I have already before taken notice[210] of the assertion which our aborigines do not hesitate to make, that before the Europeans landed in those parts of the American continent, they were unacquainted with that shameful disorder which attacks generation in its sources. I am well aware that this complaint is generally believed to have been communicated by the new world to the old. I do not know upon what proofs this opinion rests, but I am disposed to give credit to the uniform assertion of our northern Indians, that this contagion was first introduced among them by emigrants from Europe. However it may be, it is a lamentable fact that they are now very generally infected with it, and that their population cannot long resist its destructive operation upon their once strong and healthy constitutions, particularly as it is associated with the abuse of strong liquors, now so prevalent among them.
Of the manner in which they have acquired this latter vice, I presume there can be no doubt. They charge us in the most positive manner with being the first who made them acquainted with ardent spirits, and what is worse, with having exerted all the means in our power to induce them to drink to excess. It is very certain that the processes of distillation and fermentation are entirely unknown to the Indians, and that they have among them no intoxicating liquors but such as they receive from us. The Mexicans have their Pulque, and other indigenous beverages of an inebriating nature, but the North American Indians, before their intercourse with us commenced, had absolutely nothing of the kind. The smoke of the American weed, tobacco, was the only means that they at that time had in use to produce a temporary exhilaration of their spirits.
I have related in a former chapter,[211] the curious account given by the Delawares and Mohicans of the scene which took place when they were first made to taste spirituous liquors by the Dutch who landed on New York Island. I have no doubt that this tradition is substantially founded on fact. Indeed, it is strongly corroborated by the name which, in consequence of this adventure, those people gave at the time to that island, and which it has retained to this day. They called it Manahachtanienk, which in the Delaware language, means “the island where we all became intoxicated.” We have corrupted this name into Manhattan, but not so as to destroy its meaning, or conceal its origin. The last syllable which we have left out is only a termination, implying locality, and in this word signifies as much as where we. There are few Indian traditions so well supported as this.
How far from that time the dreadful vice of intoxication has increased among those poor Indians, is well known to many Christian people among us. We may safely calculate on thousands who have perished by the baneful effect of spirituous liquors. The dreadful war which took place in 1774 between the Shawanese, some of the Mingoes, and the people of Virginia, in which so many lives were lost, was brought on by the consequences of drunkenness. It produced murders, which were followed by private revenge, and ended in a most cruel and destructive war.
The general prevalence of this vice among the Indians is in a great degree owing to unprincipled white traders, who persuade them to become intoxicated that they may cheat them the more easily, and obtain their lands or[212] peltries for a mere trifle. Within the last fifty years, some instances have even come to my knowledge of white men having enticed Indians to drink, and when drunk, murdered them. The effects which intoxication produces upon the Indians are dreadful. It has been the cause of an infinite number of murders among them, besides biting off noses and otherwise disfiguring each other, which are the least consequences of the quarrels which inebriation produces between them. I cannot say how many have died of colds and other disorders, which they have caught by lying upon the cold ground, and remaining exposed to the elements when drunk; others have lingered out their lives, in excruciating rheumatic pains and in wasting consumptions, until death came to relieve them from their sufferings.
Reflecting Indians have keenly remarked, “that it was strange that a people who professed themselves believers in a religion revealed to them by the great Spirit himself; who say that they have in their houses the Word of God, and his laws and commandments textually written, could think of making a beson,[213] calculated to bewitch people and make them destroy one another.” I once asked an Indian at Pittsburgh, whom I had not before seen, who he was? He answered in broken English: “My name is Black-fish; when at home with my nation, I am a clever fellow, and when here, a hog.” He meant that by means of the liquor which the white people gave him, he was sunk down to the level of that beast.
An Indian who had been born and brought up at Minisink, near the Delaware Water Gap, and to whom the German inhabitants of that neighbourhood had given the name of Cornelius Rosenbaum, told me near fifty years ago, that he had once, when under the influence of strong liquor, killed the best Indian friend he had, fancying him to be his worst avowed enemy. He said that the deception was complete, and that while intoxicated, the face of his friend presented to his eyes all the features of the man with whom he was in a state of hostility. It is impossible to express the horror with which he was struck when he awoke from that delusion; he was so shocked, that he from that moment resolved never more to taste of the maddening poison, of which he was convinced that the devil was the inventor; for it could only be the evil spirit who made him see his enemy when his friend was before him, and produced so strong a delusion on his bewildered senses, that he actually killed him. From that time until his death, which happened thirty years afterwards, he never drank a drop of ardent spirits, which he always called “the Devil’s blood,” and was firmly persuaded that the Devil, or some of his inferior spirits had a hand in preparing it.
Once in my travels, I fell in with an Indian and his son; the former, though not addicted to drinking, had this time drank some liquor with one of his acquaintances, of which he now felt the effects. As he was walking before me, along the path, he at once flew back and aside, calling out, “O! what a monstrous snake!” On my asking him where the snake lay, he pointed to something and said, “Why, there, across the path!” “A snake!” said I, “it is nothing but a black-burnt sapling, which has fallen on the ground.” He however would not be persuaded; he insisted that it was a snake, and could be nothing else; therefore, to avoid it, he went round the path, and entered it again at some distance further. After we had travelled together for about two hours, during which time he spoke but little, we encamped for the night. Awaking about midnight, I saw him sitting up smoking his pipe, and appearing to be in deep thought. I asked him why he did not lay down and sleep? To which he replied, “O! my friend! many things have crowded on my mind; I am quite lost in thought!”
Heckew. “And what are you thinking about?”
Indian. “Did you say it was not a snake of which I was afraid, and which lay across the path?”