Colonization and Christianity/Chapter 23
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE ENGLISH IN AMERICA TILL THE REVOLT OF THE COLONIES.
In Carolina's palmy bowers,
Amid Kentucky's wastes of flowers,
Where even the way-side hedge displays
Its jasmines and magnolias;
O'er the monarda's vast expanse
Of scarlet, where the bee-birds glance
Their flickering wings, and breasts that gleam
Like living fires;—that dart and scream—
A million little knights that run
Warring for wild-flowers in the sun;—
His eye might rove through earth and sky,
His soul was in the days gone by.
We may pass rapidly over this space. The colonial principles of action were established regarding the Indians, and they went on destroying and demoralizing them till the reduction of Canada by the English. That removed one great source of Indian destruction; for while there was such an enemy to repulse, the Indians were perpetually called upon and urged forward in the business of slaughter and scalping. It was the same, indeed, on every frontier where there was an enemy, French or Spanish. We have the history of Adair, who was a resident in the southwestern states for above forty years. This gentleman, who has given us a very minute account of the manners, customs, and opinions of the Choctaws, Cherokees, and Chickasaws, amongst whom he chiefly resided in the Carolinas, and who is firmly convinced that they are descended from the Ten Tribes of Israel, and, moreover, gives us many proofs of the excellence of their nature—yet, most inconsistently, is loud in praise of the French policy of setting the different Indian nations by the ears; and condemnation of anything like conciliation and forbearance. Speaking of some such attempts in 1736, he says—"Our rivals, the French, never neglect so favourable an opportunity of securing and promoting their interests. We have known more than one instance wherein their wisdom has not only found out proper means to disconcert the most dangerous plans of disaffected savages, but likewise to foment, and artfully to encourage, great animosities between the heads of ambitious rival families, till they fixed them in an implacable hatred against each other, and all of their respective tribes."[1]
That he was in earnest in his admiration of such a policy, he goes on to relate to us, with the greatest naiveté and in the most circumstantial manner, how he recommended to the Governor of South Carolina to employ the Choctaws to scalp and extirpate the French traders in Louisiana, who, no doubt, interfered with his own gains. He lets us know that he got such a commission; and informs us particularly of the presents and flatteries with which he plied a great Choctaw chief, called Red Shoes, to set him on this work; in which he was successful. "I supplied each of them with arms, ammunition, and presents in plenty; gave them a French scalping-knife, which had been used against us, and even vermilion, to be used in the flourishing way, with the dangerous French snakes, when they killed and scalped them. . . . . . They soon went to work—they killed the strolling French pedlars—turned out against the Mississippi Indians and Mobillians, and the flame raged very high. A Choctaw woman gave a French pedlar warning: he mounted his horse, but Red Shoes ran him down in about fifteen minutes, and had scalped him before the rest came up. . . . Soon after a great number of Red Shoes' women came to me with the French scalps and other trophies of war." . . . "In the next spring, 1747," he tells us "a large body of Muskohges and Chickasaws embarked on the Mississippi, and went down it to attack the French settlements. Here they burned a large village, and their leader being wounded, they in revenge killed all their prisoners; and overspread the French settlements in their fury like a dreadful whirlwind, destroying all before them, to the astonishment and terror even of those that were far remote from the skirts of the direful storm." This candid writer tells us that the French Louisianians were now in a lamentable state—but, says he, "they had no reason to complain; we were only retaliating innocent blood which they had caused to be shed by their red mercenaries!" He laments that some treacherous traders put a stop to his scheme, or they would soon have driven all the French out of Alabama.[2]
