An opinion too generally shared, which regards the American Indian race as consisting of mere savages, almost inhuman in their ferocity and cruelty, and without a redeeming feature of any kind, is as untrue as it is unjust. They naturally possessed those characteristics shared by all unenlightened races of men who have been deprived of the elevating influences of civilization and a high code of ethics, but a careful study of their lives and history shows that, according to their enlightenment, they were actuated by many virtues which, in superior races, count for dignified manhood and nobility of mind. In personal bravery and courage they had few equals and yet they accepted conquest or punishment with a sublime fortitude and stoicism which scorned to ask for either life or pardon. Equality, freedom, and independence constituted the very atmosphere of their being and, in their dealings with their own race, the rights of each individual, and his personal freedom, were universally acknowledged. Judged from our modern standard the principles of morality which governed their lives, if of a lower order, were yet in keeping with their instincts and their environment, and they believed that “the crimes of the vicious were punished by the disgrace, contempt and danger they ensured for transgressors.”

When all that can be said against the Indians has been spoken it must be conceded that they embodied a pure and lofty patriotism, for which they fought and died like men and true patriots, and although they had to gradually yield up their possessions and their homes in the land they loved, and to recede and disappear before the advancing wave of civilization, yet, as De Forest says: “We may drop a tear over the grave of the race which has perished, and regret that civilization and Christianity have ever accomplished so little for its amelioration.”

In the somewhat severe words of Obed Macy, “Their only misfortune was their connection with Christians, and their only crime the imitation of their manners.”

In conclusion, I venture to make two suggestions, one a minor and the other a major one. Would it not be expedient and appropriate on the part of the Nantucketers to erect a tablet over the grave of “Dorcas,” the last of the aborigines? The residents of “the little purple island,” I think, owe so much to the memories associated with her vanished race.

Or, now that Nantucket is becoming, increasingly, year by year, a fashionable ocean-bound sea-resort, would it not be possible to carry out the suggestion made by an off-islander, as far back as 1881 at the Commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the death of Tristram Coffin, to erect by public subscription “a towering statue in dusky bronze, representing the venerable Indian Sachem, Wanackmamack, the tried and true friend of the original purchasers of the island?” The island certainly owes this illustrious Chief a debt of gratitude, for it was almost entirely due to his benign influences that the “silent people of the forest” and the strangers lived in peace and amity together, and thus expedited the dawn of civilization without an obstacle within its boundaries. I have spoken, and I leave these suggestions to the islanders for reflection, with every fond wish for their prosperity and success.

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