The southern shore of Lake Superior is the northern boundary of a large civil division of the United States, called the North-West Territory; where the events, which will occupy a large portion, and make the leading topic of these pages, transpired. The State of Illinois is on the south of this territory; Lake Michigan on the east; and the river Mississippi on the west; the whole region extending from north latitude 42° 45’ to nearly 49° in its extreme border, around and beyond the western termination of Lake Superior; and comprehending in its longest line from east to west about nine degrees of longitude. The principal scene, however, of the events we are to notice, is laid on the eastern margin of this territory, near the mouth of Fox River, at the head of Green Bay.
But why this lesson in geography? That all concerned may know where they are, and understand, as much as may be convenient, the relations of the events and things described, to other things and events. It may be proper to say in addition, as will ultimately appear, that the whole of this territory, till quite recently, has been exclusively occupied by the aboriginal tribes; except as the fur traders have traversed those regions to traffic with the Indians. Even now there are but few other tenants of the territory.
It may also be observed, that the northern shores of this long chain of Lakes, and their connecting channels, or straits, called rivers, from the outlet of Lake Ontario, nearly to the head of Lake Superior, appertain to the British possessions of North America, and lie within the extensive province of Upper Canada. And the exact boundary between the contiguous jurisdiction of the United States and the British dominions there, as settled a few years since by a joint Board of Commissioners from the two Governments, is for the most part an imaginary line, running from and to certain assumed and fixed points, intended to divide those immense inland waters equally between the two Powers. The Lakes themselves, for the purposes of commerce and navigation, are necessarily subjected to regulations, not unlike those which govern the high seas; but more easily arranged and executed, as only two nations are concerned in their maintenance. The trace of this jurisdiction boundary is of course exceedingly devious.
CHAPTER IV.
MOTIVES FOR THE TOUR, &c.
Niagara Falls is yet the common boundary in the West of the pleasure excursions for the summer, with European visitants of the New World, and with the travelling gentry of the United States. Few find motive enough, or feel sufficient ambition to endure the sea-sickness of the Lakes, that they may penetrate farther, merely for pleasure. It is true, that the rapid crowding of the West, by an emigrant population, settled all along the southern shore of Lake Erie, and through the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and the Territory of Michigan, together with the grand communication now opened between the city of New York and the great valley of the Mississippi over the bosom of Lake Erie, has made that lake a busy scene of commercial enterprise. Besides all the sailing craft employed, a Steam-packet leaves both the upper and lower extremities of this Lake every day for a voyage of forty-eight hours, more or less, between Buffalo and Detroit, touching at the principal ports on the southern shore; and, in addition to these, several Steamers are employed in shorter trips. One stretches for the most direct course through the entire of the Lake, without touching at any of the intervening ports, for the sake of dispatch, and to accomplish the voyage in twenty-four hours. As might be expected, a constant stream of genteel travellers, going to and from the Mississippi Valley, and to and from the city of Detroit, for the various objects of business, of visiting friends, of scientific observations, of gratifying curiosity, of executing public trusts, or of finding a home for themselves and families, in some one of those regions of promise, is seen to be always moving there, like a fairy vision. Once a month a Steam-packet leaves Buffalo for the far off regions of the north-west, beyond the city of Detroit, through the upper Lakes, to answer the purposes of government, in keeping up a communication with the garrisons of those frontiers, and to accommodate the few travellers, who may have business in those quarters, or who are bold and romantic enough to push their excursions of pleasure so far.
As a Commission from the government of the United States had been ordered to the North West Territory, for August, 1830, to kindle a Council-fire, as it is called, and to smoke the pipe, with a public assembly of the Chiefs of the numerous tribes of Indians, in that quarter, for the purpose of settling certain disputes existing among themselves, in their relations to each other, and also some misunderstandings between sundry of their tribes and the general Government, the Author having leisure, and being a little curious to know more of this race, than he had ever yet seen, conceived, that this extraordinary occasion for the convention of the Chiefs and representatives of the wilder and more remote tribes, would afford a good opportunity for the knowledge and observation he so much coveted. He had seen not a little of the Indians, in their semi-civilized conditions, as they are found insulated here and there, in the midst of the white population of the States; and of course where their manners, habits, character, and very nature have been much modified by their intercourse and intimacies with civilized society. The Indian of North America, in such circumstances, is quite another being from the Indian in his wild and untutored condition; and as the advocates for the resolving of society into its original elements, would say:—he is there in his unsophisticated nature.
No one can pretend to understand the character of the aboriginal tenants of America, who has seen them only as vitiated by contact with Europeans. I say vitiated. For, if they are not made better by proper protection and cultivation, they become much worse, as human nature, left to itself, is more susceptible of the contagion of vice, than of improvement in virtue. The Indian, thrown into temptation, easily takes the vices of the white man; and his race in such exposures melts away, like the snow before a summer’s sun. Such has been the unhappy fate of the aborigines of America, ever since the discovery of that continent by Columbus. They have melted away—and they are still melting away. They have been cut off by wars, which the provocations of the whites have driven them to wage,—and the remnants, depressed, unprotected—and in their own estimation humbled and degraded, their spirit broken within them,—have sunk down discouraged, and abandoned themselves to the fate of those, who have lost all ambition for a political existence, and who covet death rather than life.
The wild Indian, however, whose contact with the European race has not been enough to vitiate his habits, or subdue his self-importance,—who still prowls the forest in the pride of his independence,—who looks upon all nations and tribes, but his own, as unworthy of the contemptuous glance of his eye,—whose dreams of importance become to him a constant reality, and actually have the same influence in the formation of his character, as if they were all that they seem to him;—he regards himself as the centre of a world, made especially for him. Such a being, and much more than this, who is not a creature of the imagination, but a living actor in the scenes of earth, becomes at least an interesting object, if he does not make a problem, yet to be solved, in moral philosophy, in politics, in the nature and character of man, as a social being.
CHAPTER V.
THE ROMANCE OF EXPECTATION, &c.
That the author indulged many romantic expectations, in the excursion that was before him, was not only natural, but warranted. He could not reasonably be disappointed, so long as imagination did not become absolutely wild and ungovernable, and fly away from earth—or “call for spirits from the vasty deep”—or fancy things, of which heaven or earth affords no likeness. In constitutional temperament and in principle I was rather fond of the fascinating and ever changing hues, which genuine poetry throws over the variegated phases of the natural world. The universe I had been accustomed to regard, as one grand poetic panorama, laid out by the Creator’s hand, to entertain uncorrupt minds, without danger of satiety, and to “lead them up through nature’s works to nature’s God.” Sermons I could find, or believed were to be found, “in trees, and brooks, and stones; and good in every thing.” “The heavens declare the glory of God,” and “the earth is full of his bounty”—and he who does not admire the former, to the praise of Him that made them, and partake of the rich gifts of the latter with gratitude to their author, it must be ascribed alike to his stupidity and depravity. I have thought, that he who cannot appreciate such sentiments, can never sympathise with the best feelings, and happiest condition of man. The universe, in all its parts, suggests them; and heaven itself, we have reason to believe, is full of them. And there is no place so natural to song, so full of music, so beautiful in its attractive forms, or so enchanting in the combination and display of its glories to the eye, as heaven. All the most lively and glowing sentiments of true religion, of genuine piety, are of a poetic character. And the highest and sweetest inspirations of Divine Revelation, it need not be said, are all poetry.