pop—went their rifles, directly at us, in a quick and furious volley, as if they would shoot every one of us from the deck. I am sure for one, I started back, contracted myself within the smallest possible dimensions, and dodged a little. ”

“ But the burning and massacre of Deerfield will never be forgotten. An Indian assault, when victorious, and Indian vengeance, are terrible beyond imagination to conceive. In war mercy is no attribute of the Indian’s breast. One of the solemn and sacramental acts of his enlistment, is publicly to absolve himself from all clemency towards his enemies; and the more merciless the inflictions of his cruelty on man, woman, and child, the greater his glory, and the more sure his reward. ”

“ Williams, perched upon the right bank, ascending; and skirted by what is called an oak-opening, or more properly, an orchard of oaks, scattered here and there, near enough for a shady grove, but too distant to make a forest proper. The beauty of Fox River and of its wooded banks, is hardly to be exceeded by any thing of the kind. Every thing is soft and picturesque to the full satisfaction of the soul. ”

“ The peaceful and even tenor of a particular community, or of the grand community of nations, makes brief chapters of history;—and for this reason:—that the interest of the record is in the inverse proportion to the comfort, which the facts narrated have brought to mankind. However libellous the charge, the human mind loves excitement, and delights more in the review of deeds of blood and of the disasters occasioned by the conflict of the physical elements of the universe, than of the achievements of benevolence and the security and happiness of society. ”

“ Detroit, originally, and for ages a post for trade, and a garrison for its protection—having enjoyed and suffered alternately peace and war, with the aborigines and between rival civilized powers, for such a long series of years—has now become the beautiful and flourishing metropolis of a wide and interesting territory—a territory destined soon to make at least two of the most important states of the American Union. ”

“ Brothers, come back to us. We will be one people. We will unite together against the white man, and pray our great father to take him away. And then we shall have peace, and no more trouble. I give you the faith and love of our tribes. It is not rotten. It is good.
“I speak again to my white brothers. You will not blame me, that I have spoken the truth. You have seen, brothers, since you came to Green Bay, that what I have just told the Menomenies and Winnebagoes, is truth. We have shewn you what promises were made to us by your great father and ours. You know it is truth. ”

“ You offer to make a new treaty in the name of our great father. Make the old treaty good, brothers, and then if there be any need, we shall have some reason to trust in a new one. Till then, we do not wish to make another. It is better to have none, brothers, if both parties will not keep them. We have been deceived. It is not good. We do not wish to be deceived again.
“Brothers, we have learnt one good thing from the white man: to trust in the white man’s God. We believe him to be the only God—and that he is the God of all the tribes of men. ”

“ And then it is to be observed, that scarcely a trace of man is left imprinted here, except rarely, upon the shores, may be found the marks of a transient Indian encampment;—that the forests are so dark and thick, that the wild buck, with his branching horns, cannot run among them;—that the trees and shrubbery are of a character peculiar to the climate;—and that innumerable firs may be seen shooting up their conical tops, over the rest of the forest, not inferior, in the exactitude and symmetry of their proportion, to the most beautiful spire of a church. ”