Sauk people

“ The interpreter, who had been equally as bad in trying to persuade us to leave our village was retained in office, and the young man who took the place of our agent, told the same old story over about removing us. I was then satisfied that this could not have been the cause.
Our women had planted a few patches of corn which was growing finely, and promised a subsistence for our children, but the white people again commenced ploughing it up. I now determined to put a stop to it by clearing our county of the intruders. ”

“ We were sorry last year that you raised the tomahawk against us; but we believe you did not know us then as you do now. We think, in time to come, you will be wise, and that we shall be friends forever. You see that we are a great people, numerous as the flowers of the field, as the shells on the sea shore, or the fishes in the sea, We put one hand on the eastern, and at the same time the other on the western ocean. We all act together. ”

“ They might buy our bodies for dissection, and we would touch the goose quill to confirm it and not know what we were doing. This was the case with me and my people in touching the goose quill for the first time.
We can only judge of what is proper and right by our standard of what is right and wrong, which differs widely from the whites, if I have been correctly informed. The whites may do wrong all their lives, and then if they are sorry for it when about to die, all is well, but with us it is different. ”

“ The country, too, is fast settling up by farmers, and as the Sacs have made a settlement on the frontier farther west, on our old hunting grounds, he said he would have to move farther back so as to be near his people; and on bidding us farewell, said it might be the last time, as he was growing old, and the distance would be too great from the point at which he intended to build a house and open a little farm to make a visit on horseback, and as the Des Moines river is always low in the fall of the year he could not come in his canoe. ”

“ He tried to persuade me that I was mistaken, as he could not believe that the whites would act so cruelly. But when I convinced him, he said to me, 'those cowards who murdered your people shall be punished.' I told him that my people would have revenge, that they would not trouble any of his people at the fort, as we did not blame him or any of his soldiers, but that a party of my braves would go towards the Wabash to avenge the death of their friends and relations. The next day I took a party of hunters, killed several deer, and left them at the fort gate as I passed. ”

“ I have often thought of them since my return to my own people, and am happy to think that they prefer living in their own country to coming out to ours and driving us from it, as many of the whites have already done. I think with them, that wherever the Great Spirit places his people they ought to be satisfied to remain, and be thankful for what He has given them, and not drive others from the country He has given them because it happens to be better then theirs. ”

“ In the following pages he will be seen in the character of a Warrior, a Patriot and a State prisoner; in every situation he is still the chief of his Band, asserting their rights with dignity, firmness and courage. Several accounts of the late war having been published, in which he thinks justice is not done to himself or nation, he determined to make known to the world the injuries his people have received from the whites, the causes which brought on the war on the part of his nation, and a general history of it throughout the campaign. ”

“ The next day I started with my party to Kishwacokee. That night I encamped a short distance above the prophet's village. After all was quiet in our camp I sent for my chiefs, and told them that we had been deceived. That all the fair promises that had been held out to us through Neapope were false. But it would not do to let our party know it. We must keep it secret among ourselves, move on to Kishwacokee, as if all was right, and say something on the way to encourage our people. I will then call on the Pottowattomies, hear what they say, and see what they will do. ”

“ A medicine-man of the tribe, hideous with pigment and high upstanding hair, sat beating a wooden drum before the entrance, and chanting wildly to a ferocious-looking horde of naked savages, many bleeding from self-inflicted wounds, who danced around the blaze, the leaping figures in the red glare making the scene truly demoniacal. Little Sauk strode through the midst of them, unheeding the uproar, and flung aside the flap of the tent. ”

“ There is the woman who races in as though her whole scheme of life were held together by a one-pin despotism which might abdicate its functions at any moment; it’s really a relief to see her reach her chair in safety. Then there are the people who troop in with an-unpleasant-duty-to-perform air, as if they were angels of Death entering a plague city. ”

