Red Jacket, on the religion of the white man and the red race, is a marvel of eloquence. Then what shall we say of Tecumseh, the great Shawnee, as he delivered his famous talk to General Harrison, or Black Hawk, the captive, in his plea before General Street?
In dealing with the Seminole language we meet with long words and mammoth expressions. The Seminole greeting, “Ha-tee-eten-chee-hick-cha-hit-is-chay,” sounds formidable, yet it only means “Glad to see you.” These, with well-understood Indian phrases, such as “burying the tomahawk,” “going on the warpath,” we employ familiarly without a thought of the tribe we have dispossessed. The time for studying the aborigines of America will soon be over. Only remnants of the tribes remain among us. Old myths and customs are being displaced by new ones, and we can truly see that the red man’s inheritance is nearing the horizon of its destiny.
THE SEMINOLE’S RECESSIONAL.
When the last Seminole goes, he will in every sense be the last. He will leave no history; neither monument. His narrow path through the Savannah lasts no longer than the doe’s road to the ford of the stream. His race have had their joys, their triumphs and their defeats, and then been swept into oblivion.
Like the white plumed egret of the vast forests of the Everglades, he will pass, like the mist. As memories come up, we hear the faint rustle of the leaves and see the dusky forms of those ancient people as they glided through the leaf-carpeted aisles of the forests. We see the happy wigwam homes, gleaming in the red flames of the camp fire and hear the soft lullabies of the crooning mothers; the dusky hero of the chase returns game-laden from the hunt, and, in the picture, framed, as it were, by the boundaries of nature, we see long lines of moving life, the graceful forms of thousands of flying creatures, while the song of the forest minstrel hallows the wooded silence. It is the land of the Seminole.
Thou, Florida, with thy laughing waters and sunny skies, art the Seminole’s elysium. Thy spreading palms form the only canopy he desires. To part from thy loved scenes would be like separating from his kindred. No, under the shadows of the live oak and the magnolia has he lived, under their shadows let him die.
As the patient Seminole, with swelling heart “moves a little farther, and yet a little farther,” he goes not willingly, but with a sad heart and a slow step. Micanopy, when told by the officers that he might choose between emigration and death, answered, “Kill me here then, kill me quickly.” The same spirit is manifested by the Seminole to-day when he says, “We have never done anything to disgrace the land of our birth, nor the honor of an Indian. For fifty years the pledge to our great father has been kept inviolate. Our tongues are not forked and our feet tread not in the white man’s path. We threw away the rifle and grasped hands with the white skin. We know the white man’s power, and though we love peace, we fear not death. We will not leave the land of our birth. The Great Spirit loves his red children, and says to them, “Your bones must rest with the dust of your fathers.” Brothers, when the pale face came to the shores of our land, our fathers made him a fire from their flint rock to warm by, and gave him hominy to stay his hunger. Brothers, the Seminole wishes no harm to the white race, but his heart heaves and surges as it says, “Let us alone; let us alone. Though you slay us, you shall not move us.”
“A kingdom as full of people as hives are of bees,” wrote the first discoverer to King Ferdinand. Where are they now?