Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

“ Books thus become a more permanent memorial than marble, and by their diffusion scatter those lessons among all mankind, which the age of mounds and hieroglyphics, stone and papyrus, had confined to the tablet of a shaft, or the dark recesses of a tomb or a pyramid. It is never to be forgotten, that in the development of this new phasis in the history of the human race, it was printing that first lit the lamp of truth, and has driven on the experiment, till the boundaries of letters have well nigh become co-extensive with the world. ”

“ We knew many of their present stalwart braves in those days of early life when the Indian and white alike forget disguise, but in the unchecked exuberance of youthful feeling show the real character that policy and habit may afterwards so much conceal; and we know that, under the stolid stoic look he assumes, there is burning in the Indian’s nature a heart of fire and feeling, and an all-observing keenness of apprehension, that marks and remembers everything that occurs, and every insult he receives. ”

“ Is it not an effort sanctioned by the noblest affections of our nature—by the soundest principles of philanthropy—by the highest aspirations of Christian benevolence? Is it not the work of patriots as well as Christians? of good citizens as well as good neighbors? Is it not a high and imperious duty to rid our land of the foul stain of intemperance? Is it a duty too hard for us to accomplish? Is there anything unreasonable in the voluntary obligations by which we are bound? Shall we lose property or reputation by laboring in the cause of temperance? ”

“ Committing my baggage to a carman, I ascended the bank of diluvial earth and pebbles with all eagerness, and walked to the point of land where Fort Pitt (old Fort Du Quesne) had stood. It is near this point that the Alleghany and Monongahela unite, and give birth to the noble Ohio. It is something to stand at the head of such a stream. The charm of novelty is beyond all others. ”

“ The thought seems hardly to be entertained by the common Indians, that an officer may be guided by right and honest motives. The principle of suspicion has, so to say, eaten out the Indian heart. The jealousy with which he has watched the white man, in all periods of his history, is but of a piece with that with which he watches his chiefs, his neighbors, and his very family. Exaltation of feeling, liberality of sentiment, justness of reasoning, a spirit of concession, and that noble faith and trust which arise from purity and virtue, are the characteristics of civilisation ”

“ I waited while the sun ran his daily course, for his return from the chase, and I rejoiced in my heart when I heard his manly footsteps approach the lodge. He threw down his burden at the door—it was a haunch of the deer;—I flew to prepare the meat for his use.
“My heart was bound up in him, and he was all the world to me. But he has left me for another, and life is now a burden which I cannot bear. Even my children add to my griefs—they look so much like him. How can I support life, when all its moments are bitter! I have lifted up my voice to the Master of life. ”

“ Into this deep dark terrific glen the path led, and here we lit our fire, hastily constructed a bush camp, and betook ourselves, after due ablutions in the little stream, to a night’s repose. The sky became rapidly overcast, before we had finished our meal, and a night of intense darkness, threatening a tempest, set in. As we sat by our fire, its glare upon huge beetling points of overhanging rocks, gave the scene a wild and picturesque cast; and we anticipated returning daylight with an anxious wish to know and see our exact locality. ”

“ Now, the removed tribes are precisely in the centre of this path. From the mouth of the Platte, or the Konza, the great highway to the Oregon must run west. Whether this new tide of emigration will be successful or unsuccessful, will those who compose it spare to trample on the red man? Will they suddenly become kind to him, to whom they have been unkind? Will they cease to desire the lands which their children want? Will they consent to see the nation separated by an Indian state? ”

“ The beaming WEST invites me on, with smiles of vermil hue, And clouds of promise fill the sky, and deck its heavenly blue, There is no breeze—there is no sign, in ocean, earth or sky, That does not swell my breast with hope, or animate my eye. ”

“ The sun, at dawn, lifts up his head, to guide me on my way, The moon, at night, looks softly down, and cheers me with her ray. The war-crowned stars, those beaming lights, my spirit casts at night Direct me as I thread the maze, and lead me to the fight. ”

“ There had been some traces of wheels, on the softer soil, which had been driven in this direction towards the saltpetre caves, but we completely lost them, as we came to and ascended these arid and rugged steeps. Some of these steeps rose into dizzy and romantic cliffs, surmounted with pines. We wound our way cautiously amongst them, to find some gorge and depression, through which we might enter the valley. For ourselves we should not have been so choice of a path, but we had a pack horse to lead, and should he be precipitated into a gulf, we must bid adieu to our camp equipage. ”

