[163] Indians always address their equals as "brothers."
ARCHBISHOP SPALDING.[164]
The late Archbishop of Baltimore was an admirable type of a class of Catholics, hitherto containing but a small number of individuals, though not without considerable influence and importance in the history of the American Church. Those of our faith who have risen to the highest distinction in this country, either in the sacred ministry or in literature, have rarely been what we may call indigenous Catholics. By birth or by race they have either not been Catholics or not been Americans. Immigration and conquest are still the main dependence of the young church of the United States. What sort of fruit its own will be, when it comes into full bearing, the world has hardly had a chance to judge. Abp. Spalding may be taken, however, as a specimen. His ancestors for several generations were American, and, so far as the record goes, they were never anything but Catholics. They came from England to America in the early days of the Maryland colony, and were possibly among the two hundred families brought over by Lord Baltimore in 1634. They lived for nearly a century and a half in St. Mary's County, and thence Benedict Spalding, the grandfather of the Archbishop, moved to Kentucky in 1790. Benedict was the leader of a little colony of Catholics who left their native state to seek their fortunes together in the wilds of what was then the far West.
They settled in the valley of the Rolling Fork River, in Central Kentucky, not far from Bardstown, where another offshoot from the Maryland church had established itself a few years before. There Martin John Spalding was born, May 23, 1810.
"Kentucky," says his biographer, "was in that day covered with dense forests and tangled woods. There was scarcely a place in its whole territory that might be dignified with the name of village, and the only roads were the almost untrodden paths of the forest, on either side of which lines of blazed trees showed the traveller the route from point to point.
"The forests were filled with a luxuriant undergrowth, thickly interspersed with cane and briers, which the intertwining wild pea-vine wove into an almost impenetrable network; so that, in certain parts, the only way of getting from place to place was to follow the paths worn by the migrating buffalo and other wild beasts. The Indian still hunted on the 'Dark and Bloody Ground,' or prowled about the new settlements, ready to attack them whenever an opportunity was offered. It has been stated on good authority that, from 1783 to 1790, fifteen hundred persons were killed or made captive by the Indians in Kentucky, or in migrating thither.
"In 1794, the Indians appeared on the Rolling Fork, and killed a Catholic by the name of Buckman. This produced a panic in the little settlement, which caused many Catholics to move for a time to Bardstown, where the population was more dense. But Benedict Spalding remained at home, and the Indians disappeared without committing further outrage.
"The early emigrants to Kentucky had to endure all the hardships incident to pioneer life. Even the ordinary comforts were not to be had in the wilderness in which they had taken up their abode, and they not unfrequently suffered the want of the most indispensable necessaries. To obtain salt, they had to go to the Licks, travelling often many miles through a country infested by savages. They dwelt in rudely constructed log-cabins, the windows of which were without glass, whilst the floors were of dirt, or, in the better sort of dwellings, of rough hewn boards. After the clothing which they had brought from Virginia and Maryland became unfit for use, the men, for the most part, wore buckskin and the women homespun gowns. The furniture of the cabins was of an equally simple kind. Stools did the office of chairs, the tables were made of rough boards, whilst wooden vessels served instead of plates and chinaware. A tin cup was an article of luxury. The chase supplied abundance of food. All kinds of game abounded, and, when the hunter had his rifle and a goodly supply of ammunition, he was rich as a prince. This was the school in which was trained the Kentucky rifleman, whose aim on the battle-field was certain death. The game was plainly dressed and served up on wooden platters, and, with cornbread and hominy, it made a feast which the keen appetite of honest labor and free-heartedness thought good enough for kings."