THE COUNCIL OF THE SACHEMS.
Although the chiefs had guessed from Stronghand's gestures what was going on between him and the American bandit, not one of them made the slightest allusion to Kidd's departure, or even seemed to notice it. The Canadian trapper, named Whistler, alone went up to the hunter, and pressing his hand, said, with a coarse laugh—
"By heavens! Comrade, you did not miss your game, but brought it down at the first shot. Receive my sincere congratulations for having freed us of that skunk, who is neither fish nor flesh, and whose roguish face did not at all please me."
"It would please you much less, my good fellow, if you knew him," the hunter replied, with a smile.
"I beg you to believe that I have no desire to form a closer acquaintance with that pícaro; only too many like him may be met on the prairies."
The chiefs had resumed their seats, and the council which had been momentarily interrupted, was re-opened by Thunderbolt. The Indians, though people think proper to regard them as savages, could give lessons in urbanity and good breeding to the members of parliamentary assemblies in old Europe. Among them a speaker is never interrupted by those coarse and inopportune noises for which some M.P.'s seem to possess a privilege. Each speaks in his turn. The speakers, who are listened to with a religious silence, have the liberty of expressing their ideas without fearing personalities, which are frequently offensive. When the debate is closed, the speaker—that is to say, the oldest chief, or the one of the highest position either through bravery or wisdom—sums up the discussion in a few words, takes the opinion of the other chiefs, who vote by nodding their heads, and the minority always accepts, without complaint or recrimination of any sort, the resolution of the majority.
Before going further, we will explain, in a few words, the cause of the dissatisfaction which had induced the Indians to revolt once again against the whites. At the period of the Spanish conquests, the Indians, in spite of the obstinate assertions to the contrary, were happy, or at any rate were, through the intelligent care of the Government, placed in a situation which insured their existence under very satisfactory conditions. It is indubitable that if Spain had retained her colonies for fifty or sixty years longer, she would have gradually succeeded in converting the aborigines of her vast territories, attaching them to the cultivation of the soil, and making them give up a nomadic existence, and adopt the far preferable life in villages.
All Spanish America, both North and South, was covered with missions; that is to say, agricultural colonies, established on a large scale; where monks, in every way respectable, through their complete abnegation of the enjoyments of the world, and their inexhaustible charity, taught the Indians not only the paternal precepts of the Gospel, and their duty to their neighbour, but preaching by example, they became weavers, labourers, cobblers, and blacksmiths, in order to make their docile apprentices more easily understand the way to set to work. These missions contained, at the time of the War of Independence, several hundred thousand Indians, who had given up their nomadic life of hunting, and patiently assumed the yoke of civilization. This magnificent result, obtained by courage and perseverance, and which would have speedily resulted in the solution of a problem declared to be insoluble—the emancipation of the red race, and its aptitude to assume the sedentary condition of a town life, was unhappily not carried further.
When the Mexicans had proclaimed their independence, their first care was to destroy all that the Spaniards had raised, and utterly overthrow the internal governmental system established by them. Naturally, the missions were not exempted from this general overthrow; they were perhaps more kindly treated than the institutions created by the old oppressors. The philosophic spirit of the eighteenth century, when it forced its way into Mexico, was naturally misunderstood and ill appreciated by men who were plunged into the grossest ignorance, and who believed that they displayed the independence and nobility of their character by deadly hatred of the clergy, and abolishing their prerogatives at one stroke. It is true that, by an inevitable reaction, the Mexicans, whose revolution was almost entirely effected by priests, and who, at the outset, displayed themselves as such daring skeptics, ere long fell again, through their superstition, beneath the power of the same clergy, and became more devoted slaves to them than ever.
Unfortunately, the death blow had been dealt to the missions or agricultural colonies, although the Government recognized its mistake, and sought by all means to palliate it. They never recovered, only languished, and eventually the majority of them fell into ruin, and were utterly abandoned by the Indians, who returned to that desert life from which they had been drawn with such difficulty. Nothing is so heart-rending as the sight now offered by these missions, which were once so rich, so full of life, and so flourishing; only a few Indians can be seen, wandering about like ghosts in the deserted cloisters, led by an old, white-haired monk, whom they would not leave, and who had vowed to die among his children.