“ The most powerful source of influence, with the Red man, is his religion. Here is the true groundwork of his hopes and his fears, and, it is believed, the fruitful source of his opinions and actions. It supplies the system of thought by which he lives and dies, and it constitutes, indeed, the basis of Indian character. By it he preserves his identity, as a barbarian, and when this is taken away, and the true system substituted, he is still a Red Man, but no longer, in the popular sense, an Indian—a barbarian, a pagan. ”

“ No forest is so black, That it can hide from my quick eye, the vestige of their track: There is no lake so boundless, no path where man may go, Can shield them from my sharp pursuit, or save them from my blow. ”

“ Nothing but a mad wolf could venture alone into the heart of the village, and do so much mischief. Out ran the people into the streets, men, women and all. Some caught up guns, some clubs, some pitchforks. If the tories and Indians, in the old French war, had broke into the settlement with fire and sword, there could not have been a greater tumult, and nothing but a mad wolf would have stood his ground. ”

“ Those who entertain the opinion that the fall of Quebec, celebrated in England and America as a high military achievement, and the consequent surrender of Canada, produced any very important improvement in this state of things, forget that the leading principles and desires of the human heart are alike in all nations, acting under like circumstances. The desire of amassing wealth—the thirst for exercising power—the pride of information over ignorance—the power of vicious over virtuous principles, are not confined to particular eras, nations, or latitudes. ”

“ The emigrant swings a heavy axe of six pounds weight, incessantly, day in, and day out, against immense trees, in the heaviest forest, until he has opened the land to the rays of the sun, and prepared an amount of cyclopean labours for the power of fire, and the ox. The hunter clears no forests, the limits of which on the contrary, he carefully cherishes for his deer to range in. He seats himself down, with his lodge, in the borders of natural glades, or meadows, to plant his few hills of maize. ”

“ I have observed that polygamy, among the northern tribes, is chiefly to be found, among bands who are favourably located, and have the best means of subsistence. But even here it is not reputable; it may often increase a man’s influence in the tribe or nation, but there are always persons in the wildest forests, who do not think the practice right or reputable. In the worst state of Indian society, there are always some glimmerings of truth. If the conscience of the Red man may be compared to a lamp, it may be said to have rather sunk low into its socket, than actually to have expired. ”

“ It was new to me.—I was now fairly in the great geological valley of the west, the object of so many anticipations.
The ark, in which I had descended the Alleghany, put ashore near the point of land, which is formed by the junction of the Monongahela with this fine clear stream. The dark and slowly moving waters of the one, contrasted strongly with the sparkling velocity of the other. I felt a buoyancy of spirits as I leapt ashore, and picked up some of its clean pebbles to see what kind of geological testimony they bore to the actual character of their parent beds in the Appalachian range. ”

“ In sacred dreams within my lodge, while resting on the land, Bright omens of success arise, and nerve my warlike hand Where’er I turn, where’er I go, there is a whispering sound, That tells me I shall crush the foe, and drive him from my ground. ”

“ We have conquered them, on the field, not to usurp territory, but to place them in a condition to observe how much more their interests and permanent prosperity would be, and have ever been, promoted by the plough than the sword. And there has been a prompt recurrence, at every mutation from war to peace, punctually, to that fine sentiment embraced in the first article of the first treaty ever made between the American government and the Indian tribes, namely, that all offences and animosities “shall be mutually forgiven, and buried in deep oblivion, and never more be had in remembrance.” ”

“ Wild, erratic bands, who rove over immense plains on horseback, with bow and lance, who plunge their knives and arrows daily into the carcasses of the buffalo, the elk and the deer, and who are accustomed to sights of blood and carnage, cannot escape the mental influence of these sanguinary habits, and must be, more or less, blunted in their conceptions and feelings. Where brute life is so recklessly taken, there cannot be the same nice feeling and sense of justice, which some of the more favoured tribes possess, with respect to taking away human life. ”

“ The spirit of revenge burned in the breast of the Iroquois, particularly against their kindred tribe, the Wyandots, whom they pursued into Lake Huron, drove them from their refuge at Michilimackinac, and pushed them even to Lake Superior, where for many years, this ancient tribe continued to dwell.
The pernicious examples of white men, who have conducted the Indian trade, their immoral habits, injustice, and disregard of truth, and open licentiousness, have created the deepest prejudice in the minds of the Red men against the whole European race. ”

“ The rage of the conflagration—the devastation of the flood—the fury of the tempest, are emblematic of the moral fury of the mind under the influence of alcohol. It is equally ungovernable in its power, and destructive in its effects. But its devastations are more to be deplored, because they are the devastations of human faculties—of intellectual power—of animal energy—of moral dignity—of social happiness—of temporal health—of eternal felicity. ”