Still, White-Eyes regarded Christianity more as a civil than a religious system. He was a man of enlarged political views, and no less a patriot than a statesman. The ends he aimed at were far more his country's than his own. He observed the superiority of the white men to the red; and nearer home, the prosperity and happiness of the Christian Delawares; and he convinced himself thoroughly of the true causes of both. He therefore earnestly desired, that his whole nation might be civilized, to which result he considered Christianity, as he had seen it taught by the good Moravians, the best possible promotive, as undoubtedly it was.
But in this noble solicitude for his countrymen, he forgot himself. Hence even Loskiel, on mentioning his decease, states, with an almost reluctant honesty, that "Captain White-Eyes, who had so often advised other Indians, with great earnestness, to believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but had always postponed joining the believers himself on account of being yet entangled in political concerns, was unexpectedly called into eternity;" adding, affectionately, that the "Indian Congregation to whom he had rendered very essential services, was much affected at the news of his death, and could not but hope, that God our Saviour had received his soul in mercy." Mr. Heckewelder sums up the matter by saying—"His ideas were that unless the Indians changed their mode of living, they would in time come to nothing; and to encourage them towards such a change, he told them to take the example of the Christian Indians, who by their industry had every thing they could wish for." In a word, there was more philanthropy and more philosophy in the religion of White-Eyes, than there was piety. Hence his eloquence, his energy, his strong affection for the Missionaries, and his sacrifices and services for them and for his countrymen. He was a good man, we believe, by the force of native conscience, as he was a great man by the force of native sense; and though to have learned Christianity, in addition to loving some of those who professed it, might have made him both better and greater than he was, we cannot but hope, as it is, with the Christian Delawares, "that God our Saviour has received his soul in mercy."
It would give us very sincere pleasure to be able to say as much for the Paganism of Captain Pipe, who, on the contrary, was opposed to the religion of the whites as inveterately as any of the New-England Sachems of the seventeenth century, and apparently for similar reasons. "The Sachems of the country were generally set against us," wrote Mr. Elliot in 1650,[FN-1]—"and counter-work the Lord by keeping off their men from praying to God as much as they can; and the reason of it is this; they plainly see that religion will make a great change among them, and cut them off from their former tyranny, &c." Pipe, too, with all his talent, was obnoxious to some very plain strictures regarding his own morality, and of course had no theoretical partiality for lectures upon that subject. [FN-2] He was inimical to White-Eyes, especially, because the latter supported the cause of reform; and rather than stand second to him, and at the same time surrender his own bad habits, he determined at all hazards to array a party in opposition. It was both a personal and a political movement, the objects being self-defence, in the first place, and in the second, distinction.
[FN-1] The light appearing, &c. London, 1651.
[FN-2] Narrative, p. 286 and passim: "We were obliged to wait for Pipe's becoming sufficiently sober,"—&c.
Such being the character of the scheme, it must still be admitted that he exhibited great energy and great ingenuity in promoting it. Some of his manœuvres have been noticed; and after his rival's decease, his own declarations, particularly, were much more frequent and fearless, and therefore more effectual than they had been before. "Thus," says Heckewelder, "when a young man of his tribe, who had received his education in Virginia, under the influence of Dr. Walker, on his return into the Indian country in 1779, spread unfavorable reports of the Virginian people; representing them as exceeding the Indians in vicious acts—their beating the Negroes so unmercifully, &c. &c. Pipe would mockingly enumerate such vicious and cruel acts, as the benefits of civilization." He could at the same time, with truth, set forth the poverty of the United States, in not having even a blanket, a shirt, or other article of Indian clothing, to give them in exchange for their peltry; whereas, (said he) were it not for the English, we should have to suffer, and perhaps many of us perish for want. Pipe and the Monseys, we are told elsewhere, were those who were most dreaded, and the effect of his operations was such, but one year after the decease of White-Eyes in the midst of his triumphs, that in 1781, the Peace-Chiefs had for their own safety to withdraw themselves from their several nations, and take refuge at Pittsburg.
In regard to the personal habits of Pipe, it may be doing him, as well as several other Indians of some distinction, no more than justice, to allude in extenuation to the well known nature of the temptations to which they have sometimes been exposed, and especially on the frontiers, during war, and the excitement of an attempt by one civilized party to engage their services against another. The peculiar physical circumstances which, together with the character of their education, go to diminish their power of self-control, need not be enlarged on. It is sufficient to say, that it would be a task more easy than gratifying to prove, that their misfortune in this particular has only followed after the fault of their civilized neighbors. "Who are you, my friend?" said a gentleman in Pipe's time to an Indian at Pittsburg, who was not so much intoxicated as not to be ashamed of his situation. "My name is Black-fish," he replied; "At home I am a clever fellow—Here, I am a hog." [FN]
[FN] Mr. Heckewelder's anecdote of the Indian who came into Bethlehem (Penn.) to dispose of his peltry, throws light on a great source of the evil not alluded to in the text, and the effects of which, among the Western tribes to this day are beyond calculation. "Well Thomas," said a trader to him, "I believe you have turned Moravian." "Moravian!" answered the Indian, "what makes you think so?"—"Because," replied the other, "you used to come to us, to sell your skins and peltry, and now you trade them away to the Moravians." "So!" rejoined the Indian, "now I understand you well, and I know what you mean to say. Now hear me.—See, my friend! when I come to this place with my skins and peltry to trade, the people are kind; they give me plenty of good victuals to eat, and pay me in money, or whatever I want, and no one says a word to me about drinking rum—neither do I ask for it! When I come to your place with my peltry, all call to me: 'Come, Thomas! here's rum, drink heartily, drink! it will not hurt yon.' All this is done for the purpose of cheating me. When you have obtained from me all you want, you call me a drunken dog, and kick me out of the room."