Some particulars in Mr. Tanner’s narrative will doubtless excite a degree of incredulity among such as have never attended particularly to the history and condition of the Indian tribes. Many will find their confidence in him much impaired, when he tells of prophetic dreams, and of the fulfilment of indications, and promises, necessarily implying the interference of invisible and spiritual beings. He will appear to some, weakly credulous—to others, stupidly dishonest;—so would any one among us, who should gravely relate tales, which the advance of education, and the general intelligence have, within two centuries, converted from established doctrines to “old wives fables.” To enforce this remark, we need not refer to the examples of Cotton Mather, and others of his times, not less renowned for human learning than for exemplary piety. The history of the human mind in all ages, and among all nations, affords abundant examples of credulity; closely resembling that which we feel disposed to ridicule or to pity in the savage. It may be of some importance toward a clear comprehension of the Indian character, to be assured that the powerful mind of our narrator, was at all times strongly influenced by a belief in the ubiquity, and frequent interpositions in the affairs of men, of an overruling Providence. His may have been a purer and more consistent Theism than that of many of his untaught companions, but in many important particulars his belief was the same as theirs. If he was less entirely than his Indian associates the dupe of those crafty prophets, who are constantly springing up among them; yet it will be found he had not, at all times, entire confidence in the decisions of his own mind, which taught him to despise their knavery, and to ridicule their pretensions. In all times of severe distress, or of urgent danger, the Indians, like other men, are accustomed to supplicate aid from superior beings, and they are often confident that a gracious answer has been granted to their petitions. This belief need not shock the pious; as it certainly will not appear in any respect remarkable to those who have accustomed themselves to close observance of the workings of the human mind, under all variations of circumstances. We believe there is nothing inconsistent with true religion, or sound reason, in supposing that the same Lord over all, is gracious unto all who worship him in sincerity. It will be manifest also that this inherent principle of religious feeling is made the instrument by which superior minds govern and influence the weaker. Among the Indians, as among all other races, from the times of the philosophic leader of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, to the present day, religion has been an engine in the hands of the few, who in virtue of intellectual or accidental superiority, assume the right to govern the many.
Doubtless many of the representations in the following narrative are somewhat influenced by peculiarities in the mental constitution, and the accidental circumstances of the narrator; yet making all admissible allowances, they present but a gloomy picture of the condition of uncivilized men. Having acquired some idea of those things considered most reprehensible among us, it would be surprising if he should not have felt some reluctance to giving an explicit detail of all his adventures, in a community whose modes of thinking are on many subjects so different from ours. Traits, which must in our estimation constitute great blemishes, he has freely confessed; whether other or greater faults remain undivulged is unknown; but it should not be forgotten, that actions considered among us not only reprehensible, but highly criminal, are among them accounted shining virtues. In no part of his narrative will he probably appear in a more unfavourable light than when he details his severity to an unfortunate captive girl, through whose negligence his lodge, and all his little property, was consumed by fire in the midst of winter. This kind of cruelty, as well as the abandonment of the sick, the aged, and the dying, practised so extensively by the Chippewyans, and other northern Indians, and more or less by all the tribes, remind us how much even in what seem spontaneous and natural courtesies, we owe to the influence of civilization. The conduct of the Indians in all these cases, however we may see fit to call it, is certainly not unnatural, being in strict and implicit obedience to that impulse of nature which prompts so irresistibly to self-preservation. How admirable is that complicated machinery which in so many instances avails to overcome and control this impulse—which postpones the interest, the happiness, or the life of the individual to the good of the associated whole!
The sketch which the following narrative exhibits of the evils and miseries of savage life, is probably free from exaggeration or distortion. Few will read it without some sentiments of compassion for a race so destitute, so debased, and hopeless; gladly would we believe it may have a tendency to call the attention of an enlightened and benevolent community to the wants of those who are sitting in darkness. In vain do we attempt to deceive ourselves, or others, into the belief that in whatever “relates to their moral condition and prospects, the Indians have been gainers by their intercourse with Europeans.”[1] Who can believe that the introduction of ardent spirits among them, “has added no new item to the catalogue of their crimes, nor substracted one from the list of their cardinal virtues?” Few, comparatively, have the opportunity, fewer have the inclination, to visit and observe the Indians in their remote haunts, or even on our immediate frontiers; all who have done so must be convinced that wherever, and for whatever purpose, the Indian and the white man come in contact, the former, in all that relates to his moral condition, is sure to become severely and irretrievably a sufferer. Every unbiased inquirer who will avail himself of the abundant means of information before the public will be convinced that during more than two hundred years, in despite of all the benevolent exertions of individuals, of humane associations, and of governments, the direct tendency of the intercourse between the two races has been the uniform and rapid depression and deterioration of the Indians.