Who were the savages? and how did the English expect the Indians, under such a course of tuition, to become civilized? This was the state of things in the south. In the north, not a war broke out between England and France, but the same scenes were acting between the English American settlements and Canada. In 1692 we find Captain Ingoldsby haranguing the chiefs of the Five Nations at Albany, and exhorting them to "keep the enemy in perpetual alarm by the incursions of parties into their country." And the Indian orator shrewdly replying—"Brother Corlear (their name for the governor of New York) is it not to secure your frontiers? Why, then, not one word of your people that are to join us? We will carry the war into the heart of the enemy's country—but, brother Corlear, how comes it that none of our brethren, fastened in the same chain with us, offer their hand in this general war? Pray, Corlear, how come Maryland, Delaware River, and New England to be disengaged? Do they draw their arms out of the chain? or has the great king commanded that the few subjects he has in this place should make war against the French alone?"[3]
It was not always, however, that the Indians had to complain that the English urged them into slaughter of the French and did not accompany them. The object of England in America now became that of wresting Canada entirely from France. For this purpose, knowing how essential it was to the success of this enterprise that they should not only have the Indians well affected, so as to prevent any incursions of the French Indians into their own states while the British forces were all concentrated on Canada, and still more how absolutely necessary to have a large body of Indians to pioneer the way for them through the woods, without which their army would be sure to be cut off by the French Indians—great endeavours were now made to conclude treaties of peace and mutual aid with all the great tribes in the British American colonies. Such treaties had long existed with the Five Nations, now called the Six Nations, by the addition of the remainder of the Tuscarora Indians who had escaped from our exterminating arms in North Carolina, and fled to the Five Nations; and also with the Delaware and Susquehanna Indians. Conferences were held with the chiefs of these tribes and British Commissioners from Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York and Virginia, and, ostensibly, a better spirit was manifested towards the Indian people. The most celebrated of these conferences were held at Philadelphia in 1742; at Lancaster in Pennsylvania in 1744; and at Albany, in the state of New York, in 1746. The details of the conferences develope many curious characteristics both of the white and the red men. Canassateego, an Onondaga chief, was the principal speaker for the Indians on all these occasions, and it would be difficult to point to the man in any country, however civilized and learned, who has conducted national negotiations with more ability, eloquence, and sounder perception of actual existing circumstances, amid all the sophistry employed on such occasions by European diplomatists—
That lead to bewilder, and dazzle to blind.—Beattie.
It had been originally agreed that a certain sum should be given to the Indians, or rather its value in goods, to compensate them for their trouble and time in coming to these conferences; that their expenses should be paid during their stay; and that all their kettles, guns, and hatchets should be mended for them; and the speakers took good care to remind the colonists of these claims, and to have them duly discharged. As it may be interesting to many to see what sort of goods were given on these occasions, we may take the following as a specimen, which were delivered to them at the conference of 1742, in part payment for the cession of some territory.
| 0500 pounds of powder. 0600 pounds of lead. 0045 guns. 0060 Stround matchcoats. 0100 blankets. 0100 Duffil matchcoats. 0200 yards half-thick. 0100 shirts. 0040 hats. 0040 pairs shoes and buckles. 0040 pairs stockings. 0100 hatchets. 0500 knives. 0100 hoes. |
0060 kettles. 0100 tobacco tongs. 0100 scissars. 0500 awl blades. 0120 combs. 2000 needles. 1000 flints. 0024 looking-glasses. 0002 pounds of vermilion. 0100 tin pots. 1000 tobacco pipes. 0200 pounds of tobacco. 0024 dozen of gartering. 0025 gallons of rum. |
In another list we find no less than four dozens of jew's harps. Canassateego, on the delivery of the above goods, made a speech which lets us into the real notions and feelings of the Indians on what was going on in that day. "We received from the proprietor," said he, "yesterday, some goods in consideration of our release of the lands on the west side of Susquehanna. It is true, we have the full quantity according to agreement; but, if the proprietor had been here in person, we think, in regard to our numbers and poverty, he would have made an addition to them. If the goods were only to be divided amongst the Indians present, a single person would have but a small portion; but if you consider what numbers are left behind equally entitled with us to a share, there will be extremely little. We therefore desire, if you have the keys of the proprietor's chest, you will open it and take out a little more for us.
