But we speak with doubt, as we understand that there is extant a complete conjugation of the verb, to be, in the Chippeway language, which we hope will, ere long, see the light, and settle this controversy so far, that "to be, or not to be," will cease to be a question. But there is an authority already on record, on which, we presume, the critic will be willing to place some reliance, which seems to favor the side of the reviewer. Mr. Heckewelder, in page 461 of his work, gives the phrase, Lennape n' hackey," and translates it, "I am an Indian;" and, Whether these translations are literally correct, or not, we leave the critic and Mr. Heckewelder's editor to determine. "Auween nhackey? "Who are you? وو We would now advert to that part of the "Examination," in which the critic, in no very placid mood, rebuts the reviewer's supposed attack upon the "unsettled orthography" of the German alphabet. We will not pretend to say, that the reviewer may not have aimed at a mark beyond our apprehension; but we supposed, that he alluded only to the "unsettled "* manner in which Mr. Heckewelder uses it in his work. We will cite a few examples. In page 459, the Delaware word for perhaps, is spelt "Quonna;" in page 463, "Quanna." In page 458, the word for but, it spelt "schuck;" in page 459, "schuk." In page 462, the word for loud, is spelt two ways, i. e. "wigwingi " and "wichwinggi." In page 461, the word for no, is spelt both "ta" and "tah." In page 457, the word for yonder, is spelt "wullih," and in page 463, "wulli." These examples furnish some proof of our surmise, and render it probable, that the object of the reviewer's attack, was this irregular and careless use of the German alphabet in Mr. Heckewelder's work. In the foregoing remarks, we have made no allusion to the supposed hatred of the Indians, which the critic has imputed so directly to the reviewer, and which he alleges has imparted a hue to all his observations. Such an imputation does not carry with it even a shadow of probability; and it is refuted by its own extravagance and uncharitableness. The public will not take it for granted that the man, who happens to be placed on the "Indian frontier," becomes, without any obvious cause, infected with prejudice and hardheartedness towards the aboriginal race; and that the remote enthusiast alone, entertains any regard for their rights, or feels any sympathy in their sufferings. A nearer approach to the Indians, while it divests their character and condition of all artificial coloring, does not lessen one's interest in their former greatness and present destiny. It represses many fervors of the imagination, and corrects a thousand errors of benevolent, but misguided minds. It is seen, that the Indians are fast dwindling in numbers and in strength; but the cause is no longer only found in our advancing population, which is represented, by distempered fancies, as a scourge, still pursuing and overtaking their receding footsteps. Our settlements have seldom penetrated the forests, until they had ceased to afford huntinggrounds for their ancient possessors, and had become almost useless to them. But we have not space at this time to discuss this subject. We would, however, venture a few observations in vindication of that "depraved clan of whites," as the critic styles them, who have so long stood sentinels upon the outskirts of our population. The inhabitants of the elder settlements, who have been born and brought up in all the security of a dense population, can have but a faint conception of the disquietudes, and even horrors, which have mingled in the lot of those who have led the van of emigration; of those, to whose hardihood and perseverance, the wide-spreading prosperity of the West is mainly due. Have they always been the aggressors? We mean not to reprehend the natural hostility to, and even hatred of, the whites, which the Indian is supposed to feel. He sees his race hurried on and prostrated by irresistible causes, which he, of course, refers to the whites; and he has, through many generations, visited upon the frontier settlements a retribution, which has, we believe, nearly balanced his wrongs. If the Indians have suffered by wars, who provoked those wars? Have not most of the northwestern tribes pursued the United States with relentless hostility, from the era of the revolution down to the late war? And no one acquainted with that portion of our history, can hesitate a moment in ascribing the primary and almost constantly prevailing impulse of this hostility, to extrinsic causes, operating, to be sure, upon a natural jealousy of that power, whose increasing population seemed likely to trench most upon their wild domains. And is it surprising, that, when almost every village has been the scene. of carnage, and nearly every family numbers a victim of some savage incursion, that the authors of these bloody memorials should not be regarded with all that kindly feeling, which is indulged by the unharmed and unalarmed philanthropist, who has had no such checks to the benevolent sympathies of his nature. But there is a misapprehension, in supposing that the white borderer has such strong motives to encroach upon and injure his savage neighbour. His lands are intangible to any but the government, and if there be any cupidity on this score, it must rest with