Among the most active of the extraneous causes which have produced this conspicuous and deplorable change must be reckoned the trade for peltries which has been pushed among them from the earliest occupation of the country by the whites. The ensuing narrative will afford some views of the fur trade, such as it formerly existed in the northwest, such as it now exists throughout the territories claimed by the United States. These views are certainly neither those of a statesman, or a political economist, but they may be relied on as exhibiting a fair exposition of the influence of the trade upon the aborigines. Recently, the Indians in all that wide portion of North America occupied by the Hudson’s Bay Fur Company, have been, by the consolidation of two rival associations, relieved alike from the evils, and deprived of the advantages accruing from an active competition in the trade. Among other advantageous results supposed to be attained by this exclusion of competition one, and probably the most important, is the effectual check it interposes to the introduction of spirits into the Indian country. Even the clerks and agents stationed at the remote interior posts are forbidden to introduce the smallest quantity of spirit or wine among their private stores. This one measure, incalculably of more value than all that has been effected in times remote or recent, by the interference of governments or the exertions of benevolent associations, has originated in the prudent foresight, and well instructed love of gain of an association of merchants; and while it makes us fully acquainted with the views of those best informed in relation to the effect of the introduction of whiskey among the Indians, it shows the possibility of remedying this great evil.
In former times, when the whole of the northwest of our continent was open to the competition of rival traders, all the evils and all the advantages of the system at present existing in the United States territories were felt to the remotest and least accessible of those dreary regions. The Indian could probably in all instances realize a higher price for his peltries than he can hope to do at present. The means of intoxicating himself and his family were always to be had at some rate, and the produce of his hunt was artfully divided and disposed of in the manner which seemed to promise him the greatest share of this deadly indulgence. During the times of active competition, it was found accordingly that the fur bearing animals, and the race of native hunters, were hastening with equal and rapid strides towards utter extinction. The effect of a competitionary trade, managed as it will always be, in districts for the most part or wholly without the jurisdiction of the governments of civilized countries, upon the animals whose skins constitute the sole object of the visits of the traders, must be obvious. The vagrant and migratory habits of the Indians would render it impossible for any individual, or any association of men, to interrupt or even to check the destruction of animals, wherever they could be found. The rival trader was ever at hand to take advantage of any forbearance a prudent foresight might dictate. Thus it will appear that districts where game had existed in the greatest abundance, were in the course of a few years so stripped that the inhabitants could avoid starvation only by migrating to some less exhausted region. Wherever the Indians went, the traders were sure to follow as the wolves and buzzards follow the buffalo. But in the state of things at present existing in the north, the traders are represented to have entire control of the motions of the Indians. The most valuable part of the territories of the Hudson’s Bay Company is the forest country. With the Indians of the plains, who subsist almost entirely by hunting the buffalo, they concern themselves no further than to purchase such robes or other peltries as they may, on their visit to a post, offer for ready pay. The people of the plains having few possessions beside their horses, their bows and arrows, and their garments of skins, are so independent, and the animals they hunt of so little value to the traders, that they are left to pursue whatever course their own inclination may point out, and at present they never receive credits. With the forest Indians the case is quite different. Such is their urgent necessity for ammunition and guns, for traps, axes, woollen blankets, and other articles of foreign manufacture, that at the approach of winter, their situation is almost hopeless if they are deprived of the supplies they have so long been accustomed to receive. A consciousness of this dependance sufficed, even in times of competition, to some extent, but far more at present, to render them honest, and punctual in discharging the debts they had incurred. The practice of the traders now is, whenever they find the animals in any district becoming scarce, to withdraw their trading establishment, and by removing to some other part, make it necessary for the Indians to follow. Regions thus left at rest, are found to become, in a few years, in a great measure replenished with the fur-bearing animals. The two regulations by which the clerks and agents are forbid to purchase the skins of certain animals if killed before they have attained their full growth, and by which the use of traps, which destroy indiscriminately old and young, is interdicted, doubtless contribute essentially to the attainment of this important result. It cannot be otherwise, than that the moral condition of the hunter population in the north must be somewhat improved by the severe discipline which convenience and interest will equally prompt the Company possessing the monopoly to introduce and maintain; but whether this advantage will, in the event, counterbalance the effect of the rigid exactions to which the Indians may be compelled to submit, must be for time to determine.
