Part 53 (1/2)

And he left me, after a brief stay, with an impression that he was destined to enter the field of moral instruction usefully to his fellow-men, believing that it is far better to undertake to persuade than to drive men by a.s.sault, as with cannon, from their strongholds of opinion.

CHAPTER LV.

Rage for investment in western lands--Habits of the common deer--Question of the punishment of Indian murders committed in the Indian country--A chief calls to have his authority recognized on the death of a predecessor--Dr. Julius, of Prussia--Gen. Robert Patterson--Pressure of emigration--Otwin--Dr. Gilman and Mr.

Hoffman--Picturesque trip to Lake Superior--Indians desire to cede territory--G.W. Featherstonehaugh--Sketch of his geological reconnoisance of the St. Peter's River--Dr. Thomas H. Webb--Question of inscriptions on American rocks--Antiquities--Embark for Was.h.i.+ngton, and come down the lakes in the great tempest of 1835.

1835. _August_. The rage for investment in lands was now manifest in every visitor that came from the East to the West. Everybody, more or less, yielded to it. I saw that friends, in whose prudence and judgment I had confided for years, were engaged in it. I doubted the soundness of the ultra predictions which were based on every sort of investment of this kind, whether of town property or farming land, and held quite conservative opinions on the subject, but yielded partially, and in a moderate way, to the general impulse, by making some investments in Wisconsin. Among other plans, an opinion arose that Michilimackinack must become a favorite watering place, or refuge for the opulent and invalids during the summer; and lots were eagerly bought up from Detroit and Chicago.

_17th_. I embarked in a steamer for Green Bay--where I attended the first land sales, and made several purchases. While there, I remarked the curious fluctuations in the level of the waters at the mouth of Fox River. The lake (Michigan) and the bay appear to hold the relation of separate parts of a syphon. It was now fourteen years since I had first noticed this phenomenon, as a member of the expedition to the sources of the Mississippi. While at Green Bay I procured a young fawn, and carried it to be a tenant of my garden and grounds. This animal grew to its full size, and revealed many interesting traits. Its motions were most graceful. It was perfectly tame. It would walk into the hall and dining-room, when the door was open, and was once observed to step up, gracefully, and take bread from the table. It perambulated the garden walks. It would, when the back-gate was shut, jump over a six feet picket fence, with the ease and lightness of a bird.

Some of its instincts were remarkable. At night it would choose its place of lying down invariably to the leeward of an object which sheltered it from the prevailing wind. One of its most remarkable instincts was developed with respect to ladies. On one occasion, while an unattended lady was walking up the avenue from my front gate to the door, through the garden grounds, the animal approached from behind, in the gentlest manner possible, and placed his fore feet on her shoulders.

This happened more than once. Its propensity to eat plum leaves at last banished it from the garden. It was then allowed to visit distant parts of the island, and, at length, some vicious person broke one of its legs, from its propensity to browse on the young leaves of fruit trees.

This was fatal to it, and I was induced to allow its being shot, after it had been an inmate of my grounds for about three years, where it was familiarly known to all by the name of Nimmi.

Poor Nimmi, some are hanged for being thieves, But thou, poor beast! wast killed for eating leaves.

_24th_. I received instructions from Was.h.i.+ngton respecting recent murders of Chippewas by the Sioux. This is a constantly recurring topic for the action of an Indian agent. Unfortunately, his powers in the matter are only advisory. The intercourse act does not declare it a crime for one Indian nation to make reprisals, club in hand, on another Indian nation, on the area in which their sovereignty is acknowledged.

It only makes it a criminal offence to kill a white man in such a position, for which his nation can be invaded, and the murderer seized and delivered up to justice.

_28th_. Ottawance, chief of the Beaver Islands, died last summer (1834).

Kin-wa-be-kiz-ze, or Man of the Long Stone (noun inanimate), called to day, and announced himself as the successor, and asked for the usual present of tobacco, &c. By this recognition of the office, his authority was sought to be confirmed.

_29th_. Dr. Julius, of Prussia, visited me, being on his return from Chicago. He evinced a deep interest in the history of the Indian race.

He remarked the strong resemblance they bore in features and manners to the Asiatics. He had remarked that the Potawattomies seem like dogs, which he observed was also the custom of the Tartars; but that the eyes of the latter were set diagonally, whereas the American Indians had theirs parallel. In other respects, he saw great resemblances. He expressed himself as greatly interested in the discovery of an oral literature among the Indians, in the form of imaginative legends.

Gen. Robert Patterson, of Philadelphia, with his daughter and niece, make a brief visit, on their way from Chicago and the West, and view the curiosities of the island. These visits of gentlemen of wealth, to the great area of the upper lakes, may be noticed as commencing with this year. People seem to have suddenly waked up in the East, and are just becoming aware that there _is a West_--to which they hie, in a measure, as one who hunts for a pleasant land fancied in dreams. But the great Mississippi Valley is a waking reality. Fifty years will tell her story on the population and resources of the world.

