Jonathan Carver

“ To what power or authority this new world will become dependent, after it has arisen from its present uncultivated state, time alone can discover. But as the seat of Empire from time immemorial has been gradually progressive towards the West, there is no doubt but that at some future period, mighty kingdoms will emerge from these wildernesses, and stately palaces and solemn temples, with gilded spires reaching the skies, supplant the Indian huts, whose only decorations are the barbarous trophies of their vanquished enemies. ”

“ Animated by these exhortations the warriors snatch their arms in a transport of fury, sing the song of war, and burn with impatience to imbrue their hands in the blood of their enemies.
Sometimes private chiefs assemble small parties, and make excursions against those with whom they are at war, or such as have injured them. A single warrior, prompted by revenge or a desire to show his prowess, will march unattended for several hundred miles, to surprize and cut off a straggling party. ”

“ From thence the most beautiful and extensive prospect that imagination can form opens to your view. Verdant plains, fruitful meadows, numerous islands, and all these abounding with a variety of trees that yield amazing quantities of fruit, without care or cultivation, such as the nut-tree, the maple which produces sugar, vines loaded with rich grapes, and plum-trees bending under their blooming burdens, but above all, the fine River flowing gently beneath, and reaching as far as the eye can extend, by turns attract your admiration and excite your wonder. ”

“ On a signal given by the chief warrior, to which the whole body makes answer by the most hideous yells, they all start up, and discharging their arrows in the same instant, without giving their adversaries time to recover from the confusion into which they are thrown, pour in upon them with their war-clubs or tomahawks.
The Indians think there is little glory to be acquired from attacking their enemies openly in the field; their greatest pride is to surprize and destroy. They seldom engage without a manifest appearance of advantage. ”

“ Few objects have excited a more general enquiry than the discovery of a north-west passage, in order to open a communication with the great pacific ocean and the East Indies, by a shorter navigation than by doubling those immense promontories, the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn. Every allurement of gain, and national emolument, has been proposed to encourage the attempt, but, hitherto, every attempt hath been fruitless, though the most experienced seamen have engaged in the undertaking. ”

“ We may lay it down as a certain principle in this enquiry, that America was not peopled by any nation of the ancient continent, which had made considerable progress in civilization. The inhabitants of the New World were in a state of society so extremely rude, as to be unacquainted with those arts which are the first essays of human ingenuity in its advance towards improvement. Even the most cultivated nations of America were strangers to many of those simple inventions, which were almost coeval with society in other parts of the world, and were known in the earliest periods of civil life. ”

“ A feeling mind, like his, conscious of its dignity and superior merit, might not be able to stoop to that importunity and adulation, which are sometimes requisite to insure the smiles and favours of those in power; otherwise it might naturally be suggested, that his extensive acquaintance with America, and with the customs and languages of the Indians, in the interior parts of that vast continent, then the theatre of an unnatural and bloody contest, would have pointed him out as a most useful instrument in the hands of government. ”

“ In a moment the unfortunate victim of its wrath feels a chilly tremor run through all his frame; a swelling immediately begins on the spot where the teeth had entered, which spreads by degrees over the whole body, and produces on every part of the skin the variegated hue of the snake. The bite of this reptile is more or less venomous according to the season of the year in which it is given. ”

“ If they are artful and designing, and ready to take every advantage, if they are cool and deliberate in their councils, and cautious in the extreme either of discovering their sentiments, or of revealing a secret, they might at the same time boast of possessing qualifications of a more animated nature, of the sagacity of a hound, the penetrating sight of a lynx, the cunning of the fox, the agility of a bounding roe, and the unconquerable fierceness of the tyger. ”

“ The Indians, except those who live adjoining to the European colonies, can form to themselves no idea of the value of money; they consider it, when they are made acquainted with the uses to which it is applied by other nations, as the source of innumerable evils. To it they attribute all the mischiefs that are prevalent among Europeans, such as treachery, plundering, devastations, and murder.
They esteem it irrational that one man should be possessed of a greater quantity than another, and are amazed that any honour should be annexed to the possession of it. ”

