The narrative of the siege of Detroit and the fate of the brave and able chief who conducted it have no connection with the subject of this work; but the incident of the preservation of the fort from Pontiac's ingenious plot is germane to the matter in hand. Had the Indians been successful in their scheme, it is not at all impossible that France would have made another attempt to maintain her footing in North America; and thus it might be said with some show of reason that Gladwyn's immorality was the cause of the consummation of British dominance in North America, and that an obscure Indian girl saved for England a possession which that country had bought at the price of some of her noblest blood.
But the sentiment that brought about the preservation of the defenders of Detroit, and thus perhaps determined the British title to dominance, was not the inspiration that led another Indian woman to direct the course of the white man in America, and in so doing to contribute largely to the work of subjugating the continent to his race. Sacajawea, the "Bird-woman," born in the mountain region dwelt in by the Shoshones, had been made captive, when a child, by the Blackfeet, the foes of her people, and by them sold into slavery. Her master and husband was Chabonneau, a French wanderer among the Indians. When Lewis and Clark, on their famous expedition, reached the Mandan villages, they found there the Frenchman and his Indian squaw, now a girl of sixteen, and hired them as interpreters and guides. With her lately-born papoose strapped to her back, this little woman's native dexterity proved invaluable to the explorers as they journeyed along the Upper Missouri in their canoes. Across the divide and into the mountains which were her native home the party moved, ever helped and encouraged by Sacajawea. Here, at length, difficulties seemingly too great to be overcome, faced the explorers, but the little squaw, recognizing in a valley they had reached the home from which she had been taken five years earlier, saved the turning back of the expedition. At last she was with her long-lost tribeswomen and winning these, their warriors were soon gathered about her. To them she spoke of the good intentions of the white man and her influence soon established friendship between the explorers and the Shoshones, and their safe conduct through the territory of the tribes was now assured and their way led to the Pacific.
Many incidents are told of the "Bird-woman's" skill, bravery, and fidelity during the long journey from the home of the Mandans to the shore of the Pacific and back to the point of starting. Of these mention may be made of her saving the valuable records and instruments of the explorers; of her sacrifice of a prized ornament to enable Lewis to secure a much desired otter skin; and of her giving to her hungry captain the piece of bread treasured to appease the hunger of her babe in an emergency. These traits of Sacajawea serve to present her as a woman of eminent personal worth, for much more than the acquired skill of her race or the energy born of a desire to revisit her childhood home is transparent in her actions on this memorable journey. Though in her social relation she held a degraded position, she displayed characteristics which place her in a lofty position as to qualities of mind and heart. Unconscious she was, of course, of the vast results which were to follow the expedition, to the success of which she so largely contributed, yet she accepted the mission of her captains and loyally furthered its accomplishment.
Before closing this brief and imperfect attempt to define the primitive and modified status of the Amerind woman it is necessary, that the sketch may have as much completeness as is possible, to cast a hurried glance at the present conditions of the women of the Indian tribes that remain to us.
While the first effects of the impinging civilization were most deleterious to the status and nature of the aboriginal woman, there came a time when, under conditions of comparative peace, there was ampler opportunity for the best of that civilization to prove that it really had a message for red men and women as well as white, though its first words had been so marred in the saying. It would not comport with tenderness for the good name of our country to set forth the wrongs suffered by the Indians at the hands of those who assumed a higher place in the scale of race; the story is written large for all those who care to read. Beneath the combined influences of tyranny, treachery, knavery, and every other crime that the whites could commit against them, together with the degrading effects of the existence which was forced on them and the pernicious results of the introduction of drunkenness as a racial vice, the Indians went from bad to worse, until in the majority of cases they became little better than mere savages. In this retrogression the status of the Indian woman participated, until in almost every tribe within the boundaries of our country she was reduced to the state of the merest beast of burden. Her lot became harder and harder, and was not even ameliorated by the consolations of any religious creed that held promise of better things to come. At last, though very slowly and very late in the history of the Amerinds, there dawned a day when equity began to take some place in our dealings with our red brethren, when there began some organized effort to show them that white civilization held some benefits even for them and that Christianity was something more than a theory. Even then, the efforts to improve the condition of the Indians were chiefly directed toward the education of the youths; for the girls and women there was but little consideration shown. At length, however, this field also was entered by some devoted men and women,--especially the latter,--and the Indian woman, with as much wonder as joy, found that she too was regarded as something better than a slave and brute, that she too was held as being worthy of education and the influences of refinement. Even yet, this message has not been borne to the majority of the women of the tribes, at least in effective manner; but the leaven has been placed in the lump. At first, the reclamation of the Indian woman from the degradation into which she had fallen was a disheartening work. By long years of maltreatment and neglect she had been rendered almost incapable of understanding that any other lot was possible for her; in many cases, her racial instincts and inherited education revolted against the new order of things which was proposed to her. With the apathy in degradation peculiar to primitive peoples, the Indian woman turned her face from civilization and would have none of it; she was not of it, and it was not for her. But a change of plan resulted in at least partial success. The attempt to teach and refine the elder women--the women who had years of experience of their racial conditions as a barrier to the appreciation of a different order of things--was largely abandoned, and the efforts toward amelioration were put forth for the education of the younger women. Even so, the effort has not yet met with satisfying success, but its results bear promise of the future.
Yet, the outlook is not bright; for the conditions which confront the Indian woman are still not favorable for the material betterment of her lot. Those who generalize with insufficient grasp of the premises are fond of saying that the Indian cannot bear civilization, that it is destructive to his health and morals; but they forget that no race has ever become suddenly civilized, even under the most favorable auspices. There is always the past history of that race as a controlling influence in the result; physical and social traditions must be reckoned with before the race can fully adapt itself to its new conditions and make the best of them. Unfortunately, all these traditions among the Amerind peoples are highly unfavorable to their acceptance of the civilization peculiar to the environment into which they have been forcibly brought; and this fact, together with the still persistent injustice of treatment which is meted out to them, has resulted in the physical deterioration of their race, until there now looms near the threat of extinction. In these racial conditions the Indian woman, of course, participates; and she has the further disadvantage of being compelled, in order to be able to make her own the best condition that is offered her, to effect a total change in her social relations with her own people. The Indian warrior can perhaps be brought to understand that for him better conditions are possible than those which have been his lot in times past; but it is well-nigh impracticable for him to grasp the truth that it is possible for his slave, his chattel, his beast of burden, to be aught, to herself or to him, than that which she has been almost for time immemorial. The tradition that woman is an inferior being has become so deeply merged into all his conceptions of sociology, that he cannot rid himself of it; and the woman is perforce compelled to accept this tradition, since she cannot traverse it by any appeal that he could understand.
Therefore, it would seem that the future of the Indian woman is not bright. Before she can shake herself free from the trammels of tradition and even superstition which now hold her down, it is probable that her race will have become practically extinct. Yet before that catastrophe it may well be that her lot will have been ameliorated, that she will have emerged from the degradation which even now is the condition of the greater part of her race and sex, that she will at least have regained the status which was hers before the encroachments of a new and more powerful civilization than that which she knew altered for the worse every condition of her existence. Even this is the less to be hoped for in that the Eastern tribes, which were most cultured in nearly all respects, have now fallen by the wayside in nearly all instances, while the remnants of the Western nations are less adapted to the reception of higher conditions, since they have behind them few or no traditions which make for the best tendencies in this wise. None can safely prophesy of this matter; but, while hope is always permissible, he would be a rash oracle who would foretell the establishment of the Amerind woman upon a plane befitting her sex or even the best traditions of her race.