Transmitted to Mr. Palfrey a review of Mr. Gallatin's "Synopsis of the Indian Tribes of America."
Feb. 1st. Mr. William A. Aitkin writes from Sandy Lake: "Since I left you at St. Peter's I have had a severe trial to go through. I came up by Swan River, but heard nothing there of the melancholy event which had taken place during my absence at Upper Red Cedar Lake. My eldest son had been placed at that place last fall, in charge of that post. You saw him, I believe, last summer; he was in charge of Leech Lake when you were at that place. He was a young man of twenty-two years of age, of a very amiable temper, humane and brave, possessed of the most unbounded obedience to my will, and of the most filial affection for my person. This, my son, was murdered in the most atrocious manner by a bloody monster of an Indian. My poor boy had arrived the evening previous to the bloody act, from a voyage to Red Lake. Early the next morning he sent off all the men he had to Lake Winnipeck, excepting one Frenchman, to bring up some things which he had left there in the fall. A short time after his men had gone, he sent the remaining man to bring some water from the river; the man returned into the house immediately, and told him an Indian had broken open the store, and was in it. He went very deliberately to the store, took hold of the villain, who tried to strike him with his tomahawk, dragged him out of the store and disarmed him of his axe, threw him on the ground, and then let him go--and was turned round in the act of locking the store-door. The villain stepped behind the door, where he had hid his gun, came on him unawares and shot him dead, without the least previous provocation whatever on the part of my poor lost boy. When arrived, I found the feelings of every one prepared for vengeance. I immediately, without one moment's loss of time, proceeded to Leech Lake. In a moment there were twenty half-breeds gathered round, with Francis Brunette at their head, full-armed, ready to execute any commands that I should give them. We went immediately to the camp where the villain was, beyond Red Cedar Lake, determined to cut off the whole band if they should raise a finger in his defence. Our mutual friend, Mr. Boutwell, joined the party, with his musket on his shoulder, as a man and a Christian, for he knew it was a righteous cause, and that the arm of God was with him. We arrived on the wretches unawares, disarmed the band, and dragged the monster from his lodge. I would have put the villain to death in the midst of his relations, but Mr. Boutwell advised it would be better to take him where he might be made an example of. The monster escaped from us two days after we had taken him, but my half-breeds pursued him for six days and brought him back, and he is now on his way to St. Peter's in irons, under a strong guard. My dear friend, I cannot express to you the anguish of my heart at this present moment.
"The Indians of all this department have behaved like villains during my absence, particularly the Indians of Leech Lake, committing the greatest depredations on our people, and would surely have murdered them if they had shown the least disposition to resist their aggravations. You will excuse me from giving you any other news at present. I'm not in a state of mind to do it."
Feb. 3d. Rev. David Green, of Boston, communicates the determination of the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to break up and abandon the school and mission at Mackinack. This decision I have long feared, and cannot but deplore. The school is large, and the education of many of the pupils is such that in a few years they would make useful practicable men and women, and carry a Christian influence over a wide circle. By dispersing them now the labor is to some extent lost.
6th. Received, a vote of thanks of the Detroit Total Abstinence Society, for my temperance address of the 1st instant, which is courteously called "elegant and appropriate." So, ho!
22d. A party of Wyandots from the River Huron, of Michigan, visited the office. They complain that trespasses are committed by settlers on the lands reserved to them. The trespasses arise from the construction of mill-dams, by which their grounds are overflowed. They asked whether they hold the reservation for fifty years or otherwise. I replied that they hold them, by the terms of the treaty, as long as they shall have any posterity to live on the lands. They only escheat to the United States in failure of this. But that I would send an agent to inquire into the justice of their complaint, and to redress it.
24th. Robert Kankapot presents himself with about twenty followers. He is a Stockbridge Indian of Green Bay, Wisconsin, on his way to the East. He is short of funds, and asks for relief. No annuity or other funds are payable, at this office, to this tribe. I deemed his plea, however, a reasonable one, and loaned him personally one hundred dollars.
I detained him with some historical questions. He says he is sixty-four years of age, that he was born in Stockbridge, on the head of the Housatonic River, in Massachusetts. From this town they take their present name. They are, however, the descendants of the ancient Mohegans, who lived on the sea coast and in the Hudson Valley. They were instructed by the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, the eminent theologian, who was afterwards president of Princeton College. Their first migration was into New Stockbridge, in Oneida County, New York, where the Oneida tribe assigned them lands. This was about the era of the American Revolution. They next went, about 1822, to Fox River of Green Bay, where they now reside. Their oldest chief, at that point, is Metoxon, who is now sixty-nine.
He says his remote ancestry were from Long Island (Metoacs), and that Montauk means great sea island. (This does not appear probable philologically.) He says the opposite coast, across the East River, was called Monhautonuk. He afterwards, the next day, said that Long Island was called Paum-nuk-kah-huk.
March 1st. To a friend abroad I wrote: "I have written during the winter an article on Mr. Gallatin's recently published paper on the Indian languages, entitled A Synopsis of the Indian Tribes, which is published by the American Antiquarian Society. It was with great reluctance that I took up the subject, and when I did, I have been so complete a fact hunter all my life, that I found it as difficult to lay it down. The result is probably an article too long for ninety-nine readers out of a hundred, and too short for the hundredth man."