As one of the moral causes, which have operated in the United States to the detriment of Indian rights, the Author has felt obliged, from his own convictions, to specify the paramount influence of slavery. It is well known, that ancient impulses of a vicious tendency, in the constitution of human society, will often continue to operate disastrously, even after they have been checked by the incipient stages of reformation. Such is emphatically the case with slavery. It is undoubtedly true, that the American Colonization Society has begun to shed a most benign influence on the slavery of that country. It has forced into public and universal discussion a question, which the National Legislature, by the constitution of the Government, could never touch—inasmuch as every several State is left by that instrument, as sovereign and independent, in regard to all State prerogatives, not surrendered in the Federal compact, as any foreign nations are in relation to each other. But the Colonization Society has commenced a career of extended and rapidly increasing influence, which has already affected essentially and radically the moral elements of society in the Southern and Slave States, in relation to slavery. And notwithstanding, that the influence of ancient impulses of this vicious character has doubtless operated to the violation of Indian rights—it is no less true, that a slavery reformation has already commenced and extensively infused its leaven throughout the mass of the Slave States, by the instrumentality of the above-named institution. While, therefore, the one agency is stated, as the result of remote influences, for the time being uncontrolled in this, as well as in other directions, it is not to be considered as impossible with the contemporaneous existence and increasing influence of the other. The former may have and doubtless has produced the effect ascribed to it, while the latter is gaining an ascendency, which at a later period would entirely have prevented this deplorable issue.
The Author has been aware, that these volumes will afford some additional elements for those strictures and censures on the American Republic, which have been so liberally and customarily rendered by a portion of the British press. And while much has often been made of little and much out of nothing, these, it must be confessed, are not altogether unsubstantial materials for the gratification of such feelings. While the Author has undertaken in another place, as may possibly be known to some extent, to rebuke a disposition to find fault where there was no reason for it, he will perhaps have proved in this instance, that he would not cover a real sin even in his own house, when the rights of communities and the cause of humanity demand a developement. Those whom these disclosures may gratify, are freely offered all which they afford; while the discriminating and the fair will doubtless view and present the case, as it is, if they shall be disposed to notice it at all:—they will not tax the institutions of the country, nor the disposition of the people, as a body, with the iniquity—while it may still be fairly maintained, that the nation is responsible and bound before the world and heaven to make atonement.
It does not well become one nation to be accusing another of oppressions and violence, merely for the sake of elevating itself by comparison, when both, in the present imperfect state and imperfect operation of their institutions, have their faults of this description. Better, that the common cause of freedom and humanity should be made a common interest among the advocates of right throughout the world, that any case of the violation of right might be widely and freely exposed, and universally reprobated. Certainly, in the matter constituting a prominent subject of these pages, Great Britain and America are too deeply involved to furnish a warrant for crimination on either side.
The community of nations is rapidly assuming a character like a community of individuals; and for the same reasons, that the latter have a common right in determining the social relations and defining the modes of intercourse, the former should openly and freely discuss and socially determine their relations. As every member of a community of individuals may rightfully have a voice in all the regulations enacted for the common good—so every member of the community of nations is interested in the code of international law, and may fairly claim its right in the discussion and settlement of fundamental principles;—and since, when any member of the minor community is injured, it is a proper subject of public alarm and investigation, so when the rights of any nation, or tribe, are violated, it makes a legitimate ground for a common adjudication, at least for the interchange and expression of opinion, and the employment of influence. We have high authority for the saying: “When one member suffers, all the members suffer with it;” they ought certainly to sympathize.
It will be observed, that the scene of the first volume is laid on the American Lakes and in the North-West Territory. The latter is a civil division of the American jurisdiction, lying on the upper waters of the Mississippi river and the shores of Lakes Superior and Michigan, and not on the Pacific Ocean, as is sometimes, and in foreign parts perhaps more commonly, understood by this name.
The Author feels obliged to say, that, not having anticipated the execution of this task, before he came to England, he has found himself wanting in many important documents, which would have been a material improvement of the work, and rendered it far more complete. The Indian speeches delivered at the council of Green Bay, once in his possession and taken down by his own hand, were left behind. To supply this defect, he has taken the liberty of constructing a few specimens, as nearly after the manner of the Indians, as his impressions and recollections would enable him to do. And while it is due to historical verity to make this acknowledgment, the Author may perhaps be permitted to say, without a breach of modesty, that having once made a copy of all those transactions at the time and as they occurred, together with the speeches that were delivered by the Indians, and having been long in habits of intimate intercourse with them, in public and private, he ought to be qualified to do them something like justice in such a trifling attempt. He may also add, that having on various occasions complied with the requests of the Indians to assist them in their communications with the official agents of Government, he necessarily became acquainted with their peculiarities of thought, and feeling, and modes of speech. One of their chiefs paid the Author the following compliment to the point in question, at the city of Washington, on the occasion of soliciting him to draw up an address to the Senate of the United States in their behalf: “You talk our talk better than we can talk it for ourselves.” This, however, merely to shew, that the author has had some custom in speaking for them. The examples given in the chapter above alluded to, are offered, as things like what they stand for; and the Author is confident, that the likeness would be acknowledged even by the Indians themselves. At the same time, that they support the Indian argument, (the one ascribed to the Winnebago-Chief only excepted, which is a pure invention to exemplify the wild incoherency, which sometimes characterizes savage oratory,) they are also intended as specimens of that simplicity of thought and reasoning, which the Indians are accustomed to demonstrate. The civilized Indians of the New York tribes at Green Bay reason quite as well, as the Author has represented.
The other specimens of Indian speeches, the Author is not responsible for. They are extracts from authorities, to which they are ascribed.