“ Think how many blameless lives are brightened by the blazing indiscretions of other people. Tell me, who is the woman with the old lace at the table on our left? Oh, that doesn’t matter; it’s quite the thing nowadays to stare at people as if they were yearlings at Tattersall’s. ”

“ He knew that the Sauks would use every effort to induce their neighbors to join them, and that there existed in the breasts of too many of the young savages a desire to distinguish themselves by "taking some white scalps." They did not love the Americans—why should they? ”

“ But while they were holding their conversation, the Sauk carried out a singular thought. He asked himself whether he could not make a friend of the stranger—that is to say, a genuine friend, who would be held to him by gratitude.
As to the method by which this was to be attained, even the ingenious mind of the warrior was unable to determine. All he could do was to seek to keep him company until some way should be open. The coming of any of the Pawnees, who were trooping at the heels of the Shawanoe, would be liable to scatter all such plans to the wind. ”

“ I was born at the Sac village, on Rock river, in the year 1767, and am now in my 67th year. My great grandfather, Nanamakee, or Thunder, according to the tradition given me by my father, Pyesa, was born in the vicinity of Montreal, Canada, where the Great Spirit first placed the Sac nation, and inspired him with a belief that, at the end of four years he should see a white man, who would be to him a father. ”

“ The last boat was not found, but the identical youth who had fared so ill at the hands of Jack, came upon his trail where it left the river. His black eyes glowed with anticipated revenge, which is one of the most blissful emotions that can stir the heart of the American Indian.
The young Sauk might have brought a half dozen older warriors around him by uttering a simple signal, but nothing could have induced him to do so. He had his gun, knife, and tomahawk,—all the weapons he could carry and all that were possibly needed. ”

“ Ogallah had protected the sick pale face from molestation, but now the chief was the most eager for his death.
The fugitive evidently believed he was safe against all pursuit, and it would therefore be the easier to surprise him. What greater feat could the young Sauk perform than to follow and secretly slay the detested lad? What a triumph it would be to return to the village with his scalp dangling at his girdle! ”

“ Some say in your world that sack is a word used in all tongues, and justly admitted in the same sense among all nations; for, as Aesop's fable hath it, all men are born with a sack at the neck, naturally needy and begging of each other; neither can the most powerful king be without the help of other men, or can anyone that's poor subsist without the rich, though he be never so proud and insolent; as, for example, Hippias the philosopher, who boasted he could do everything. Much less can anyone make shift without drink than without a sack. ”

“ But it is when we turn to their treatment of the non-human races that we find the surest evidences of barbarism; yet their savagery, even here, is not wholly “naked and unashamed,” for, strange to say, these curious people delight to mask their rudeness in a cloak of fallacies and sophisms, and to represent themselves as “lovers” of those very creatures whom they habitually torture for “sport,” “science,” and the “table.” ”

“ If we were to live together and disagree, we would be as foolish as the whites. No indiscretion can banish a woman from her parental lodge; no difference how many children she may bring home she is always welcome—the kettle is over the fire to feed them. ”

“ The Saukies can raise about three hundred warriors, who are generally employed every summer in making incursions into the territories of the Illinois and Pawnee nations, from whence they return with a great number of slaves. But those people frequently retaliate, and, in their turn, destroy many of the Saukies, which I judge to be the reason that they increase no faster. ”

“ It struck me that it was rather like merrymaking with a dead body lying in the house.”
“Yeovil,” said the doctor, “you must bear in mind two things. First, the necessity for the life of the country going on as if nothing had happened. It is true that many thousands of our working men and women have emigrated and thousands of our upper and middle class too; they were the people who were not tied down by business, or who could afford to cut those ties. ”

“ MISS SUKEY. Yes it is. For if I could but hurt my enemies, without being hurt myself, it would be the greatest pleasure I could have in the world.
MISS JENNY. Oh fie, Miss Sukey! What you have now said is wicked. Don’t you consider what you say every day in your prayers’? And this way of thinking will make you lead a very uneasy life. If you would hearken to me, I could put you into a method of being very happy, and making all those misses you call your enemies, become your friends. ”