"We know our lands are now become more valuable. The white people think we don't know their value; but we are sensible that the land is everlasting, and the few goods we receive for it, are soon worn out and gone. For the future we will sell no lands but when Brother Onas is in the country; and we will know beforehand the quantity of goods we are to receive. Besides, we are not well used with respect to the lands still unsold by us. Your people daily settle on our lands, and spoil our hunting. We must insist on your removing them, as you know they have no right to settle to the north of the Kittochtinny Hills."
As it was necessary to conciliate them, more goods were given and justice promised. On the other hand, the English complaining of the Delawares having sold some land without authority from the Six Nations, on whom they were dependent, Canassateego pronounced a very severe reprimand to the Delawares, and ordered them to do so no more.
At the conference of 1744, the Indians gave one of those shrewd turns for their own advantage to the boastings of the whites, which shew the peculiar humour that existed in the midst of their educational gravity. The governor of Maryland vaunting of a great sea-fight in which the English had beaten the French; Canassateego immediately observed: "In that great fight you must have taken a great quantity of rum, the Indians will therefore thank you for a glass." It was handed round to them in very small glasses, called by the governor French glasses. The Indians drank it, and at the breaking up of the council that day, Canassateego said, "Having had the pleasure of drinking a French glass of the great quantity of rum taken, the Indians would now, before separating be glad to drink an English glass, to make us rejoice with you in the victory." It was impossible to waive so ingenious a demand, and a large glass, to indicate the superiority of English liberality, was now handed round.
In this conference, the Indians again complained of the daily encroachments upon them, and of the inadequate price given for the lands they sold. The Governor of Maryland boldly told them that the land was in fact acquired by the English by conquest, and that they had besides a claim of possession of 100 years. To this injudicious speech the Indians replied with indignation, "What is one hundred years in comparison of the time since our claim began?—since we came out of this ground? For we must tell you that long before one hundred years our ancestors came out of this very ground, and their children have remained here ever since. You came out of the ground in a country that lies beyond the seas; there you may have a just claim; but here you must allow us to be your elder brethren, and the lands to belong to us long before you knew anything of them." They then reminded them of the manner in which they had received them into the country. In figurative language they observed, "When the Dutch came here, above a hundred years ago, we were so well pleased with them that we tied their ship to the bushes on the shore; and afterwards liking them better the longer they stayed with us, and thinking the bushes too slender, we removed the rope and tied it to the trees; and as the trees were liable to be blown down, or to decay of themselves, we, from the affection that we bore them, again removed the rope, and tied it to a strong and high rock (here the interpreter said they mean the Oneido country); and not content with this, for its further security, we removed the rope to the big mountain (here the interpreter said, they mean the Onondaga country), and there we tied it very fast, and rolled wampum about it, and to make it still more secure, we stood upon the wampum, and sat down upon it to defend it, and to prevent any hurt coming to it, and did our best endeavours that it might remain for ever. During all this time the Dutch acknowledged our right to the lands, and solicited us from time to time, to grant them parts of our country. When the English governor came to Albany, and we were told the Dutch and English were become one people, the governor looked at the rope which tied the ship to the big mountain, and seeing that it was only of wampum and liable to rot, break, and perish in a course of years, he gave us a silver chain, which he told us would be much stronger, and would last for ever.
"We had then," said they pathetically, "room enough and plenty of deer, which was easily caught; and though we had not knives, hatchets, or guns, we had knives of stone, and hatchets of stone, and bows and arrows, which answered our purpose as well as the English ones do now, for we are now straitened; we are often in want of deer; we have to go far to seek it, and are besides liable to many other inconveniences, and particularly from that pen-and-ink work that is going on at the table!" pointing to the secretary. "You know," they continued, "when the white people came here they were poor—they have got our lands, and now they are become rich, and we are poor. What little we get for the land soon goes awag, but the land lasts for ever!"
