“Ladies and Gentlemen:—You see from this that your forefathers wronged the red man and took advantage of his ignorance. This you will now acknowledge. The red man has a long history of wrongs and griefs; though unrecorded by the hand of man, they are written in the Great Book of Remembrance kept by the Great Spirit, and He will inquire into this at your hands by and by, and He will do justice to his red children.
“I have not instituted these comparisons to represent the red man as an inferior, and you as a superior being. No. These results are owing to circumstances in the rise and fall of nations. And you must also bear in mind that the Great God in heaven, whom you profess to worship and adore, governs and directs the affairs of nations as well as individuals. The powerful nations that fall, and the weak that rise, do it alike at His bidding.
“But I appeal to you whether we are not entitled to your sympathy—whether we have not claims upon your assistance, in endeavoring to raise ourselves from the condition in which ignorance and prejudice have sunk our nation.
“The red man is aware of his condition. Yes, he feels it deeply. When he looks at the sun, the light of which [[282]]enabled his ancestors to look abroad upon a magnificent country, all his own, now peopled by another race, he feels alone—an alien from the commonwealth. There are no monuments to commemorate the deeds of his forefathers, as there are in the old world; but there are the mighty rivers and the eternal hills, which he has named.
“Ladies and Gentlemen:—The Six Nations are now represented before you. The President of the day is a Seneca, and a worthy representative of his nation—the Vice-President on his right is a Cayuga of the first water, and on the left a worthy Onondaga. One of your poets has said that ‘music has charms even to soothe a savage!’ and here is a band of musicians who have delighted us with their sweet strains, composed entirely of the descendants of Senecas and Tuscaroras, and I doubt not they have gratified even civilized ears!
“Ladies and Gentlemen:—You perceive we are changed. We already have schools, and books, and churches, and are fast adopting the customs of white men.
“For these improvements we are mainly indebted to the Missionaries of the American Board. Great is our debt of gratitude to these persevering and devoted men and women. And Oh, if you will but continue to extend to us the right hand of fellowship, we shall abundantly reward your efforts, and you will soon see among us a high state of cultivation and refinement.
“The missionaries have not made a great noise concerning their labors by blowing of the trumpet, but quietly and peaceably ‘have gone about doing good;’ and may they live to see fulfilled their most cherished hopes, and answered their fervent prayers.”
Here I have permitted the Indian to speak for himself, [[283]]and have given only a few of the proofs which I have of a similar kind, that neither education, nor civilization, nor Christianity enervates the mind or the body of the Indian.
If we had lived when our fathers lived, very probably we should have been like unto them; we should have been guilty of the same errors of judgment, and the same mistakes in practice. But now that we have no fear, and can look back upon the past as a whole, we are able to see clearly, where the actors could only grope in darkness. Yet with the experience of centuries to profit by, we are scarcely more ready to do justice.