The Mexican Government did not stop here. Returning to the old errors of the conquistadors, it grew accustomed to regard the Indians as slaves; imposing on them exorbitant tariffs for articles of primary necessity, which it sold to them through special agents, bowing them to any Draconian law, and carrying their injustice so far as to deny them intellect, and brand them with the name of Gente sin razón, or people without reason. The consequences of such a system can be easily comprehended. The Indians, who, at the outset, contented themselves with passively withdrawing, and seeking in the desert the liberty that was refused them, on finding themselves so unjustly treated, and urged to desperation by such insults, thought about avenging themselves, and requiting evil for evil.
Then recommenced those periodical invasions of the Indian borders which the Spaniards had repressed with such difficulty and such bloodshed. Murder and pillage were organized on a grand scale, and with such success, that the Comanches and Apaches, to vex the whites, gave the ironical name of the "Mexican moon" to the month they selected to commit their periodical depredations. The subjected Indians—that is to say, those who, in spite of the constant vexations to which they were victims, remained attached to their villages—revolted several times, and on each occasion the Mexican government succeeded in making them return to their duty by promises and concessions, which were violated and forgotten so soon as the Redskins had laid down their arms. The war, consequently, became generalized and permanent in the Border states of the confederation.
But with the exception of a few invasions more serious than others, the Indians had almost entirely confined themselves to keeping the whites on the alert, when the great insurrection of 1827 broke out, which all but succeeded in depriving Mexico of her richest provinces. This insurrection was the more terrible, because on this occasion the Indians, guided by experienced chiefs, possessing firearms, and carrying out tactics entirely different from those they had hitherto employed, waged a serious war, and insisted on retaining the provinces they had seized. The Redskins elected an emperor and established a government; they displayed a settled intention of definitively regaining their independence and reconstituting their nationality.
The Mexicans, justly terrified by these manifestations, made the greatest sacrifices in order to quell this formidable revolt, and succeeded, though rather owing to the treachery and disunion they managed to sow among the chiefs than by the power of their arms. But this uprising had caused them to reflect, and they saw that it was high time to come to an arrangement with these men, whom they had hitherto been accustomed to regard as irrational beings. Peace was concluded on conditions very advantageous to the Indians and their forces; and the Mexicans, owing to the fright they had endured, were compelled to keep their promises, or, to speak more correctly, pretended to do so.
For several years the Indians, satisfied with this apparent amelioration in the relations between them and the whites, remained peacefully in their villages, and the Mexicans had only to defend their borders against the attacks of the wild or unsubjected Indians. This was a task, we are bound to confess, in which they were not very successful; for the Indians eventually passed the limits the Spaniards had imposed on them, permanently established themselves on the ruins of the old Creole villages, and by degrees, and gaining ground each year, they reduced the territory of the Mexican Government in an extraordinary way.
Still, when the remembrance of the great Indian insurrection seemed to have died out, and the Indios Mansos had apparently accepted the sovereignty of Mexico, the annoyances recommenced. Though at first slight, they gradually became more and more frequent, owing to the apathetic resignation of the Indians, and the patience with which they uncomplainingly endured the unjust aggressions of which they were made the systematic victims. The concessions granted under the pressure of fear were brutally withdrawn, and matters returned to the same state as before the insurrection. The Indians continued to suffer, apparently resigned to endure all the insults it might please their oppressors to make them undergo: but this calm concealed a terrific storm, and the Mexicans would shortly be aroused by a thunderclap.
The Redskins behaved, under the circumstances, with rare prudence and circumspection, in order not to alarm the persons they wished to surprise. They would certainly have succeeded in deceiving the Mexicans as to their plans, had it not been for the treachery of the agents of the Mexican Government, continually kept in their villages to watch them, among whom was Kidd, whom Stronghand had so suddenly unmasked and contemptuously turned out. Still these agents, in spite of their lively desire to make themselves of importance by magnifying facts, had only been able to give very vague details about the conspiracy the Indians were secretly forming. They knew that an emperor had been elected, and that he was a white man, but they did not know who he was or his name. They also knew that the Confederation of the Papazos had placed itself at the head of the movement, and intended to deal the first blow, but no one was aware when or how hostilities would commence.