_Sept. 12th_. Received instructions from the Department, to ascertain whether the Indians north of Grand River would sell their lands, and on what terms. The letter to which this was a reply was the first official step in the causes which led to the treaty of March 28th, 1836. A leading step in the policy of the Department respecting the tribes of the Upper Lakes.

_15th_. The great lakes can no longer be regarded as solitary seas, where the Indian war-whoop has alone for so many uncounted centuries startled its echoes. The Eastern World seems to be alive, and roused up to the value of the West. Every vessel, every steamboat, brings up persons of all cla.s.ses, whose countenances the desire of acquisition, or some other motive, has rendered sharp, or imparted a fresh glow of hope to their eyes. More persons, of some note or distinction, natives or foreigners, have visited me, and brought me letters of introduction this season, than during years before. Sitting on my piazza, in front of which the great stream of s.h.i.+ps and commerce pa.s.ses, it is a spectacle at once novel, and calculated to inspire high antic.i.p.ations of the future glory of the Mississippi Valley.

_Oct. 5th_. Was.h.i.+ngton Irving responds, in the kindest terms, to my letter transmitting some ma.n.u.script materials relative to the Indian history.

_12th_. Mr. Green, of Boston, wrote me on the 8th instant unfavorably to the stability of the Christian character of my friend Otwin, whom I had recommended to the Board for employment in the missionary field in Lake Superior, in connection with the missionary family at La Pointe. Mr. S.

Hall, the head of that Mission, writes (Oct. 12th): ”I am glad that the providence of G.o.d directed (him) this way, and trust his coming into this region will be for the interest of Zion's Kingdom here. He appears to be a man of faith and prayer. I trust he will be the means of stirring up to more diligence in the service of our Master.” What greater aid could be given to a lone far off Indian mission, than ”a man of faith and prayer.” When an observer in the vast panorama of the West and North has seen a poor missionary and his family, living five-hundred miles from the nearest verge of civilization, solitary and desolate, surrounded with heathen red men, and worse than heathen white men, with none out of his little circle to honor G.o.d or appreciate his word, it is presumable to him that any reinforcement of help must be hailed as cold water to a parched tongue. Not that there is any supposed difference of opinion on the main question, between the Head and the forest hands, so to say, of the Board, but it is difficult, at Boston, to appreciate the disheartening circ.u.mstances surrounding the missionary in the field. And any youthful instability, or eccentricity of means in the way of advancing the Gospel, should be forgiven, for the cause, after years of experience, and not written against ”a man of faith and prayer,” as it appears to have been by the pastor of Middleburgh, as with a pen of iron.

_14th_. Pendonwa, son of Wahazo, a brother of the Ottawa chief, Wing, reports himself as electing to become ”an American,” and says he had so declared himself to Col. Boyd, the former Indian agent.

_27th_. Dr. C.R. Gilman, of New York, having, with Major M. Hoffman, of Wall Street, paid me a visit and made a picturesque ”trip to the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior,” writes me after his safe return to the city, piquing himself on that adventure, after having exchanged congratulations with his less enterprising cityloving friends. It was certainly an event to be booked, that two civilians so soldered down to the habits of city life in different lines as the Doctor and the Major, should have extended their summer excursion as far as Michilimackinack.

But it was a farther evidence of enterprise, and the love of the picturesque, that they should have taken an Indian canoe, and a crew of engagees, at that point, and ventured to visit the Pictured Rocks in Lake Superior. ”Life on the Lakes” (the t.i.tle of Dr. G.'s book) was certainly a widely different affair to ”Life in New York.”

_31st_. Circ.u.mstances had now inclined the Chippewa and Ottawa tribes of Indians to cede to the United States a portion of their extensive territory. Game had failed in the greater part of it, and they had no other method of raising funds to pay their large outstanding credits to the cla.s.s of traders, and to provide for an interval of transition, which must indeed happen, in view of their future improvement, between the hunter and agricultural state.

The Drummond Island band had, for a year or two, advocated a sale. The Ottawas of the peninsula determined to send a delegation to Was.h.i.+ngton on the subject. I could not hesitate as to the course which duty proscribed to me, under these important circ.u.mstances, and determined to proceed to Was.h.i.+ngton, although the Secretary and acting Governor of the Territory, Mr. Horner, on being consulted by letter, refused his a.s.sent to this step. His want of proper information on the subject, being but recently come to the territory, did not appear to be such as to justify me in remaining on the island, while the question had been carried by the Indians themselves to, and was, probably, to be decided at Was.h.i.+ngton before another season. I determined, therefore, to proceed to Was.h.i.+ngton, taking one of the latest vessels for the season, on their return from the ports on Lake Michigan.

_Nov. 2d_. Mr. Featherstonehaugh writes to me from Galena, on his return from his geological reconnoisance in the north-west, sketching some of the leading events of his progress:--