It was necessary to soothe them—the governor had raised a spirit which told him startling truths. It shewed that the Indians were not blind to the miserable fee for which they were compelled to sell their country. "Your great king," said they, "might send you over to conquer the Indians; but it looks to us that God did not send you—if he had, he would not have placed the sea where he has, to keep you and us asunder." The governor addressed them in flattering terms, and added, "We have a chest of new goods, and the key is in our pockets. You are our brethren: the Great King is our common Father, and we will live with you as children ought to do—in peace and love."
The Indians were strenuously exhorted to use all means to bring the western natives into the league. At the Conference of 1746, held at Albany, it became sufficiently evident for what object all this conciliation and these endeavours to extend their alliance amongst the Indians were used. A great and decisive attack upon Canada was planning: and it is really awful to read the language addressed to the assembled Indians, to inflame them with the spirit of the most malignant hatred and revenge against the French. Mr. Cadwallader Colden, one of His Majesty's Council and Surveyor-general of New York, and the historian of the Five Nations, on whose own authority these facts are stated, addressed the Indians, owing to the Governor's illness, in the speech prepared for the occasion. He called upon them to remember all the French had done to them; what they did at Onondaga; how they invaded the Senekas; what mischiefs they did to the Mohawks; how many of their countrymen suffered at the fire at Montreal; how they had sent priests amongst them to lull them to sleep, when they intended to knock them on the head. "I hear," then added he, "they are attempting to do the same now. I need not remind you what revenge your fathers took for these injuries, when they put all the isle of Montreal, and a great part of Canada, to fire and sword. Can you think the French forget this? No! they are watching secretly to destroy you. But if your fathers could now rise out of their graves, how would their hearts leap with joy to see this day, when so glorious an opportunity is put into your hands to revenge all the injuries of your country, etc. etc." He called on them to accompany the English, to win glory, and promised them great reward.
But these horrible fire-brands of speech,—these truly "burning words" were not all the means used. English gentlemen were sent amongst the tribes to arouse them by every conceivable means. The celebrated Mr. William Johnson of Mohawk, who had dreamed himself into a vast estate in that country,[4] and who afterwards, as Sir William Johnson, was so distinguished as the leader of the Indians at the fall of Quebec, and the conquest of Canada, now went amongst the Mohawks, dressed like a Mohawk chief. He feasted them at his castle on the Mohawk river; he gave them dances in their own country style, and danced with them; and led the Mohawk band to this very conference.
This enterprise came to nothing; but for the successful one of 1759 the same stimulants were applied, and the natives, to the very Twightwees and Chickasaws, brought into the league, either to march against the French, or to secure quiet in the states during the time of the invasion of Canada. And what was their reward? Scarcely was Canada reduced, and the services of the Indians no longer needed, when they found themselves as much encroached upon and insulted as ever. Some of the bloodiest and most desolating wars which they ever waged against the English settlements, took place between our conquest of Canada and our war against the American colonies themselves. It was the long course of injuries and insults which the Indians had suffered from the settlers that made them so ready to take up the tomahawk and scalping-knife at the call, and induced by the blood-money, of the mother-country against her American children. The employment and instigation of the Indians to tomahawk the settlers brings down British treatment of the Indians to the very last moment of our power in that country. What were our notions of such enormities may be inferred from their being called in the British Parliament "means which God and nature have put into our hands,"—and from Lord Cornwallis, our general then employed against the Americans, expressing, in 1780, his "satisfaction that the Indians had pursued and scalped many of the enemy!"
This was our conduct towards the Indians to the last hour of our dominion in their country. We drove them out of their lands, or cheated them out of them by making them drunk. We robbed them of their furs in the same manner; and on all occasions we inflamed their passions against their own enemies and ours. We made them ten times more cruel, perfidious, and depravedly savage than we found them, and then upbraided them as irreclaimable and merciless, and thereon founded our convenient plea that they must be destroyed, or driven onward as perishing shadows before the sun of civilization.