the concentrated wise and great at Washington, and not with the scattered pioneers upon the verge of the wilderness. But we seriously doubt, whether much blame can now attach in any quarter, as respects the treatment of the Indians. Our statute books literally speak volumes in favor of the paternal policy of the government towards them. We do not say, that what has been done has always been either the best directed or the most beneficial. But legislation has here operated upon one of its most remote, and undefined, and undefinable objects. We have assumed an anomalous kind of jurisdiction over the Indians, always with a view to their good, which leaves the relation they bear to us extremely unsettled. In order to guard their rights, we have restricted the trade with them, until they appear to have no rights all. Much of this careful legislation began under the idea that the Indians could not superintend their own interests. The utmost precaution with respect to their lands was, and is still undoubtedly of primary importance. But in regard to their capability of making a good bargain, whatever may have been their former obtuseness, we are inclined to think that they are acute enough now, to be safely left to themselves. We have no doubt, that, in the barter which is carried on at the hunting-grounds, the traders find the balance of cunning is against them. It may, perhaps, be too much to say, that all, or nearly all the restrictions upon our trade with them, should be taken off; but we believe that nothing else can introduce that fair competition in the forest, which prevails elsewhere. We would, if it be practicable, exclude whiskey; but the experience of many years, forces an unwilling conviction upon the mind, that it is not practicable. The prohibitory laws, which have been made, may have lessened the quantity introduced. But the whole extended line of our frontier is open to ingress and egress; the red-man can come in, and the white-man may go out; drunkenness has prevailed, and we fear will prevail, in spite of laws; and perhaps the only difference which would result from their repeal, would be, that what is now done with dishonesty, violence, and illegality, would then be done without either. We are inclined to agree with the reviewer, that this evil, though great, is not the greatest which is operating to destroy the Indians. It is not the desolating curse which it is generally supposed to be. The traders, who penetrate the remote forests in search of furs, have not the means of transporting it in sufficient quantity to inebriate one Indian in two hundred, of the surrounding tribes. Indeed, we doubt whether all the whiskey which is got at by the Indians, would intoxicate one of them in a hundred, one day in a hundred. Besides, although almost all Indians will drink to intoxication, yet there are few who, like the habitual white drunkard, pursue it as a business of their life. His fits of intoxication are fêtes to him, which, like all other fêtes, are not expected to be of frequent occurrence. The squaw, who has probably never tasted liquor before, will, under any great bereavement, drink to excess, in order to produce that utter self-abandonment, which constitutes, in her opinion, the luxury and fulness of woe. And the love of liquor in Indians, or rather, such an indulgence in it as is within the power of most of them, does not effect much change in their habits or character, or even their standing with their tribe; for there are, we believe, but few, even among the chiefs, who have not this common infirmity. The white man, in losing his habits of industry, and sinking into sottishness, becomes degraded and ruined. But the Indian can scarcely fall into any new habits by being addicted to drunkenness. He still hunts occasionally, and his squaw does the rest; so that he probably finds few or none of his comforts diminished, and consequently lives about as long as if he were perfectly temperate. Hence we apprehend that intoxication is but a breath in the blast which has been desolating the sons of the forest. La Salle, when he descended the Illinois, found there numerous and powerful tribes, of which later travellers have seen only the remnants, or perhaps not a vestige; and in whose annihilation the white-man's arm, and the whiteman's strong-water had no part. Carver, who went down the Ouis-consin in 1763, speaks of large villages then upon that river; which now no longer exist, and in whose extinction the white man could have had little or no agency. We speak only to exculpate the whites, so far as they are innocent. That they have been deeply instrumental in the great work of destruction, we cannot doubt; but we can as little doubt, from the evidence of history, that mightier causes have been, and perhaps are still in operation, which threaten the extinction of the Indian race. ORIGINAL POETRY. SPRING IN TOWN. THE country ever has a lagging Spring, Within the city's bounds the time of flowers Breathes through the sky of March the airs of May, For the wide sidewalks of Broadway are then And they that search the untrodden wood for flowers For here are eyes that shame the violet, And thick about those lovely temples lie Locks that the lucky Vignardonne has curledThrice happy man! whose trade it is to buy And bake and braid those love-nets of the world! |