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Difficulties resulting from a false impression of the Indian
character--Treaty with the Saginaws--Ottawas of Grand River
establish themselves in a colony in Barry County--Payments to the
Ottawas of Maumee, Ohio--Temperance--Assassination of young Aitkin
by an Indian at Leech Lake--Mackinack mission abandoned--Wyandots
complain of a trespass from a mill-dam--Mohegans of Green Bay apply
for aid on their way to visit Stockbridge, Mass.--Mohegan
traditions--Historical Society--Programme of a tour in the
East--Parental disobedience--Indian treaties--Dr. Warren's
Collection of Crania--Hebrew language--Geology--"Goods offer"--Mrs.
Jameson--Mastodon's tooth in Michigan--Captain Marryatt--The
Icelandic language--Munsees--Speech of Little Bear Skin chief, or
Mu-konsewyan.
OFFICE INDIAN AFFAIRS, DETROIT.
1837. Jan. 5th. Difficulties are reported as existing between
a party of Indians (of about fifteen souls) of Bobish, and the
settlers of Coldwater, Branch county, (township 8, S. range, 5
west.) About forty families have settled there within the last fall
and summer. The Indians, who have been in the habit of making sugar
and hunting on the public lands, are disposed not to relinquish
these privileges, probably not understanding fully their right.
Mutual threats have passed, which are repeated by Thomas G. Holden,
who requests the interposition of the Department.
Settlers generally move into the new districts with strong
prejudices against the Indians, whom they regard, mistakingly, as
thirsting for blood and plunder. It only requires a little
conciliation, and proper explanations, as in this case, to induce
them at once to adopt the proper course.
14th. Articles of a new treaty were this day signed at my
office, by the Saginaw chiefs, for the sale of all their
reservations in Michigan. These reservations were made under the
treaty of September 24th, 1819. They were ceded by them at
Washington, in the spring of 1836, but the terms, and particularly
the advance of money stipulated to be made, were deemed too liberal
by the Senate, and, in consequence, the treaty was rejected. The
object is now attained in a manner which, it is hoped, will prove
satisfactory. By this, as the former treaty, this tribe are allowed
the entire proceeds of the sale of their lands.
20th. Rev. Mr. Slater reports that the Ottawas of Grand
River, who were parties to the treaty of 28th of March, have
purchased lands in Barry county for the $6,400 allowed by the ninth
article of the treaty, in trust for Chiminonoquet; and that a
mission has been established on the lands purchased, which is called
Ottawa Colony. Difficulties have occurred with pre-emption claimants
in the same lands.
31st. Captain Simonton reports the payment of the annuity,
amounting to $1,700, due to the Ottawas of Maumee, Ohio. The entire
number of persons paid by him was four hundred and thirty-three,
dividing a fraction under $4 per soul. In these payments old and
young fare alike. Henry Connor, Esq., the interpreter present,
confirms the report of the equal division, per capita, among
the Indians, and the satisfaction which attended the payment, on
their part.
Feb. 1st. Delivered an address at the Presbyterian Church,
before a crowded audience, on the temperance movement, showing that
the whole question to be decided was, in which class of moderate
drinkers men elected themselves to be arranged, and that ardent
spirits, as a beverage, were wholly unnecessary to a healthy
constitution.
Transmitted to Mr. Palfrey a review of Mr. Gallatin's "Synopsis of
the Indian Tribes of America."
Feb. 1st. Mr. William A. Aitkin writes from Sandy Lake:
"Since I left you at St. Peter's I have had a severe trial to go
through. I came up by Swan River, but heard nothing there of the
melancholy event which had taken place during my absence at Upper
Red Cedar Lake. My eldest son had been placed at that place last
fall, in charge of that post. You saw him, I believe, last summer;
he was in charge of Leech Lake when you were at that place. He was a
young man of twenty-two years of age, of a very amiable temper,
humane and brave, possessed of the most unbounded obedience to my
will, and of the most filial affection for my person. This, my son,
was murdered in the most atrocious manner by a bloody monster of an
Indian. My poor boy had arrived the evening previous to the bloody
act, from a voyage to Red Lake. Early the next morning he sent off
all the men he had to Lake Winnipeck, excepting one Frenchman, to
bring up some things which he had left there in the fall. A short
time after his men had gone, he sent the remaining man to bring some
water from the river; the man returned into the house immediately,
and told him an Indian had broken open the store, and was in it. He
went very deliberately to the store, took hold of the villain, who
tried to strike him with his tomahawk, dragged him out of the store
and disarmed him of his axe, threw him on the ground, and then let
him go--and was turned round in the act of locking the store-door.