Before quitting the English in America, we need only, to complete our view of their treatment of the natives, to include in it a glance at that treatment in those colonies which we yet retain there; and that is furnished by the following Parliamentary Report, (1837.) NEWFOUNDLAND.
To take a review of our colonies, beginning with Newfoundland. There, as in other parts of North America, it seems to have been, for a length of time, accounted a "meritorious act" to kill an Indian.[5]
On our first visit to that country, the natives were seen in every part of the coast. We occupied the stations where they used to hunt and fish, thus reducing them to want, while we took no trouble to indemnify them, so that, doubtless, many of them perished by famine; we also treated them with hostility and cruelty, and "many were slain by our own people, as well as by the Micmac Indians," who were allowed to harass them. They must, however, have been recently very numerous, since, in one place, Captain Buchan found they had "run up fences to the extent of 30 miles," with a variety of ramifications, for the purpose of conducting the deer down to the water, a work which would have required the labour of a multitude of hands.
It does not appear that any measures were taken to open a communication with them before the year 1810, when, by order of Sir. J. Duckworth, an attempt was made by Captain Buchan, which proved ineffectual. At that time he conceived that their numbers around their chief place of resort, the Great Lake, were reduced to 400 or 500. Under our treatment they continued rapidly to diminish; and it appears probable that the last of the tribe left at large, a man and a woman, were shot by two Englishmen in 1823. Three women had been taken prisoners shortly before, and they died in captivity. In the colony of Newfoundland, it may therefore be stated that we have exterminated the natives.[6] CANADIAN INDIANS.
The general account of our intercourse with the North American Indians, as distinct from missionary efforts, may be given in the words of a converted Chippeway chief, in a letter to Lord Goderich: "We were once very numerous, and owned all Upper Canada, and lived by hunting and fishing; but the white men who came to trade with us taught our fathers to drink the fire-waters, which has made our people poor and sick, and has killed many tribes, till we have become very small."[7]
It is a curious fact, noticed in the evidence, that, some years ago, the Indians practised agriculture, and were able to bring corn to our settlements, then suffering from famine; but we, by driving them back and introducing the fur trade, have rendered them so completely a wandering people, that they have very much lost any disposition which they might once have felt to settle. All writers on the Indian race have spoken of them, in their native barbarism, as a noble people; but those who live among civilised men, upon reservations in our own territory, are now represented as "reduced to a state which resembles that of gipsies in this country." Those who live in villages among the whites "are a very degraded race, and look more like dram-drinkers than people it would be possible to get to do any work."
To enter, however, into a few more particulars.—The Indians of New Brunswick are described by Sir H. Douglass, in 1825, as "dwindled in numbers," and in a "wretched condition."
Those of Nova Scotia, the Micmacs (by Sir J. Kempt), as disinclined to settle, and in the habit of bartering their furs, "unhappily, for rum."[8]
General Darling's statement as to the Indians of the Canadas, drawn up in 1828, speaks of the interposition of the government being urgently called for in behalf of the helpless individuals whose landed possessions, where they have any assigned to them, are daily plundered by their designing and more enlightened white brethren.[9]
Of the Algonquins and Nipissings, General Darling writes, "Their situation is becoming alarming, by the rapid settlement and improvement of the lands on the banks of the Ottawa, on which they were placed by the government in the year 1763, and which tract they have naturally considered as their own. The result of the present state of things is obvious, and such as can scarcely fail in time to be attended with bloodshed and murder; for, driven from their own resources, they will naturally trespass on those of other tribes, who are equally jealous of the intrusion of their red brethren as of white men. Complaints on this head are increasing daily, while the threats and admonitions of the officers of the department have been insufficient to control the unruly spirit of the savage, who, driven by the calls of hunger and the feelings of nature towards his offspring, will not be scrupulous in invading the rights of his brethren, as a means of alleviating his misery, when he finds the example in the conduct of his white father's children practised, as he conceives, towards himself."[10]
