It is evident, in viewing this scheme of a native federative government, that its tendencies were always in favor of the power of the separate tribes. No people ever existed, who watched more narrowly the existence of power, and its innate tendency to centralize, and usurp. Suspicious to a fault, their eyes and ears were ever open to the least tone or gesture of alarm. They had only confided, to the Central Council, the power to make war or peace, and to regulate public policy. This Central Council, received embassies, not only from the numerous nations with whom they warred; but the delegates of the crowns of France and England, often stood in their presence.
The assent of each tribe is believed to have been requisite to an alliance, or rupture. When this had been given at the central council, it was explained before the local council, and the concurrence of the body of the tribe, was essential to make it binding and effective. In case of war, there was no fixed scale by which men were to be raised. It was deemed obligatory for each tribe to raise men according to its strength. But each was left free to its own action, being responsible for such action, to PUBLIC OPINION. All warriors were volunteers, and were raised for specific expeditions, and were bound no longer. To take up the war club, and join in the war dance, was to enlist. There was no other enlistment—no bounties—no pay—no standing force—no public provisions—no public arms—no clothing—no public hospital. The martial impulse of the people was sufficient. All was left to personal effort and provision. Self dependence was never carried to such height. The thirst for glory—the honor of the confederacy—the strife for personal distinction, filled their ranks; and led them, through desert paths, to the St. Lawrence, the Illinois, the Atlantic seaboard and the southern Alleghanies. Nor did they need the roll of the river to animate their courage, or regulate their steps. Theirs was a high energetic devotion, equal or superior to even that of ancient Sparta and Lacedæmon. They conquered wherever they went. They subdued nations in their immediate vicinity. They exterminated others. They adopted the fragments of subjugated tribes into their confederacy, sunk their national homes into oblivion, and thus repaired the irresistable losses of war. They had eloquence, as well as courage. Their speakers maintained a high rank along side of the best generals and negotiators of France, England and America. We owe this tribute to their valor and talents. One thousand such men, equipped for war as they were, and led by their spirit, would have effected more in battle, than the tens of thousands of effeminate Aztecks and Peruvians who shouted, but often did no more than shout, around the piratical bands of Cortez and Pizarro.
5. I have left myself but little time to speak of the origin and early history of this people—topics which are of deep interest in themselves, but which are involved in great obscurity. They are subjects which commend themselves to your attention, and offer a wide field for your future research. There are three periods in our Indian history:
1. The Allegoric and Fabulous Age. This includes the creation, the deluge, the creation of Holiness and Evil, and some analogous points, in the general and shadowy traditions of men, which our hunter race, have almost universally concealed under the allegoric figures, of a creative bird or beast, or the exploits of some potent personage, endowed with supernatural courage or power. In this era, the earth was also covered with monsters and giants, who waged war, and drove men into caves and recesses; until the interposition of the original creative power, for their relief.
2. The Ante-Historical period, in which tradition begins to assume the character of truth, but is still obscured by fable. This period includes the early discoveries by the Northmen, the reputed voyage of Prince Madoc, &c.
3. The period of actual history, dating from the earliest voyage of Columbus and his companions.
I have alluded, in a preceding part of this address, to the mode of studying their early history. Where little or nothing is to be obtained from books, it requires a cautious investigation of these traditions and antiquities. Ethnology, in all its branches, has a direct and practical bearing on this subject. The physical type of man, the means of his subsistence, the state of his arts, the language he speaks, the hieroglyphics he carves, the mounds he builds—the fortifications he erects,—his religion, his superstitions, his legendary lore—the very geography of the country he inhabits, are so many direct and palpable means of acquiring historical evidence. It is from the investigation of these, that tribes and nations are grouped and classified, and the original stocks of mankind denoted, and the track of their dispersion over the globe traced. And they constitute so many topics of study and investigation.
In relating their traditions, our Red Men are prone, to connect, (as if these were portions of a continuous and consistent narrative) the most recent and most remote events, which dwell in their memory. And from their present residence and recent history, to run back, by a few sentences, into purely fabulous and allegoric periods. Fiction and fact, are mingled in the same strain. In listening to those relations, it is important to establish in the mind, historical periods, and to separate that which is grotesque or imaginative from the narration of real events. The latter, may be sometimes distorted by this juxtaposition, but it is, in general, easy to separate the two, and to re-adopt them, on their own principles. The early nations of Europe and Asia, pursued the same system. Their men were soon traced into gods, and their gods, soon ended in sensualists, or demons. Greek and Roman history, before the period of Herodotus, must have been little better than a jargon of such incongruities, and nearly all the earlier part of it, is no better now. To teach our children these nonsensical fables, is to vitiate their imagination, and the thing would never have been dreamt of, in a moral age, were not the ancient mythology, inseparably mixed up with the present state of ancient history, poetry and letters. We must teach it as a fable, and rely on truth to counteract its effects.