It is manifest that plans of government adopted and enforced to subserve the purposes of the fur traders, will be framed with the design of keeping the Indians in a state of efficiency as hunters, and must thus in the end be directly opposed to all efforts to give them those settled habits that attachment to the soil, and that efficient industry, which must constitute the first step in their advance towards civilization. Such are the climate and soil of a great part of the country northward of the great lakes, as to render it extremely improbable that any other than a rude race of hunters will ever be found there; and for them, it would probably be in vain to hope for a milder government than such a kind of despotism as can be swayed by a company of traders. But within the country belonging to the United States are many rude tribes distributed at intervals through boundless forests, or along smiling and fertile plains, where it would seem that industry and civilization might be introduced. Here it is not probable that the fur trade can ever become a protected and exclusive monopoly; and since, while conducted as it is, and as it must continue to be, it is the most prolific sources of evil to the Indians, it may be allowed us, to look forward to the time when many among the remnants of the native tribes shall escape from its influence by becoming independent of the means of subsistence it offers them.
Some change may reasonably be supposed to have taken place in the course of two centuries in the sentiments of the European intruders towards their barbarous neighbours. In relative situation they have changed places. Those who are now powerful were then weak; those who now profess to offer protection, then looked with anxiety and trembling upon the superior strength of the race which has so soon perished from before them. In the early periods of our colonial history, the zeal of religious proselytism, and the less questionable spirit of true philanthropy, seem not to have availed, generally, to overcome the strong hatred of the savage race, produced by causes inseparable from the feeble and dependant condition of the colonies, and from the necessity which compelled our forefathers to become intruders upon the rightful possessions of the Indians. In the writings of the early historians, particularly of the Puritanical divines of New England, we find these people commonly described as a brutal and devil-driven race, wild beasts, bloodhounds, heathen demons; no epithet was considered too opprobrious, no execration too dire, to be pronounced against them.[2] It may be supposed, that in losing the power which made them formidable, they became less obnoxious to the hatred of the whites. Accordingly, we find that it was long since the fashion to profess much good will and compassion towards this ill-starred race. Some efforts have been made, and many more have been talked of for their civilization and for their conversion to the true religion. Here and there, a Penn has appeared among our statesmen; an Elliot or a Brainerd among our religionists—some have been incited by motives of pure benevolence, or by a love of natural justice, to labour perseveringly and faithfully in the work of reclaiming and benefiting the Indians. Could we trust implicitly to the statements of many who in our day write and speak on this subject, we might infer that the only sentiment influencing us, as a people, in our intercourse with our Indian neighbours, is an ardent desire for the promotion of their best interests. But if we estimate public sentiment by the surer criterion of public measures, we must admit that the present generation are seeking, with no less zeal and earnestness than their forefathers, the utter extermination of these bloody and idolatrous canaanites. The truth is, it has been, and still is, convenient to consider this a devil driven race, doomed by inscrutable destiny to sudden and entire destruction. This opinion accords well with the convenient dogma of the moral philosopher, who teaches that such as will make the best use of the soil, should drive out and dispossess those who, from ignorance or indolence, suffer it to remain uncultivated. It is of little importance to cavil at the injustice of such a course. The rule of vis major seems to be with almost equal force obligatory on both parties, and it would perhaps be now as impossible for us to avoid displacing the Indians, and occupying their country, as for them to prevent us.