The general also speaks of the "degeneracy" of the Iroquois, and of the degraded condition of most of the other tribes, with the exception of those only who had received Christian instruction. Later testimony is to the same effect. The Rev. J. Beecham, secretary to the Wesleyan Missionary Society, says he has conversed with the Chippeway chief above referred to, on the condition of the Indians on the boundary of Upper Canada. That he stated most unequivocally that previously to the introduction of Christianity they were rapidly wasting away; and he believed that if it had not been for the introduction of Christianity they would speedily have become extinct. As the causes of this waste of Indian life, he mentions the decrease of the game, the habit of intoxication, and the European diseases. The small-pox had made great ravages. He adds, "The information which I have derived from this chief has been confirmed by our missionaries stationed in Upper Canada, and who are now employed among the Indian tribes on the borders of that province. My inquiries have led me to believe, that where Christianity has not been introduced among the aboriginal inhabitants of Upper Canada, they are melting away before the advance of the white population. This remark applies to the Six Nations, as they are called, on the Great River; the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Senacas, Cayugas, and Tuscaroras, as well as to all the other tribes on the borders of the province." Of the ulterior tribes, the account given by Mr. King, who accompanied Captain Back in his late Arctic expedition, is deplorable: he gives it as his opinion, that the Northern Indians have decreased greatly, and decidedly from contact with the Europeans."
Thus, the Cree Indians, once a powerful tribe, "have now degenerated into a few families, congregated about the European establishments, while some few still retain their ancient rights, and have become partly allies of a tribe of Indians that were once their slaves." He supposes their numbers to have been reduced within thirty or forty years from 8,000 or 10,000, to 200, or at most 300, and has no doubt of the remnant being extirpated in a short time, if no measures are taken to improve their morals and to cultivate habits of civilization. It should be observed that this tribe had access to posts not comprehended within the Hudson's Bay Company's prohibition, as to the introduction of spirituous liquors, and that they miserably show the effects of the privilege.
The Copper Indians also, through ill-management, intemperance, and vice, are said to have decreased within the last five years to one-half the number of what they were.
The early quarrels between the Hudson's Bay and the North West Companies, in which the Indians were induced to take a bloody part, furnished them with a ruinous example of the savageness of Christians.[11]
SOUTH AMERICA.
In South America, British Guiana occupies a large extent of country between the rivers Orinoco and Amazons, giving access to numbers of tribes of aborigines who wander over the vast regions of the interior. The Indian population within the colony of Demerara and Essequibo, is derived from four nations, the Caribs, Arawacks, Warrows, and Accaways.
It is acknowledged that they have been diminishing ever since the British came into possession of the colony. In 1831 they were computed at 5096; and it is stated "it is the opinion of old inhabitants of the colony, and those most competent to judge, that a considerable diminution has taken place in the aggregate number of the Indians of late years, and that the dimunition, although gradual, has become more sensibly apparent within the last eight or ten years." The diminution is attributed, in some degree, to the increased use of rum amongst them.[12]
There are in the colony six gentlemen bearing the title of "Protectors of Indians," whose office it is to superintend the tribes; and under them are placed post-holders, a principal part of whose business it is to keep the negroes from resorting to the Indians, and also to attend the distribution of the presents which are given to the latter by the British government; of which, as was noticed with reprehension by Lord Goderich, rum formed a part.
It does not appear[13] that anything has been done by government for their moral or religious improvement, excepting the grant in 1831, by Sir B. D'Urban, of a piece of land at Point Bartica, where a small establishment was then founded by the Church Missionary Society. The Moravian Mission on the Courantin was given up in 1817; and it does not appear that any other Protestant Society has attended to these Indians.
In 1831, Lord Goderich writes,[14] "I have not heard of any effort to convert the Indians of British Guiana to Christianity, or to impart to them the arts of social life."