“ By this time the war-hoop was given, and the Indians began to murder those that were nearest to them without distinction. It is not in the power of words to give any tolerable idea of the horrid scene that now ensued; men, women, and children were dispatched in the most wanton and cruel manner, and immediately scalped. Many of these savages drank the blood of their victims, as it flowed warm from the fatal wound. ”

“ The Indian nations do not appear to me to differ so widely in their make, colour, or constitution from each other, as represented by some writers. They are in general slight made, rather tall and strait, and you seldom see any among them deformed; their skin is of a reddish or copper colour; their eyes are large and black, and their hair of the same hue, but very rarely is it curled; they have good teeth, and their breath is as sweet as the air they draw in; their cheekbones rather raised, but more so in the women than the men ”

“ The women, particularly those of the western nations, dance very gracefully. They carry themselves erect, and with their arms hanging down close to their sides, move first a few yards to the right, and then back again to the left. This movement they perform without taking any steps as an European would do, but with their feet conjoined, moving by turns their toes and heels. In this manner they glide with great agility to a certain distance, and then return; and let those who join in the dance be ever so numerous, they keep time so exactly with each other that no interruption ensues. ”

“ Has an Indian been engaged for several days in the chace, or on any other laborious expedition, and by accident continued thus long without food, when he arrives at the hut or tent of a friend where he knows his wants may be immediately supplied, he takes care not to show the least symptoms of impatience, or to betray the extreme hunger by which he is tortured; but on being invited in, sits contentedly down, and smokes his pipe with as much composure as if every appetite was allayed, and he was perfectly at ease; he does the same if among strangers. ”

“ In a large, free, and widely extended government, where every motion depends upon a variety of springs, the lesser and subordinate movements must be acted upon by the greater, and consequently the more inferior operations of state will be so distant, as not to be perceived in the grand machine: whether Captain Carver’s disappointments resulted from these principles, or that government did not estimate his services in equal proportion to his own idea of them, is not so easily ascertained, as that he thought himself not only neglected, but treated with injustice. ”

“ The number of whose warriors are equal to the trees in the vallies, the stalks of rice in yonder marshes, or the blades of grass on your great plains. Who has hundreds of canoes of his own, of such amazing bigness, that all the waters in your country would not suffice for one of them to swim in; each of which have guns, not small like mine which you see before you, but of such magnitude, that a hundred of your stoutest young men would with difficulty be able to carry one. ”

“ The Indians say that this was once an universal remedy for every disorder that human nature is incident to; but some of the evil spirits envying mankind the possession of so efficacious a medicine gave the root a bite, which deprived it of a great part of its virtue.
BLOOD ROOT. A sort of plantain that springs out of the ground in six or seven long rough leaves, the veins of which are red; the root of it is like a small carrot both in colour and appearance; when broken, the inside of it is of a deeper color than the outside, and distils several drops of juice that look like blood. ”

“ The islands of the Grand Traverse are mostly small and rocky. Many of the rocks are of an amazing size, and appear as if they had been fashioned by the hands of artists. On the largest and best of these islands stands a town of the Ottowaws, at which I found one of the most considerable chiefs of that nation, who received me with every honour he could possibly show to a stranger. But what appeared extremely singular to me at the time, and must do so to every person unacquainted with the customs of the Indians, was the reception I met with on landing. ”

“ Having then made known to them all the motives that induce him to take up arms against the nation with whom they are to engage, he thus proceeds: “I have therefore resolved to march through the war-path to surprize them. We will eat their flesh and drink their blood; we will take scalps, and make prisoners; and should we perish in this glorious enterprize, we shall not be for ever hid in the dust, for this belt shall be a recompence to him who buries the dead.” ”

“ HUNTING is the principal occupation of the Indians; they are trained to it from their earliest youth, and it is an exercise which is esteemed no less honourable than necessary towards their subsistence. A dextrous and resolute hunter is held nearly in as great estimation by them as a distinguished warrior. Scarcely any device which the ingenuity of man has discovered for ensnaring or destroying those animals that supply them with food, or whose skins are valuable to Europeans, is unknown to them. ”