The villain stepped behind the door, where he had hid his gun, came
on him unawares and shot him dead, without the least previous
provocation whatever on the part of my poor lost boy. When arrived,
I found the feelings of every one prepared for vengeance. I
immediately, without one moment's loss of time, proceeded to Leech
Lake. In a moment there were twenty half-breeds gathered round, with
Francis Brunette at their head, full-armed, ready to execute any
commands that I should give them. We went immediately to the camp
where the villain was, beyond Red Cedar Lake, determined to cut off
the whole band if they should raise a finger in his defence. Our
mutual friend, Mr. Boutwell, joined the party, with his musket on
his shoulder, as a man and a Christian, for he knew it was a
righteous cause, and that the arm of God was with him. We arrived on
the wretches unawares, disarmed the band, and dragged the monster
from his lodge. I would have put the villain to death in the midst
of his relations, but Mr. Boutwell advised it would be better to
take him where he might be made an example of. The monster escaped
from us two days after we had taken him, but my half-breeds pursued
him for six days and brought him back, and he is now on his way to
St. Peter's in irons, under a strong guard. My dear friend, I cannot
express to you the anguish of my heart at this present moment.
"The Indians of all this department have behaved like villains
during my absence, particularly the Indians of Leech Lake,
committing the greatest depredations on our people, and would surely
have murdered them if they had shown the least disposition to resist
their aggravations. You will excuse me from giving you any other
news at present. I'm not in a state of mind to do it."
Feb. 3d. Rev. David Green, of Boston, communicates the
determination of the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to
break up and abandon the school and mission at Mackinack. This
decision I have long feared, and cannot but deplore. The school is
large, and the education of many of the pupils is such that in a few
years they would make useful practicable men and women, and carry a
Christian influence over a wide circle. By dispersing them now the
labor is to some extent lost.
6th. Received, a vote of thanks of the Detroit Total
Abstinence Society, for my temperance address of the 1st instant,
which is courteously called "elegant and appropriate." So, ho!
22d. A party of Wyandots from the River Huron, of Michigan,
visited the office. They complain that trespasses are committed by
settlers on the lands reserved to them. The trespasses arise from
the construction of mill-dams, by which their grounds are
overflowed. They asked whether they hold the reservation for fifty
years or otherwise. I replied that they hold them, by the terms of
the treaty, as long as they shall have any posterity to live on the
lands. They only escheat to the United States in failure of this.
But that I would send an agent to inquire into the justice of their
complaint, and to redress it.
24th. Robert Kankapot presents himself with about twenty
followers. He is a Stockbridge Indian of Green Bay, Wisconsin, on
his way to the East. He is short of funds, and asks for relief. No
annuity or other funds are payable, at this office, to this tribe. I
deemed his plea, however, a reasonable one, and loaned him
personally one hundred dollars.
I detained him with some historical questions. He says he is
sixty-four years of age, that he was born in Stockbridge, on the
head of the Housatonic River, in Massachusetts. From this town they
take their present name. They are, however, the descendants of the
ancient Mohegans, who lived on the sea coast and in the Hudson
Valley. They were instructed by the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, the
eminent theologian, who was afterwards president of Princeton
College. Their first migration was into New Stockbridge, in Oneida
County, New York, where the Oneida tribe assigned them lands. This
was about the era of the American Revolution. They next went, about
1822, to Fox River of Green Bay, where they now reside. Their oldest
chief, at that point, is Metoxon, who is now sixty-nine.
He says his remote ancestry were from Long Island (Metoacs), and
that Montauk means great sea island. (This does not appear probable
philologically.) He says the opposite coast, across the East River,
was called Monhautonuk. He afterwards, the next day, said
that Long Island was called Paum-nuk-kah-huk.
March 1st. To a friend abroad I wrote: "I have written during
the winter an article on Mr. Gallatin's recently published paper on
the Indian languages, entitled A Synopsis of the Indian Tribes,
which is published by the American Antiquarian Society. It was with
great reluctance that I took up the subject, and when I did, I have
been so complete a fact hunter all my life, that I found it as
difficult to lay it down. The result is probably an article too long
for ninety-nine readers out of a hundred, and too short for the
hundredth man."
8th. Mr. Palfrey acknowledges the safe arrival of my article
for the North American Review.
The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions decline
$6000 for the abandoned missionary house at Mackinack, offered under
the view of its being converted into a dormitory for receiving
Indian visitors at that point under the provisions of the treaty of
1836.
17th. Received a letter of thanks from old Zachariah Chusco,
the converted Jos-sa-keed, for kindness.
