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

by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

20th. Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz, one of our female writers, in a note of acknowledgment to the Hist. Soc., falls into the same quandary about making out the signature of one of our most expert and beautiful penmen, that Washington Irving did. She could by no means make out Mr. Trowbridge's name, and addressed her reply to me.

21st. Having passed the winter at Detroit, I left the Superintendency office in charge of Mr. Lee, an efficient clerk, and embraced the sailing of one of the earliest vessels for the Upper Lakes, to return to Michilimackinack. Winter still showed some of its aspects there, although gardening at Detroit had been commenced for weeks. The difference in latitude is nearly four and a half degrees; the geographical distance is computed by mariners at 300 miles.

May 1st. In a communication from Mr. J. Toulmin Smith, he expresses his anxiety to procure some Indian skulls from the tribes of the Upper Lakes, to be employed in his lectures on phrenology; and, also, for the purpose of transmission to London. This gentleman lectured acceptably on this topic during the winter at Detroit. During these lectures, I gave him the skull of Etowigezhik, a Chippewa, who was killed on Mr. Conner's farm about four or five years ago. He pronounced the anterior portion to exceed in measurement by one-half an inch the posterior, and drew conclusions favorable to the natural intellect.

10th. The Cherokee question assumes a definite crisis. Gen. Scott issues, under this date, a friendly proclamation to the Cherokees, calling on them to remove peaceably, under the terms of the treaty of 1835, telling them that more than two years had already elapsed after the time agreed on, and that they would be provided, in their removal to the west of the Mississippi, with food, clothing, and every means of transportation; and making a just and humane appeal to their sense of justice to remote; but assuring them that, if these considerations were allowed to pass unheeded, his instructions were imperative, and he had an army at his command, and would be compelled to order it to act in the premises. Such an appeal must be successful.

However much we may sympathize with the poetic view of the subject, and admire that spirit of the human heart which loves to linger about its ancient seats and homes, the question in this case has assumed a purely practical aspect founded on public transactions, which cannot be recalled. The inaptitude of the Indian tribes generally, for conducting the business of self-government, and their want of a wise foresight in anticipating the relative power and position of the two great opposing races in America, namely, the white and red, has been the primary cause of all their treaty difficulties. The treaties themselves are not violated in any respect, but being written by lawyers and legalists, the true intent of some of these provisions, or the relative condition of the parties at a given time, are not sometimes fully appreciated; and at other times, the Indian chiefs exercise diplomatic functions which their nation has not restored, as in the case of the Creeks of Georgia, or to the exercise of which the majority are actually opposed, as in the treaty of New Echota with the Cherokees. Some of their most intelligent and best minds led the way to and signed the treaty of final cession of New Echota, in 1835. But the compensation being found ample, and the provisions wise, and such as would, in the judgment of the United States Senate, secure their prosperity and advancement permanently, that body, on large consideration, yielded its assent, making, at the same time, further concessions to satisfy the malcontents. These are the final arrangements for leaving the land to which Gen. Scott, in his proclamation, alludes.

This tribe has lived in its present central position longer than the period of exact history denotes. They are first heard of under the name of "Achalaques," by the narrator of De Soto's Conquest of Florida, in 1540; within a dozen years of three centuries ago.

June 2d. I proceeded, during the latter part of May, to visit the Ottawas of the southern part of Michigan, to inquire about their schools under the treaty of '36, and to learn, personally, their condition during the state of the rapid settlements pressing around them. I went to Chicago by steamboat, and there found a schooner for Grand River. Here I was pleased to meet our old pastor, Mr. Ferry, as a proprietor and pastor of the newly-planned town of Grand Haven. I had to wait here, some days, for a conveyance to the Grand Rapids, which gave me time to ramble, with my little son, about the sandy eminences of the neighborhood, and to pluck the early spring flowers in the valley. The "Washtenong," a small steamer with a stern-wheel, in due time carried us up. Among the passengers was an emigrant English family from Canada, who landed at a log house in the woods. I was invited, at the Rapids, to take lodgings with Mr. Lewis Campeau, the proprietor of the village. The fall of Grand River here creates an ample water power. The surrounding country is one of the most beautiful and fertile imaginable, and its rise to wealth and populousness must be a mere question of time, and that time hurried on by a speed that is astonishing. This generation will hardly be in their graves before it will have the growth and improvements which, in other countries, are the results of centuries.

5th. I this day, in a public council at the court house, paid the Indians the deferred half annuity of last year (1837) in silver coin, and afterwards concluded a treaty with them, modifying the treaty of 28th March, 1836, so far as to make it obligatory on the government to pay their annuities here instead of Michilimackinack. The annuities in salt, tobacco, provisions and goods, were also delivered to them by agents appointed for the purpose. They expressed themselves, and appeared to be highly gratified, with the just fulfilment of every treaty obligation, and with the kind and benevolent policy and treatment of the American government.

I took this occasion to call their attention to the murder of the Glass family in Ionia, in the month of March last. They utterly disclaimed it, or any participation of any kind in its perpetration. They agreed to send delegates west, in accordance with the 8th art. of the treaty of '36, to explore the country on the sources of the Osage River, for their future permanent residence. They were well content with their teachers and missionaries of all denominations. The Chief Nawequageezhig, in particular, spoke with a commanding voice and just appreciation on the subject, which evinced no ordinary mental elevation, purpose and dignity.

11th. George Bancroft, Esq., of Boston, in a letter of this date, observes: "I can only repeat, what before I have urged on you, to collect all the materials that can illustrate the language, character and origin of the natives, and the early settlement of the French." The encouragement I receive from my literary and scientific friends, and which has been continued these many years, is, indeed, of a character which is calculated to stimulate to new exertions, although the love for such exertions pre-exists. I do not know that I shall live to make use of the materials I collect, or that I have the capacity to digest and employ them; but if not, they may be useful in the hands of other laborers.