Having finished the business of the payments, the disbursing agent embarks on board of the steamer Michigan, and the island, which has been thronged for three weeks with Indians, Indian traders, and visitors, began immediately to empty itself of population. During this assemblage, to pay the Ottawas and Chippewas their annuity, great care and exactitude have been observed by the concurrently acting officers of the army and the Indian department, to carry out strictly the agreements made with them in the spring, by which the payment of half their annuity in silver, due for 1837, was postponed till 1838. Yet it was reported in a few days, and reiterated by the press, that the Indians had been defrauded out of half their annuities, and that goods, and those of a bad quality, had been given them for silver. And my name was coupled with the transaction, although the Indians of all nations who were under my charge, in the State of Michigan, had, from first to last, been treated with the kindness and justice of a father. The Government at Washington came in for no little abuse. Mrs. Jameson wrote from Toronto, asking "whether it was true that a Miami chief had offered $70,000 to enable the Indian Department to pay their debt to the Indians in specie."
23d. The Indians Akukojeesh and Akawkoway brought a case of salvage for my action. They had found a new carriage body, and harness; a box of 7 by 9 glass, and 18 chairs, floating on the lake (Huron), N.E. of the island. They supposed the articles had been thrown overboard, in a recent storm, or by a vessel aground on the point of Goose Island, called Nekuhmenis. The Nekuh is a brant.
30th. Chusco dies.
Completed and transmitted the returns and abstracts of the year's proceedings and expenditures.
Oct 1st. I sent the interpreter and farmers of the Department to perform the funeral rites for Chusco, the Ottawa jossakeed, who died yesterday at the house erected for him on Round Island. He was about 70 years of age; a small man, of light frame and walked a little bent. He had an expression of cunning and knowingness, which induced his people, when young, to think he resembled the muskrat, just rising from the water, after a dive. This trait was implied by his name. For many years he had acted as a jossakeed, or seer, for his tribe. In this business he told me that the powers he relied on, were the spirits [81] of the tortoise, crow, swan, and woodpecker. These he considered his familiar spirits, who received their miraculous power to aid him directly from Mudjee Moneto, or the Great Evil Spirit. After the establishment of the Mission at Mackinack, his wife embraced Christianity. This made him mad. At length his mind ran so much on the theme, that he fell into doubts and glooms when thinking it over, and finally embraced Christianity himself; and he was admitted, after a probation of a year or two, to church membership. I asked him, after this period, how he had deceived his people by the art of powwowing, or jugglery. He said that he had accomplished it by the direct influence of Satan. He had addressed him, on these occasions, and sung his songs to him, beating the drum or shaking the rattle. He adhered firmly to this opinion. He appeared to have great faith in the atonement of Christ, and relied with extraordinary simplicity upon it. He gave a striking proof of this, the autumn after his conversion, when he went with his wife, according to custom, to dig his potatoes on a neighboring island. The wife immediately began to dig. "Stop," said he, "let us first kneel and return thanks for their growth." He was aware of his former weakness on the subject of strong drink, and would not indulge in it after he became a church member.
[81] Indians believe animals have souls.
3d. Received an application for relief from the Black River Chippewas, near Fort Gratiot. It is astonishing how completely the resources of the Indians have failed with the game, on which they formerly relied. When a calamity arrives, such as a white settlement would surmount without an effort, they at once become objects of public charity. Kittemagizzi is their immediate cry. This is now raised by the Black River band, under the influence of small-pox.
14th. Received a copy of the treaty of the 29th of July last with the Chippewas. This tribe, like all the other leading tribes of the race, is destined to fritter away their large domain for temporary and local ends, without making any general and permanent provision for their prosperity. The system of temporary annuities will, at last, leave them without a home. When the buffalo, and the deer, and the beaver, are extinct, the Indian must work or die. In a higher view, there is no blessing which is not pronounced in connection with labor and faith. These the nation falter at.
18th. Finished my report on the additional debt claim, under the treaty of 1836, agreeably to the instructions of the Commission of Indian Affairs, of the 23d March last, and to the published notice of April 10th. These claims on the debt fund of the treaty have received the best consideration of the agent and the Indian chiefs, with the aid of a secretary authorized at Washington, and the result is forwarded with confidence to head-quarters.
19th. My arduous duties during the summer had thrown some of my private correspondence in the rear. It may now be proper to notice some of it. A letter (Aug. 20th) from St. Mary's says: "The schooner John Jacob Astor arrived on the 18th instant from the head of Lake Superior, and the captain brings us information of Mr. Warren's arrival at La Pointe. He attended the treaty at St. Peter's, concluded by Gov. Dodge. The Indians are to receive $700,000 in annuities for twenty years, $100,000 to the half-breeds, and $70,000 for Indian creditors."