JAMES BUCHANAN
President of the United States, 1857–61
While I was still a child I had seen this now aged warrior. At that time, five thousand Cherokees and Choctaws, passing west to their new reservations beyond the Mississippi, had rested in Tuscaloosa, where they camped for several weeks. The occasion was a notable one. All the city turned out to see the Indian youths dash through the streets on their ponies. They were superb horsemen and their animals were as remarkable. Many of the latter, for a consideration, were left in the hands of the emulous white youth of the town. Along the river banks, too, carriages stood, crowded with sight-seers watching the squaws as they tossed their young children into the stream that they might learn to swim. Very picturesque were the roomy vehicles of that day as they grouped themselves along the leafy shore of the Black Warrior, their capacity tested to the fullest by the belles of the little city, arrayed in dainty muslins, and bonneted in the sweet fashions of the time.
During that encampment a redman was set upon by some quarrelsome rowdies, and in the altercation was killed. Fearing the vengeance of the allied tribes about them, the miscreants disembowelled their victim, and, filling the cavity with rocks, sank the body in the river. The Indians, missing their companion, and suspecting some evil had befallen him, appealed to Governor C. C. Clay, who immediately uttered a proclamation for the recovery of the body. In a few days the crime and its perpetrators were discovered, and justice was meted out to them. By this prompt act Governor Clay, to whose wisdom is accredited by historians the repression of the Indian troubles in Alabama in 1835–’7, won the good-will of the savages, among whom was the great warrior, Apothleohola.
It was at ex-Governor Clay’s request I sent for the now aged brave. He gravely inclined his head when I asked him whether he remembered the Governor. I told him my father wished to know whether the chief Nea Mathla still lived and if the brave Apothleohola was happy in his western home. His sadness deepened as he answered, slowly, “Me happy, some!”
Before the close of his visit, Mr. Garrett, the interpreter, asked me if I would not talk Indian to his charge. “You must know some!” he urged, “having been brought up in an Indian country!”
I knew three or four words, as it happened, and these I pronounced, to the great chief’s amusement; for, pointing his finger at me he said, with a half-smile, “She talk Creek!”
A few days after this memorable call, I happened into the house of Harper & Mitchell, then a famous drygoods emporium in the capital, just as the old warrior was beginning to bargain, and I had the pleasure and entertainment of assisting him to select two crêpe shawls which he purchased for his daughters at one hundred dollars apiece!
It was my good fortune to witness the arrival of the Japanese Embassy, which was the outcome of Commodore Perry’s expedition to the Orient. The horticulturist of the party, Dr. Morrow, of South Carolina, was a frequent visitor to my parlours, and upon his return from the East regaled me with many amusing stories of his Eastern experiences. A special object of his visit to Japan was to obtain, if possible, some specimens of the world-famous rice of that country, with which to experiment in the United States. Until that period our native rice was inferior; but, despite every effort made and inducement offered, our Government had been unable to obtain even a kernel of the unhusked rice which would germinate.
During his stay in the Orient, Dr. Morrow made numberless futile attempts to supply himself with even a stealthy pocketful of the precious grain, and in one instance, he told us, remembering how Professor Henry had introduced millet seed by planting so little as a single seed that fell from the wrappings of a mummy,[[11]] he had offered a purse of gold to a native for a single grain; but the Japanese only shook his head, declining the proposition, and drew his finger significantly across his throat to indicate his probable fate if he were to become party to such commerce.
On the arrival of the Japanese embassy in Washington, to the doctor’s delight, it was found that among the presents sent by the picturesque Emperor of Japan to the President of the United States was a hogshead of rice. Alas! the doctor’s hopes were again dashed when the case was opened, for the wily donors had carefully sifted their gift, and, though minutely examined, there was not in all the myriad grains a single kernel in which the germinal vesicle was still intact!