23d Received a commission from Gov. Mason, appointing me a
regent of the University of Michigan.
22d. The Historical Society of Michigan hold their annual
meeting at my office. In the election for officers I was honored by
being selected its President. A deep interest in historical letters
had been manifested by this institution since its organization in
1828, particularly in the history of the aboriginal tribes, and
means have been put on foot for the collection of facts. To these,
the recent and extraordinary settlement of the country by emigration
from the Bast, has added a new branch of inquiry, respecting town,
county, and neighborhood settlements. Much of this is held in the
memory of old persons, and will be lost if not gleaned up and
preserved in the shape of narratives. Resolutions for this purpose
were adopted, and an appeal made to the legislature to facilitate
the collection of pamphlets and printed documents. Men live so
rapidly now that few think of posterity; society hastens at a
horse's pace, and we pass over so large a surface in so short a
time, that the historian and antiquarian will stand aghast, in a few
years, and exclaim "would that more minute facts were within our
reach!"
23d. The Department at Washington instructs me to examine
additional and unsatisfied claims arising under the 5th article of
the treaty of March 28th, 1836, and, after submitting them to the
Indians, to report them for payment.
28th. Very different are the diurnal scenes enacted from
those which passed before my eyes at the ice-closed post of
Mackinack last winter. Yet in one respect they are entitled to have
a similar effect on my mind; it is in the craving that exists to
fill the intervals of business with some moral and intellectual
occupation that may tend to relieve it of the tedium of long periods
of leisure. When a visitor is dismissed, or a transaction is
settled, and the door closes on a man habituated to mental labor,
the ever-ready inquiry is, What next? To sit still--to do nothing
absolutely but to turn over the thoughts of other men, though this
be a privilege, is not ultimate happiness. There is still a void,
which the desire to be remembered, or something else, must fill.
31st. Gen. Cass writes from Paris that he is on the eve of
setting out, with his family, for the Levant, to embark on a tour to
the East, to visit the ancient seats of oriental power. "We proceed
directly to Toulon, where we shall embark on board the frigate
Constitution. From thence we touch at Leghorn, Civita Vecchia,
Naples, and Sicily, and then proceed to Alexandria. After seeing
Cairo, the Pyramids, Memphis, and, I hope, the Red Sea, we shall
proceed to Palestine, look at Jerusalem, see the Dead Sea, and other
interesting places of Holy Writ, pass by and touch at Tyre and Sidon,
land at Beyrout, and visit Damascus and Baalbec, and probably
Palmyra; touch at Smyrna, proceed to Constantinople and the Black
Sea, and then to Greece, &c.; after that to the islands of the
Archipelago, then up the Adriatic to Venice and Trieste, and thence
return to this place. So, you see, here is the programme of a pretty
good expedition, certainly a very interesting one."
April 6th. By letters received from Albany, a singular
chapter of the inscrutable course and awards of Providence for
parental disobedience and youthful deception is revealed. Alfredus,
who departed from my office in Detroit early in March last, to
receive a warrant as a cadet at West Point, has not appeared among
his friends. He was a young man of good mind, figure, and address,
and would doubtless have justified the judgment of his friends in
giving him a military education. His father had been one of the
patriots of 1776, and served on the memorable field of Saratoga. But
the young man was smitten with the romance of going to Texas and
joining the ranks of that country, striving for a rank among
nations. This secret wish he carefully concealed from me, and,
setting out with the view of returning to his father's roof, and
solacing his age by entering the military academy, he secretly took
the stage to Columbus, Ohio. Thence he pushed his way to New Orleans
and Galveston. The next intelligence received of him, was a careful
measurement of his length, by unknown hands, and the statement that,
in ascending the Brazos, he had taken the fever and died.
10th. Issued notice to claimants for Indian debts, under the
5th article of the treaty of March 28th, 1886; that additional
claims would be considered, and that such claims, with the evidence
in support of them, must be produced previous to the first of June
next.
26th. Received notice of my election as a corresponding
member of the Hartford Natural History Society, Connecticut.
I have filled the pauses of official duty, during the season, by
preparing for the press the oral legends which have been gleaned
from the Indians since my residence at Sault St. Marie, in the basin
of Lake Superior, and at Michilimackinack, under the name of
Algic Researches, vol. i.
This site includes some historical
materials that may imply negative stereotypes reflecting the culture or language
of a particular period or place. These items are presented as part of the
historical record and should not be interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in
any way endorse the stereotypes implied.
Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the
Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers, 1851
Thirty
Years with the Indians |
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