This information, however, incomplete though it was, appeared to the Mexicans, on whose minds at once rushed the sanguinary memories of the last revolution, sufficiently serious for them to place themselves in a position to resist the first attack of the Redskins, which is always so terrible, and to place their frontiers in such a state as would prevent a surprise—a thing they had never yet succeeded in effecting. The Mexican Government, warned of what was going on by the commandants of the States of Sonora and Sinaloa, the two most menaced of the Confederation, and recognising the gravity of the case, resolved to send troops from the capital to reinforce the border garrisons. This plan, unfortunately, could not be carried out, and was the cause of fresh and very dangerous complications.
It is only in the old Spanish colonies, which are in the deepest state of neglect and disorganization, that such acts are possible. The troops told off to proceed to Sonora, so soon as they learned that they were intended to oppose the Indians, peremptorily refused to march, alleging as the reason, that they were not at all desirous of fighting savages who did not respect the law of nations, and had no scruples about scalping their prisoners. The President of the republic, strong in his right and the danger the country ran, tried to insist and force them to set out. Then a thing that might be easily foreseen occurred: not only did the troops obstinately remain in revolt, but set the seal on it by making a pronunciamiento in favour of the general chosen to command the expedition, and who, we may do him the justice of saying, had been the first to declare against the departure of the troops from the capital.
This pronunciamiento was the spark that fired the powder train. In a few days the whole of Mexico was a prey to the horrors of civil war; so that the governors of the two States, being reduced to their own forces, and not knowing whether they would retain their posts under the new president, were more embarrassed than ever, did not dare take any initiative, and contented themselves with throwing up such intrenchments as they could, though they had quite enough to do in keeping their troops to their duty, and keeping them from deserting. Such was the state of things at the moment we have now reached. This information, upon which we have purposely laid a stress, in order to make the reader understand certain facts which, without this precaution, would seem to belong rather to the regions of fancy than to that of history, as they are so strange and incredible, was reported by Stronghand to the council of the sachems, and listened to in a religious silence.
"Now," he added, in conclusion, "I believe that the moment has arrived to strike the grand blow for which we have so long been preparing. Our enemies hesitate; they are demoralized; their soldiers tremble; and I am convinced they will not withstand the attack of our and the great Beaver's warriors. This is what I wished to say to the council. Still it was not advisable that such important news should reach the ears of our enemies. The sachems will judge whether I have acted well, or if my zeal carried me too far in dismissing from the council a paleface who, I am convinced, is a traitor sold to the Mexicans. I have spoken."
A flattering murmur greeted the concluding remarks of the young man, who sat down, blushing.
"It appears to me," Whistler then said, "that the debate need not be a long one. As war is decided on, the council of the Confederation has only to seek allies among the other Indian nations, in order to augment the number of our warriors, if that be possible. As regards the operations, and the period when the Mexican territory is to be invaded, that will devolve on the military committee, who pledge themselves to the profoundest secrecy about their discussions, until the hour for action arrives. I have spoken."
Thunderbolt rose.
"Chiefs and sachems of the Confederation of the Papazos," he said in his sympathetic and sonorous voice, "and you, warriors, our allies, the moment for dissolving your council has at length arrived. Henceforth the committee of the five chiefs will alone sit. Each of you will return to his tribe, arm his warriors, and order the scalp dance to be performed round the war post; but the eighth sun must see you here again at the head of your warriors, in order that all may be ready to act when the invasion is decided on. I have spoken. Have I said well, powerful men?"
The chiefs rose in silence, resumed their weapons, and immediately left the village, starting in different directions at a gallop. Thunderbolt and Stronghand were left alone.
"My son," the old man then said, "have you nothing to tell me?"
"Yes, father," the young man respectfully answered; "I have very serious news for you."