“ LUD. But, my dear sir, you don't seem to understand that
the man ate three sausage-rolls. Keep that fact steadily before
you. Three large sausage-rolls.
JULIA. Bah!—Lots of people eat sausage-rolls who are not
conspirators.
LUD. Then they shouldn't. It's bad form. It's not the
game. When one of the Human Family proposes to eat a
sausage-roll, it is his duty to ask himself, "Am I a
conspirator?" And if, on examination, he finds that he is not a
conspirator, he is bound in honour to select some other form of
refreshment.
LISA. Of course he is. One should always play the game. ”

“ But I am not an Indian, if that is what you mean. If to be white is a grace in your sight, I am of that race, though there « 297 » are times when I would have been prouder to wear the darker skin. The red men kill, but they do not lie, nor deceive women. I remember you now,—you were with the White Chief from Dearborn, and tried to approach me when Little Sauk interfered. ”

“ But, gentlemen, if any of you will tell me that to make a man into a sausage would be much worse—would be any worse—than to make him into a slave,—than it was then to enact the fugitive slave law,—I shall here accuse him of foolishness, of intellectual incapacity, of making a distinction without a difference. ”

“ In our private conversation, he told me how vicious the people of Saccalauvor were grown within a few years, as their country grew rich; and that young men living so high, and drinking such large quantities of toake, induced them frequently to lie with other men’s wives, by which means murders, and several other misfortunes, have ensued. ”

“ Le Sage took a pinch of snuff, laid the box handy, dusted his plump knees with his handkerchief, and, leaning back and loosely twining his fingers before him, began:—
“I have this, my friends, to say to you both before I start. What I have to tell, my story—and not the most creditable part of it—is fundamentally concerned with one about whom, it might be thought, my obligations as his guest should keep me silent. That would be quite true, were it not for a single consideration so vital as to constitute in itself a complete moral justification of my candour. ”

“ In her town house or down at Torywood, with her writing-pad on her knee and the telephone at her elbow, or in personal counsel with some trusted colleague or persuasive argument with a halting adherent or half-convinced opponent, she had laboured on behalf of the poor and the ill-equipped, had fought for her idea of the Right, and above all, for the safety and sanity of her Fatherland. ”

“ But because it is not a true tool, because it gives the man no grip on the creative energies of society, it is, with all the rest of his self-respect, at the mercy of the thing called the sack. When he gets the sack from the water-works, it is only too probable that he will have to pawn his old cherry-briar. ”

“ There is no outlet for demonstrating your feelings towards people whom you simply loathe. That is really the crying need of our modern civilisation. Just think how jolly it would be if a recognised day were set apart for the paying off of old scores and grudges, a day when one could lay oneself out to be gracefully vindictive to a carefully treasured list of ‘people who must not be let off.’ I remember when I was at a private school we had one day, the last Monday of the term I think it was, consecrated to the settlement of feuds and grudges ”

“ Pretending to be well satisfied with my new mode of life, I at last gained upon the confidence of the savages, and one day when their vigilance was considerably relaxed, I made my escape and returned in safety to my friends, who had mourned for me as dead. ”

“ Then they broke into protesting giggles.
“Of course, you’re joking,” they said.
“Not me,” was the disconcerting answer; “I can’t make head or tail of these bothering old politics. Never could, and never want to. I’ve quite enough to do to manage my own affairs, and that’s a fact.” ”

“ I might, when I did advance to meet her, have passed on indifferently; and, even when she spoke to me, I might have denied that I was the person she was sent after, or I might have refused to accompany her; but destiny impelled me on, nay, it led me by the nose after a slave-girl, to plunge into an adventure I fain would have avoided, and which my heart told me must end miserably. Sahib, there is no opposing Fate; by the meanest ends it works out the greatest deeds, and we are its slaves, body and soul, blindly to do as its will works! I say not Thugs only, but the whole human race. ”