The long agitated subject, of the “melioration of the condition of the Indians,” appears therefore to present two questions of primary importance: 1st. Can any thing be effected by our interference? 2d. Have we in our collective character, as a people, any disposition to interpose the least check to the downward career of the Indians? The last inquiry will be unhesitatingly answered in the negative by all who are acquainted with the established policy of our government in our intercourse with them. The determination evinced by a great part of the people, and their representatives, to extinguish the Indian title to all lands on this side the Mississippi—to push the remnants of these tribes into regions already filled to the utmost extent their means of subsistence will allow—manifests, more clearly than volumes of idle and empty professions, our intentions toward them. The vain mockery of treaties, in which it is understood, that the negotiation, and the reciprocity, and the benefits, are all on one side; the feeble and misdirected efforts we make for their civilization and instruction, should not, and do not, deceive us into the belief that we have either a regard for their rights, where they happen to come in competition with our interests, or a sincere desire to promote the cause of moral instruction among them. The efforts of charitable associations, originating as they do in motives of the most unquestionable purity, may seem entitled to more respectful notice; but we deem these efforts, as far as the Indians are concerned, equally misapplied, whether they be directed, as in the south, to drawing out from among them a few of their children, and giving them a smattering of “astronomy, moral philosophy, surveying, geography, history, and the use of globes,”[3] or as in the north, in educating the half breed children of fur traders and vagabond Canadians, in erecting workshops and employing mechanics in our frontier villages, or building vessels for the transportation of freight on the upper lakes. These measures may be well in themselves, and are doubtless useful; but let us not flatter ourselves that in doing these things we confer any essential benefit on the Indians. The Chocktaws and Chickasaws will not long retain such a knowledge of astronomy and surveying, as would be useful to guide their wanderings, or mete out their possessions in those scorched and sterile wastes to which it is our fixed intention to drive them. The giving to a few individuals of a tribe an education which, as far as it has any influence, tends directly to unfit them for the course of life they are destined to lead, with whatever intention it may be undertaken, is certainly far from being an act of kindness. If, while we give the rudiments of an education to a portion of their children, our selfish policy is thrusting back into a state of more complete barbarism the whole mass of the people, among whom we pretend to qualify them for usefulness, of what avail are our exertions, or our professions in their favour? We cannot be ignorant that in depriving the Indians of the means of comfortable subsistence, we take from them equally the power and the inclination to cultivate any of the branches of learning commonly taught them at our schools. Will the Indian youth who returns from the Mission school, after ten or fifteen years of instruction, be likely to become a better hunter, or a braver warrior, than those who have remained at home and been educated in the discipline of his tribe? Will he not rather find himself encumbered with a mass of learning necessarily as uncurrent, and as little valued among his rude companions, as would be a parcel of lottery tickets or bank notes? On this subject, as on many others, the Indians are qualified to make, and often do make, extremely just reflections. To say that they consider the learning of the whites of no value, would be to misrepresent them. On the contrary, they speak in terms of the highest admiration of some branches, particularly writing and reading, which, they say, enables us to know what is done at a distance, to recall with the greatest accuracy all that we or others have said in past times. But of these things they say, as of the religion of the whites, “they are not designed for us.” “The Great Spirit has given to you, as well as to us, things suited to our several conditions; He may have been more bountiful to you than to us; but we are not disposed to complain of our allotment.”
In relation to the other branch of this part of our subject, namely, the practicability of benefiting the Indians by our instructions, a few words may suffice. More than two hundred years have passed, during all which time it has been believed that systematic and thorough exertions were making to promote the civilization and conversion of the Indians. The entire failure of all these attempts ought to convince us, not that the Indians are irreclaimable, but that we ourselves, while we have built up with one hand, have pulled down with the other. Our professions have been loud, our philanthropic exertions may have been great, but our selfish regard to our own interest and convenience has been greater, and to this we ought to attribute the steady decline, the rapid deterioration of the Indians. We may be told of their constitutional indolence, their Asiatic temperament, destining them to be forever stationary, or retrogradent; but while remaining monuments and vestiges, as well as historical records of unquestionable authority, assure us that a few centuries ago they were, though rude, still a great, a prosperous, and a happy people; we ought not to forget that injustice and oppression have been most active among the causes which have brought them down to their present deplorable state. Their reckless indolence, their shameless profligacy, their total self-abandonment, have been the necessary consequences of the degradation and hopelessness of their condition.[4]