James Napier Bailey

“ The increase of a society in this state is limited by its own nature, and the members of it must either disperse, like the game which they pursue, or fall upon some better method of procuring food, than by hunting. Beasts of prey are by nature solitary and unsocial; they go not forth to the chase in herds, but delight in those recesses of the forest where they can roam and destroy undisturbed. A nation of hunters resembles them both in occupation and in genius. They cannot form into large communities, because it would be impossible to find subsistence ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ People in this state retain a high sense of equality and independence. Wherever the idea of property is not established, there can be no distinction among men, but what arises from personal qualities. These can be conspicuous only on such occasions as call them forth into exertion. In times of danger, or in affairs of intricacy, the wisdom and experience of age, are consulted, and prescribe the measure which ought to be pursued. When a tribe of savages takes the field against the enemies of their country, the warrior of most approved courage leads the youth to the combat. ”

“ Brothers,—Who are the white people that we should fear them? They cannot run fast and are good marks to shoot at; they are only men; our fathers have killed many of them; we are not squaws, and we will stain the earth red with their blood.
“Brothers,—The Great Spirit is angry with our enemies; he speaks in [17] thunder, and the earth swallows up villages, and drinks up the Mississippi. ”

“ The fact is, the Indians are esteemed lawful prey. Such is the feeling of thousands of men called Christians, who boast of civilization, but who derive their subsistence by intercourse with the Indians; and however just many in the United States are, and however careful the British government is to guard the rights of the red men, yet as this guardianship is chiefly committed to those who are partakers in the spoils of the Indians, the care, instead of being wise and benign, is rather to debauch their untutored mind by the introduction of spirits among them. ”

“ But let not those who still claim the British name, nor the citizens of the United States deceive themselves in the belief that because the poor Indians, whose lands they possess, and whose rivers they navigate, have no powerful voice to blazon their wrongs, and hold them up to the abhorence of mankind, they will always rest unavenged; or that the civilization, which is pompously carried on, but which is in fact a slow consuming system of extinction, will avert the retributive justice which God will assuredly render. ”

“ The difference in this respect between the Aborigines of the Western world, and the inhabitants of more civilized regions, is purely accidental. Reared within the pale of a civilized community, and surrounded with innumerable objects adapted to awaken thought, stimulate curiosity, and call his mental and bodily powers into exertion, the European feels a variety of wants, and is subject to a variety of influences to which the savage is a stranger. Experience gives him foresight and wisdom, and induces him to act with a view to remote advantage, as well as to present gratification. ”

“ Brothers,—Our Great Father, over the great waters, is angry with the white people, our enemies. He will send his brave warriors against them: he will send us rifles, and whatever else we want—he is our friend, and we are his children. ”

“ They come to these dances with faces painted in a frightful manner, to make themselves look terrible to their enemies. By these war-songs they preserve the history of their great achievements. The solemn reception of these warriors, and the acclamation of applause which they receive at their return, cannot but have on the hearer the same effect in raising an emulation for glory, that a triumph had on the old Romans. ”

“ The instruction of the Indians in schools, among the Europeans settled at the great towns, was another method which was adopted with the same view, and with no better success. After receiving in part the education, and in whole the vices of civilized life, those pupils returned to their naked and hunting brethren, from corruption the most profligate, and from necessity the most idle, members of the Indian community. They found a society in the woods, to which they originally belonged by blood, but for the manners and pursuits of which they had been altogether incapacitated by education. ”

“ The Indians of America owe very few obligations to the white people that have settled among them. The latter have endeavoured to exterminate the former, and by violence or fraud, to get possession of their territories. They have slaughtered a great part of the American Aborigines in open war, endeavoured to enslave the rest, and multiplied so rapidly, and spread themselves so regularly over the face of the transatlantic world, as to render the Indian mode of procuring subsistence exceedingly precarious. ”

“ This remark is fully verified by the history of the American Indians. ‘The belief most firmly established among the American Savages,’ says Charlevoix, ‘is that of the immortality of the soul. They suppose that when separated from the body, it preserves the same inclinations which it had when both were united. For this reason, they bury with the dead all that they had in use when alive. Some imagine that all men have two souls, one of which never leaves the body, unless it be to inhabit another. ”

“ It is incredible to what a degree the superstitious belief in witchcraft operates on the mind of the Indian. The moment his imagination is struck with the idea that he is bewitched, he is no longer himself. ”

“ As soon as a child is informed what is the nature or form of his protecting deity, he is carefully instructed in the obligations he is under to do him homage, to follow his advice communicated in dreams, to deserve his favours, to confide implicitly in his care, and to dread the consequences of his displeasure. For this reason, when the Huron or the Iroquois goes to battle or to the chase, the image of his Okki is as carefully carried with him as his arms. ”