Diary in America, Series Two

by Frederick Marryat

And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah, from the four corners of the earth.

“And there shall be a highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left from Assyria, like as it was to Israel, in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.”

May I not with propriety refer, among other evidences, to the cruel persecutions which have uniformly been practised towards the Indians of this continent, not unlike those which the chosen people have suffered for the last eighteen centuries?

“What makes you so melancholy?” said General Knox to the chief of an Indian deputation, that he was entertaining in this city, at the close of the revolutionary war. “I’ll tell you, brother,” said the aged chief; “I have been looking at your beautiful city—the great water full of ships, the fine country, and see how prosperous you all are. But, then, I could not help thinking that this fine country was ours. Our ancestors lived here. They enjoyed it as their own in peace. It was the gift of the Great Spirit to them and their children. At last, white men came in a great canoe. They only asked to let them tie it to a tree, lest the water should carry it away. We consented. They then said some of their people were sick, and they asked permission to land them, and put them under the shade of the trees. The ice then came, and they could not go away. They then begged a piece of land to build wigwams for the winter. We granted it to them. They then asked for corn to keep them from starving. We furnished it out of our own scanty supply. They promised to go away when the ice melted. When this happened, they, instead of going, pointed to the big guns round the wigwams, and said, ‘we shall stay here.’ Afterwards came more: they brought intoxicating drinks, of which the Indians became fond. They persuaded them to sell their land, and, finally, have driven us back, from time to time, to the wilderness, far from the water, the fish, and the oysters. They have scared away our game—my people are wasting away. We live in the want of all things, while you are enjoying abundance in our fine and beautiful country. This makes me sorry, brother, and I cannot help it.”

These persecutions and repeated acts of cruelty and injustice appear to have no termination—the work of destruction, commenced with the Narragansetts, will extend to the Ceminoles, and gradually to the blue waters of the Pacific. Look even now at the contest maintained by a handful of Indians in the everglades of Florida. Do they war against unequal numbers for a crown—for a part of that immense surplus which overflows from the coffers of a country which was once their own? No—they fight for the privilege of dying where the bones of their ancestors lie buried: and yet we, Christians as we call ourselves, deny them that boon, and drive the lords of the soil into the den of the otter.

In referring to the splendid specimens of Indian oratory, where, I would ask, can you find such wisdom, such lofty and pure eloquence, among the Chinese and Tartars, even at this day?

The Indians, like the Hebrews, speak in parables. Of their dialects, there is no doubt that the Algonquins and Huron are the parents of five hundred Indian tongues—they are copious, rich, regular, forcible, and comprehensive; and although here and there strong Hebrew analogies may be found, yet it is reasonable to suppose, that the Indian languages are a compound of all those tongues belonging to the various Asiatic nations through which they passed during their pilgrimage.

Firmly as I believe the American Indian to have been descended from the tribes of Israel, and that our continent is full of the most extraordinary vestiges of antiquity, there is one point, a religious as well as an historical point, in which you may possibly continue to doubt, amidst almost convincing evidences.

If these are the remnants of the nine and a half tribes which were carried into Assyria, and if we are to believe in all the promises of the restoration, and the fulfilment of the prophecies, respecting the final advent of the Jewish nation, what is to become of these our red brethren, whom we are driving before us so rapidly, that a century more will find them lingering on the borders of the Pacific Ocean?

Possibly the restoration may be near enough to include even a portion of those interesting people. Our learned Rabbis have always deemed it sinful to compute the period of the restoration; they believe that when the sins of the nation were atoned for, the miracle of their redemption would be manifested. My faith does not rest wholly in miracles—Providence disposes of events, human agency must carry them out. That benign and supreme power which the children of Israel had never forsaken, has protected the chosen people amidst the most appalling dangers, has saved them from the uplifted sword of the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Medes, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans, and while the most powerful nations of antiquity have crumbled to pieces, we have been preserved, united, and unbroken, the same now as we were in the days of the patriarchs—brought from darkness to light, from the early and rude periods of learning to the bright reality of civilisation, of arts, of education and of science.