Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers

by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

Congress passed an act the same year (1816) providing that this trade should be carried on under licenses, by American citizens, who were permitted, however, to employ this class of foreigners, by entering into bonds for their proper conduct. This created a class of duties for the agents, on the line of the Canada frontiers, which was at all times onerous. To carry on the trade at all, the old and experienced "servants of the N.W.," as they were called, were necessary, and it was sometimes essential to take out the license in the names of American boys, or persons by no means competent, by their experience in this trade, to conduct the business, which was, in fact, still in the hands of the old employees.

It was a false theory, from the start, that ardent spirits was one of the articles necessary to trade. Congress entertained an opinion of its injuriousness to the character of the Indians, and passed laws excluding it. This constituted another class of duties of the agents who were entrusted with their execution, and required them to "search packages," and to judge of the probabilities of all persons applying for licenses keeping the laws.

To expect that this mixed body of foreigners would exert any very favorable political influence on the mass of Indian minds in the north-west, was indulging a hope not very likely to be fulfilled. They were employed to glean the Indian lodges of furs, and expected to make good returns to their employers at Michilimackinack; and, if they kept the ground of neutrality with respect to governments, it was considered as exempting them from censure.

The great body of the Indians in the upper lakes, and throughout the north-west, extending to the sources of the Mississippi, were averse to the American rule. Many of them had been embodied to fight against the Americans, who were successively met by ambuscade, surprise, or otherwise, as at Chicago, at Michilimackinack, Brownstown, River Raisin, Maumee, Fort Harrison, and other places. They had been assembled in large bodies, by the delusive prophesyings of Elksatawa, and by the not less delusive promises of the agents of the British Indian Department, on the lines, that the Americans were to be driven back to the line of the Illinois, if not of the Ohio--an old and very popular idea with the lake Indians from early days.

The lake Indians had suffered severely from the war, chiefly from the camp fevers and irregularities. They had finally been defeated--their great war captain killed, their false prophet driven from the Wabash into Canada; and, to crown the whole, were themselves abandoned, one and all, by their allies, at the treaty of Ghent. Many never returned to the homes of their fathers--entire villages were depopulated, and their sites overgrown in a few years with shrubbery. Those who came back from the active campaign of 1814, were sullen and desponding. As an evidence of what they had suffered, and how completely they had been abandoned by their allies, the transactions of the first treaty at Springwells, at the close of the war, may be referred to. The tribes were literally starving and in rags.

The agents of the Executive and Governors, who were appointed to conduct their intercourse after the war, were, in reality, called to execute a high class of diplomatic functions, second only in general importance to those required at the prime courts of Europe. The several classes of duties which have been described denote, to some extent, in what this importance consisted. Eighteen years had now elapsed since this important commercial company had furnished traders to the discomfited tribes. During twelve years of this period I had had charge of the intercourse with by far the largest and most unfriendly and warlike of the tribes; and, when I saw that Mr. Astor had disconnected himself from the concern which he had organized; and that, to some extent, new agents and actors were called to the field, I felt anxious to be at my post, to supervise, personally, the intercourse act, and to see that no improper persons should enter the country.

15th. Dr. L.D. Gale, of New York, writes me that the American Lyceum has resolved to enlarge the scope of its objects. "We have, therefore," he remarks, "as we now stand, 1. The department of education. 2. The department of physical science. 3. Moral and political science. 4. Literature and the arts. The influence of the society has been very much enlarged since its last meeting, and it now enrolls amongst its active members many, indeed I may say a large share of the most valuable men of science of the United States. The chief object of the physical science department is to obtain, as far as possible, a report of the recent history and progress, and, in some cases, the future prospects of the different departments. So that we may be enabled to form a volume of transactions that shall embrace all that is new or recent in the departments, posted up to the present time.

"The subject of the antiquities of the western countries of the United States, and especially the remains of towns and fortifications, which appear to have been built by a civilized population, has been frequently agitated this side of the Alleghanies, and it was thought by the executive committee that justice would be done to the subject in your hands. They have, accordingly, requested that you would consent to give them a paper on the subject. They presumed that you were in possession of much interesting and valuable matter that has never yet come to the eyes of the world."

26th. I have been often written to, by persons at a distance wishing for information on the Indian tribes, or their languages, or antiquities, and uniformly responded favorably to such applications, sending a little where it was not practicable to do more. It has ever appeared to me, that the giving of information was just one of those points which rendered me not a whit more ignorant myself, and might add something to the knowledge, as it certainly would to the gratifications of others. The only good objection is, that time and attention is required for every such effort. But cannot this be easily redeemed from waste hours, when the object is to add to the moral gratifications of others?

A letter was addressed to me, this day, from a Mr. H. Newcomb, Alleghany, near Pittsburg, which certainly seems a little onerous in the tax it imposes on my time; as the writer announces his intention of publishing two or three volumes, on the subject of the Indians, and presents a formidable array of subjects respecting which he is to treat. In only one respect it strikes me as singular, namely, that any writer west of the Alleghanies should set down to write a work on such a subject, without personal observation. In older areas, where the Indian has disappeared, books must alone be relied on; but in the West, there should be something fresh, something distinctive and personal, to give vitality to such a work. The writer observes, "I have not yet been able to obtain materials for the first two volumes satisfactory to myself."