Elkswatawa

“A noble race! but they are gone, With their old forests wide and deep, And we have built our homes upon Fields where their generations sleep.” BRYANT.
IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I.
NEW-YORK: PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NO. 82 CLIFF STREET.
1836.
TO WILLIAM H. M'FARLAND, ESQ.
DEAR SIR,
By inscribing to you these volumes,—in which I have endeavoured to enlarge upon an interesting portion of our National History, and to set forth in a connected view, the main incidents in the lives of two of the most celebrated Aborigines of our continent,—I offer a tribute not less agreeable to myself, than due to your personal worth.
To an accomplished scholar like yourself, this work may appear crude and defective; if so, let the intentions of the writer compensate for the faults of his production. The recollection of the many kind offices received at your hands, and of your amiable and dignified character, renders it a pleasure to dedicate to you this first attempt to describe events, which may hereafter be pourtrayed by an abler pen.
With my best wishes for your prosperity and welfare,
Believe me, Sir, Yours, truly, THE AUTHOR.
During the intervals of leisure in a profession which has hitherto employed but a small portion of my time, I traced out for my own amusement the following story. It having fallen to my lot to reside for some time in the western part of the Union, and to have visited personally many of the Indian tribes along the frontier, I was naturally led to observe with much attention, their customs and habits of life. The more I saw of their peculiarities and traits of character, the more I found my feelings aroused, and my sympathies enlisted in their behalf; and from the contemplation of what they now are, I was carried back, by a natural train of thought, to reflect upon what they once had been. The names and deeds of those celebrated individuals, who have from time to time, arisen among them, and with a foresight and patriotism worthy of happier results, endeavoured to regain for the red man his original power and possessions, became familiar to me as household words, and I felt myself able to appreciate more justly the talents and policy of those unfortunate champions of Indian liberty, whose conduct and characters, owing to the animosity excited in the minds of the frontier settlers by a series of harassing hostilities, have been generally misrepresented, and painted by the hand of prejudice, in the darkest and most odious colours. One of the effects of the sojourn above referred to, was the entire removal of many unfounded causes of dislike, and false impressions, which had their origin in these and similar sources, and the conviction that were the Indian, like the lion in the fable, to draw the picture himself of the contest which has with but few intermissions, been carried on between the whites and the aborigines, since the period of the earliest settlements, we should behold many startling and indisputable facts, many unprovoked aggressions, and many sins unatoned for on the part of our countrymen, amply sufficient to turn the milk of human kindness into the bitterest gall, and kindle the most unextinguishable hate in the breasts of the most civilized people.