The Indians are of a copper or red-clay colour—and they delight in every thing, which they imagine may promote and increase it: accordingly, they paint their faces with vermilion, as the best and most beautiful ingredient. If we consider the common laws of nature and providence, we shall not be surprized at this custom; for every thing loves best its own likeness and place in the creation, and is disposed to ridicule its opposite. If a deformed son of burning Africa, was to paint the devil, he would not do it in black colours, nor delineate him with a shagged coarse woolly head, nor with thick lips, a short flat nose, or clumsy feet, like those of a bear: his devil would represent one of a different nation or people. But was he to draw an agreeable picture,—according to the African taste, he would daub it all over with sooty black. All the Indians are so strongly attached to, and prejudiced in favour of, their own colour, that they think as meanly of the whites, as we possibly can do of them. The English traders among them, experience much of it, and are often very glad to be allowed to pass muster with the Indian chieftains, as fellow-brethren {1} of the human species. One instance will sufficiently shew in what flattering glasses they view themselves.
Some time past, a large body of the English Indian traders, on their way to the Choktah country, were escorted by a body of Creek and Choktah warriors. The Creeks having a particular friendship for some of the traders, who had treated them pretty liberally, took this opportunity to chide the Choktahs, before the traders, in a smart though friendly way, for not allowing to the English the name of human creatures:—for the general name they give us in their most favourable war-speeches, resembles that of a contemptible, heterogeneous animal.
The hotter, or colder the climate is, where the Indians have long resided, the greater proportion have they either of the red, or white, colour. I took particular notice of the Shawano Indians,[[1]] as they were passing from the northward, within fifty miles of the Chikkasah country, to that of the Creeks; and, by comparing them with the Indians which I accompanied to their camp, I observed the Shawano to be much fairer than the Chikkasah[[II]]; though I am satisfied, their endeavours to cultivate the copper colour, were alike. Many incidents and observations lead me to believe, that the Indian colour is not natural; but that the external difference between them and the whites, proceeds entirely from their customs and method of living, and not from any inherent spring of nature; which will entirely overturn Lord Kames’s whole system of colour, and separate races of men.
[II]. S is not a note of plurality with the Indians; when I mention therefore either their national, or proper names, that common error is avoided, which writers ignorant of their language constantly commit.
That the Indian colour is merely accidental, or artificial, appears pretty evident. Their own traditions record them to have come to their present lands by the way of the west, from a far distant country, and where there was no variegation of colour in human beings; and they are entirely ignorant which was the first or primitive colour. Besides, their rites, customs, &c. as we shall presently see, prove them to be orientalists: and, as the difference of colour among the human species, is one of the principal causes of separation, strife, and bloodshed, would it not greatly reflect on the goodness and justice of the Divine Being, ignominiously to brand numerous tribes and their posterity, with a colour odious and hateful in the sight and opinion of those of a different colour. Some writers have contended, from {2} the diversity of colour, that America was not peopled from any part of Asia, or of the old world, but that the natives were a separate creation. Of this opinion, is Lord Kames, and which he labours to establish in his late publication, entitled, Sketches of the History of Man. But his reasoning on this point, for a local creation, is contrary both to revelation, and facts. His chief argument, that “there is not a single hair on the body of any American, nor the least appearance of a beard,” is utterly destitute of foundation, as can be attested by all who have had any communication with them—of this more presently.[[2]]—Moreover, to form one creation of whites, a second creation for the yellows, and a third for the blacks, is a weakness, of which infinite wisdom is incapable. Its operations are plain, easy, constant, and perfect. The variegation therefore of colours among the human race, depends upon a second cause. Lord Kames himself acknowledges, that “the Spanish inhabitants of Carthagena in South-America lose their vigour and colour in a few months.”
We are informed by the anatomical observations of our American physicians, concerning the Indians, that they have discerned a certain fine cowl, or web, of a red gluey substance, close under the outer skin, to which it reflects the colour; as the epidermis, or outer skin, is alike clear in every different creature. And experience, which is the best medium to discover truth, gives the true cause why this corpus mucosum, or gluish web, is red in the Indians, and white in us; the parching winds, and hot sun-beams, beating upon their naked bodies, in their various gradations of life, necessarily tarnish their skins with the tawny red colour. Add to this, their constant anointing themselves with bear’s oil, or grease, mixt with a certain red root, which, by a peculiar property, is able alone, in a few years time, to produce the Indian colour in those who are white born, and who have even advanced to maturity. These metamorphoses I have often seen.
At the Shawano main camp[[III]], I saw a Pensylvanian, a white man by birth, and in profession a christian, who, by the inclemency of the sun, {3} and his endeavours of improving the red colour, was tarnished with as deep an Indian hue, as any of the camp, though they had been in the woods only the space of four years.
[III]. In the year 1747, I headed a company of the cheerful, brave Chikkasah, with the eagles tails, to the camp of the Shawano Indians, to apprehend one Peter Shartee, (a Frenchman) who, by his artful paintings, and the supine conduct of the Pensylvanian government, had decoyed a large body of the Shawano[Shawano] from the English, to the French, interest. But fearing the consequences, he went around an hundred miles, toward the Cheerake nation, with his family, and the head warriors, and thereby evaded the danger.
We may easily conclude then, what a fixt change of colour, such a constant method of life would produce: for the colour being once thoroughly established, nature would, as it were, forget herself, not to beget her own likeness.[[3]] Besides, may we not suppose, that the imagination can impress the animalculæ, in the time of copulation, by its strong subtile power, with at least such an external similitude, as we speak of?—The sacred oracles, and christian registers, as well as Indian traditions, support the sentiment;—the colour of Jacob’s cattle resembled that of the peeled rods he placed before them, in the time of conception. We have good authority of a Spanish lady, who conceived, and was delivered of a negro child, by means of a black picture that hung on the wall, opposite to the bed where she lay. There is a record among the Chikkasah Indians, that tells us of a white child with flaxen hair, born in their country, long before any white people appeared in that part of the world; which they ascribed to the immediate power of the Deity impressing her imagination in a dream. And the Philosophical Transactions assure us of two white children having been born of black parents. But waving all other arguments, the different method of living, connected with the difference of climates, and extraordinary anointings and paintings, will effect both outward and inward changes in the human race, all round the globe: or, a different colour may be conveyed to the fœtus by the parents, through the channel of the fluids, without the least variation of the original stamina. For, though the laws of nature cannot be traced far, where there are various circumstances, and combinations of things, yet her works are exquisitely constant and regular, being thereto impelled by unerring divine Wisdom.
As the American Indians are of a reddish or copper colour,—so in general they are strong, well proportioned in body and limbs, surprisingly active and nimble, and hardy in their own way of living.