VIII
WHAT a sarcasm of Destiny it is that when we have driven out and killed off all the Indians who were so happy here, we write poetry praising them, novels about the good looking, brave, and almost, too saintly Red Man. And now it is seriously urged that a suitable Memorial be erected in New York Harbor to the Memory of the North American Indian whose ranks are thinning so rapidly, that within a comparatively few years more, the race will be obliterated by the advance of the white man’s civilization. That is rather a rosy way of describing the treatment the Indian has received.
The proposed statue will be colossal in size and of bronze in construction, with outstretched arm, typifying a greeting from the primal American to the people of all other nations.
That might be well represented by “Samoset,” illustrating the finer, better traits of the Indian, when he cried out a “Welcome, Englishmen” to the strangers who were landing.
I have dwelt so much on this theme that I’m actually confusing the real Indian with a wooden statue. Never mind. Did you know that Schiller wrote an Indian Death song?
I’ll quote a few verses:
“Well for him! he’s gone his ways,
Where are no more snows;
Where the fields are decked with maize
That unplanted grows;
Where with beasts of chase each wood,
Where with bird each tree,
Where with fish is every flood
Stocked full pleasantly.
He above with spirits feeds;
We, alone and dim,
Left to celebrate his deeds,
And to bury him.”
Jim Crow—(made 87 years ago)
Please Name Him