“Brother:—We do not understand your way of doing business. The thing is very heavy on our minds: we hope you will remove it.”
On the reception of this letter the fund was transferred from the bank to the Government of the United States, which has ever since paid the Indians the interest faithfully. From the sale of other lands in the State they receive several thousand dollars, and in all about ($16,500) sixteen thousand five hundred dollars. This is divided equally among men, women, and children. The infant of two days old receives as large a sum as the greatest Chief. It would be infinitely better for them, now, if this money could be appropriated to educational purposes, or devoted to the public benefit in some other way; but there is not yet a sufficient number who appreciate the importance of educational and other improvements, to consent to a change in the distribution of their annuities. Unless they save it every year, they would think they did not have it. Yet there are many who fully understand and strongly advocate a better way, and I doubt not ere long it will be adopted, and schools and agricultural interests be the first to receive the benefit; for these they are fast learning to value.
The following extract from the journal of Mr. Savery, one of a deputation sent in 1794, by the Quakers, to learn the condition and wants of the Indians, will give a glimpse of him in his forest home.
“After dinner we went to view Farmer’s Brother’s encampment, which contained about five hundred Indians. They were located by the side of a brook, in the woods; having built about seventy or eighty huts, by far the most commodiously and ingeniously made of any we have yet [[212]]seen. The principal materials are bark and the boughs of trees, so nicely put together as to keep the family nice and warm. The women as well as the men appeared to be mostly employed. In this camp there are a large number of pretty children, who, in all their activity and buoyancy of health, were diverting themselves according to their fancy. The vast numbers of deer they have killed, since coming here, which they cut up and hang around their huts inside and out to dry, together with the rations of beef which they had drawn daily, give the appearance of plenty to supply the few wants to which they are subjected. The ease and cheerfulness of every countenance, and the delightfulness of the afternoon, which these inhabitants of the woods seemed to enjoy with a relish far superior to those who are pent up in crowded and populous cities, all combined to make this the most pleasant visit I have yet made to the Indians; and induced me to believe that before they became acquainted with white people, and were infected with their vices, they must have been as happy a people as any in the world. In returning to our quarters we passed by the Indian Council, where Red Jacket was displaying his oratory to his brother chiefs. He afterwards made us a visit with his wife and five children, whom he had brought to see us. They were exceedingly well clad, agreeable in their manners, and the best behaved and prettiest Indian children I had ever met with.”
In closing the report he says, that during a sojourn of seven weeks among the Indians, they had frequent opportunity of observing the melancholy and demoralizing effects resulting from the supply of ardent spirits furnished them by white people; and the difficulties and hardships to which these poor people, once a free and independent nation, are now subjected, appeared to them [[213]]loudly to claim the sympathy of friends and others, who have grown opulent upon the land which was their former inheritance.
Farmer’s Brother never yielded to the temptation of the fire-water. He lived and died a sober man. “He was a noble instance of a great and magnanimous mind. No one who looked upon him could imbibe feelings of disgust or hatred; and all who knew him well, felt esteem and veneration. He was never guilty of meanness, littleness, or intrigue; but was ever open, dignified, and fearless. He was a fine specimen of the Indian form, and trod the earth like a king, with the impress of integrity and honor upon his face as it was thoroughly stamped upon his character.”
“ ‘He was one of nature’s noblemen,
——the front of Jove himself,
An eye like Mars to threaten and command:
A station like the herald Mercury.’ ”