“ Why are those lips silent, that lately delivered to us expressive and pleasing language? why are those feet motionless, that a short time ago were fleeter than the deer on yonder mountains? why useless hang those arms that could climb the tallest tree, or draw the toughest bow? ”

“ If a scheme that appears to be of service to the community is proposed by the chief, every one is at liberty to chuse whether he will assist in carrying it on; for they have no compulsory laws that lay them under any restrictions. If violence is committed, or blood is shed, the right of revenging these misdemeanours are left to the family of the injured; the chiefs assume neither the power of inflicting or moderating the punishment. ”

“ DANCING is a favourite exercise among the Indians; they never meet on any public occasion, but this makes a part of the entertainment. And when they are not engaged in war or hunting, the youth of both sexes amuse themselves in this manner every evening.
They always dance, as I have just observed, at their feast. In these as well as all their other dances, every man rises in his turn, and moves about with great freedom and boldness ”

“ If an Indian has been absent from his family and friends many months, either on a war or hunting party, when his wife and children meet him at some distance from his habitation, instead of the affectionate sensations that would naturally arise in the breast of more refined beings, and be productive of mutual congratulations, he continues his course without paying the least attention to those who surround him, till he arrives at his home. ”

“ The extension of empire is seldom a motive with these people to invade, and to commit depredations on the territories of those who happen to dwell near them. To secure the rights of hunting within particular limits, to maintain the liberty of passing through their accustomed tracks, and to guard those lands which they consider from a long tenure as their own, against any infringement, are the general causes of those dissensions that so often break out between the Indian nations, and which are carried on with so much animosity. ”

“ All that are captivated by both parties, are either put to death, adopted, or made slaves of. And so particular are every nation in this respect, that if any of their tribe, even a warrior, should be taken prisoner, and by chance be received into the house of grace, either as an adopted person or a slave, and should afterwards make his escape, they will by no means receive him, or acknowledge him as one of their band. ”

“ This they are credulous enough to imagine he is constantly on the watch to do, and would carry his inveteracy to a fatal length if they did not thus charm him.
I could not discover that they make use of any other religious ceremonies than those I have described; indeed, on the appearance of the new moon they dance and sing; but it is not evident that they pay that planet any adoration; they only seem to rejoice at the return of a luminary that makes the night cheerful, and which serves to light them on their way when they travel during the absence of the sun. ”

“ THE character of the Indians, like that of other uncivilized nations, is composed of a mixture of ferocity and gentleness. They are at once guided by passions and appetites, which they hold in common with the fiercest beasts that inhabit their woods, and are possessed of virtues which do honour to human nature.
In the following estimate I shall endeavour to forget on the one hand the prejudices of Europeans, who usually annex to the word Indian epithets that are disgraceful to human nature, and who view them in no other light than as savages and cannibals ”

“ The ingenuity of these creatures in building their cabbins, and in providing for their subsistence, is truly wonderful. When they are about to chuse themselves a habitation, they assemble in companies sometimes of two or three hundred, and after mature deliberation fix on a place where plenty of provisions, and all necessaries are to be found. Their houses are always situated in the water, and when they can find neither lake nor pond adjacent, they endeavour to supply the defect by stopping the current of some brook or small river, by means of a causeway or dam. ”

“ They usually dance either before or after every meal; and by this cheerfulness probably render the Great Spirit, to whom they consider themselves as indebted for every good, a more acceptable sacrifice than a formal and unanimated thanksgiving. The men and women feast apart: and each sex invite by turns their companions to partake with them of the food they happen to have; but in their domestic way of living the men and women eat together. ”

“ We will not, however, bemoan thee as if thou wast for ever lost to us, or that thy name would be buried in oblivion; thy soul yet lives in the great Country of Spirits, with those of thy nation that are gone before thee ”