It should be observed that no injunctions to communicate either are given in the instructions for the "Protectors of Indians," or in those for the post-holders; and two of the articles of the latter, (Art. 14 and Art. 15,) tend directly to sanction and encourage immorality. All reports agree in stating that these tribes have been almost wholly neglected, are retrograding, and are without provision for their moral or civil advancement; and with due allowance for the extenuating remarks on the poor account to which they turned their lands, when they had them, and the gifts (baneful gifts some of them) which have been distributed, and on the advantage of living under British laws, we must still concur in the sentiment of Lord Goderich, as expressed in the same letter, upon a reference as to sentence of death passed upon a native Indian for the murder of another. "It is a serious consideration that we have subjected these tribes to the penalties of a code of which they unavoidably live in profound ignorance; they have not even that conjectural knowledge of its provisions which would be suggested by the precepts of religion, if they had even received the most elementary instruction in the Christian faith. They are brought into acquaintance with civilised life not to partake its blessings, but only to feel the severity of its penal sanctions.
"A debt is due to the aboriginal inhabitants of British Guiana of a very different kind from that which the inhabitants of Christendom may, in a certain sense, be said to owe in general to other barbarous tribes. The whole territory which has been occupied by Europeans, on the northern shores of the South American Continent, has been acquired by no other right than that of superior power; and I fear that the natives whom we have dispossessed, have to this day received no compensation for the loss of the lands on which they formerly subsisted. However urgent is the duty of economy in every branch of the public service, it is impossible to withhold from the natives of the country the inestimable benefit which they would derive from appropriating to their religious and moral instruction some moderate part of that income which results from the culture of the soil to which they or their fathers had an indisputable title.[15]
CARIBS.
- ↑ Adair's History of the American Indians, p. 249.
- ↑ Adair, p. 314–321.
- ↑ Colden, i. 148.
- ↑ Mr. Johnson, who was originally a trader amongst the Mohawks, indulged them in all their whims. They were continually dreaming that he had given them this, that, and the other thing; and no greater insult can, according to their opinions, be offered to any man than to call in question the spiritual authenticity of his dream. At length the chief dreamed that Mr. Johnson had given him his uniform of scarlet and gold. Mr. Johnson immediately made him a present of it: but the next time he met him, he told him that he had now begun to dream, and that he had dreamed that the Mohawks had given him certain lands, describing one of the finest tracts in the country, and of great extent. The Indians were struck with consternation. They said: "He surely had not dreamed that, had he?" He replied that he certainly had. They therefore held a council, and came to inform him that they had confirmed his dream; but begged that he would not dream any more. He had no further occasion.
- ↑ Cotton Mather records that, amongst the early settlers, it was considered a "religious act to kill Indians."
A similar sentiment prevailed amongst the Dutch boors in South Africa, with regard to the natives of the country. Mr. Barrow writes, "A farmer thinks he cannot proclaim a more meritorious action than the murder of one of these people. A boor from Graaf Reinet, being asked in the secretary's office, a few days before we left town, if the savages were numerous or troublesome on the road, replied, 'he had only shot four,' with as much composure and indifference as if he had been speaking of four partridges. I myself have heard one of the humane colonists boast of having destroyed, with his own hands, near 300 of these unfortunate wretches."
- ↑ See Evidence given by Capt. Buchan.
- ↑ Papers, Abor. Tribes, 1834, p. 135.
- ↑ Ibid. 147.
- ↑ Ibid. 22.
- ↑ Papers, Abor. Tribes, p. 24.
- ↑ See Papers relating to Red River Settlement, 1815, 1819: especially Mr. Coltman's Report, pp. 115, 125.
- ↑ Letter from Jas. Hackett, Esq., Civil Commissioner, to Sir B. D'Urban. Papers, Abor. Tribes, 1834, pp. 194, 198.
- ↑ Papers, Abor. Tribes, pp. 183, 193.
- ↑ Papers, p. 182.
- ↑ Papers, Abor. Tribes, pp. 181, 182.