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I determined this day to close the house, and, leaving the
furniture standing, we took refuge at Mr. Johnston's. Idolatry such
as ours for a child, was fit to be rebuked, and the severity of the
blow led me to take a retrospect of life, such as it is too common
to defer, but, doubtless, wise to entertain. Why Providence should
have a controversy with us for placing our affections too deeply on
a sublunary object, is less easy at all times to reconcile to our
limited perceptions than it is to recognize in holy writ the
existence of the great moral fact. "I will be honored," says
Jehovah, "and my glory will I not give to another." It is clear that
there is a mental assent in our attachments, in which the very
principle of idolatry is involved. If so, why not give up the point,
and submit to the dispensations of an inevitable and far-seeing
moral government, of affairs of every sort, with entire resignation
and oneness of purpose? How often has death drawn his dart fatally
since Adam fell before it, and how few of the millions on millions
that have followed him have precisely known why, or been
entirely prepared for the blow! To me it seems that it has been
the temper of my mind to fasten itself too strongly on life and all
its objects; to hope too deeply and fully under all circumstances;
to grapple, as it were, in its issues with as "hooks of steel," and
never to give up, never to despair; and this blow, this bereavement,
appears to me the first link that is broken to loosen my hold on
this sublunary trust. My thoughts, three years ago, were turned
strongly, and with a mysterious power, to this point, namely, my
excessive ardor of earthly pursuits, of men's approbation. Here,
then, if these reflections be rightly taken, is the second
admonition. Such, at least, has been the current of my thoughts
since the 13th of the present month, and they were deeply felt when
I took my Bible, the first I ever owned or had bought with my own
money, and requested that it might be placed as the basis of the
little pillow that supported the head of the lifeless child in his
coffin.
April 30th. A progress in territorial affairs, in the upper
lakes, seems to have commenced; but it is slow. Emigrants are
carried further south and west. Slow as it is, however, we flatter
ourselves it is of a good and healthy character. The lower peninsula
is filling up. My letters, during this spring, denote this. Our
county organization is complete. Colonel McKenney, on the 10th,
apprises me that he is coming north, to complete the settlement of
the Indian boundary, began in 1825, at Prairie du Chien, and that
his sketches of his tour of last year is just issued from the press.
He adds, "It is rather a ladies' book. I prefer the sex and their
opinions. They are worth ten times as much as we, in all that is
enlightened, and amiable, and blissful." Undoubtedly so! This is
gallant. I conclude it is a gossiping tour; and, if so, it will
please the sex for whom it is mainly intended. But will not the
graver male sex look for more? Ought not an author to put himself
out a little to make his work as high, in all departments, as he
can?
Governor C. informs me (April 10th) that he will proceed to Green
Bay, to attend the contemplated treaty on the Fox River, and that I
am expected to be there with a delegation of the Chippewas from the
midlands, on the sources of the Ontonagon, Wisconsin, Chippewa, and
Menominie rivers.
Business and science, politics and literature, curiously mingle, as
usual, in my correspondence. Mr. M. Dousman (April 10) writes that a
knave has worried him, dogged his heels away from home, and sued
him, at unawares. Mr. Stuart (April 15) writes about the election of
members of council. Dr. Paine, of New York, writes respecting
minerals.
May 10th. An eminent citizen of Detroit thus alludes to my
recent bereavement: "We sympathize with you most sincerely, in the
loss you have sustained. We can do it with the deeper interest, for
we have preceded you in this heaviest of all calamities. Time will
soothe you something, but the solace of even time will yet leave too
much for the memory and affections to brood over."
Another correspondent, in expressing his sympathies on the occasion
says: "The lines composed by Mrs. Schoolcraft struck me with such
peculiar force, as well in regard to the pathos of style, as the
singular felicity of expression, that I have taken the liberty to
submit them for perusal to one or two mutual friends. The G---- has
advised me to publish them."
14th. National boundary, as established by the treaty of
Ghent. Major Delafield, the agent, writes: "Our contemplated
expedition, however, is relinquished, by reason of instructions from
the British government to their commissioners. It had been agreed to
determine the par. of lat. N. 49 deg., where it intersects the Lake
of the Woods and the Red River. But the British government, for
reasons unknown to us, now decline any further boundary operations
than those provided for under the Ghent treaty.
"We have been prevented closing the 7th article of that treaty, on
account of some extraordinary claims of the British party. They
claim Sugar, or St. George's Island, and inland, by the St. Louis,
or Fond du Lac. Both claims are unsupported by either reason,
evidence, or anything but their desire to gain something. We, of
course, claim Sugar Island, and will not relinquish it under any
circumstances. We also claim inland by the Kamanistiquia, and have
sustained this claim by much evidence. The Pigeon River by the Grand
Portage will be the boundary, if our commissioners can come to any
reasonable decision. If not, I have no doubt, upon a reference, we
shall gain the Kamanistiquia, if properly managed; the whole of the
evidence being in favor of it."
ORNITHOLOGY.--An Indian boy brought me lately, the stuffed skin of a
new species of bird, which appeared early in the spring at one of
the sugar camps near St. Mary's. "We are desirous," he adds, "to see
the Fringilla, about which you wrote me some time ago."
NATIVE COPPER.--"The copper mass is safe, and the object of
admiration in my collection. Baron Lederer is shortly expected from
Austria, when he will, no doubt, make some proposition concerning
it, which I will communicate."
29th. Many letters have been received since the 13th of
March, offering condolence in our bitter loss; but none of them,
from a more sincere, or more welcome source, than one of this date
from the Conants, of New York.
June 3d. Mr. Carter (N.H.) observes, in a letter of this
date: "If there be any real pleasure arising from the acquisition of
reputation, it consists chiefly in the satisfaction of proving
ourselves worthy of the confidence reposed in our talents and
characters, and in the strengthening of those ties of friendship
which we are anxious to preserve."
8th. Mr. Robert Stuart says, in relation to our recent
affliction: "Once parents, we must make up our minds to submit to
such grievous dispensations, for, although hard, it may be for the
best."
I embarked for Green Bay, to attend the treaty of Butte des Morts
early in June, taking Mrs. S. on a visit to Green Bay, as a means of
diverting her mind from the scene of our recent calamity. At
Mackinac, we met the steamboat Henry Clay, chartered to take the
commissioners to the bay, with Governor Cass, Colonel McKenney, and
General Scott on board, with a large company of visitors, travelers
and strangers, among them, many ladies. We joined the group, and had
a pleasant passage till getting into the bay, where an obstinate
head wind tossed us up and down like a cork on the sea.
Sea-sickness, in a crowded boat, and the retching of the waves, soon
turned everything and every one topsy-turvy; every being, in fine,
bearing a stomach which had not been seasoned to such tossings among
anchors and halyards, was prostrate. At last the steamer itself, as
we came nearer the head of the bay, was pitched out of the right
channel and driven a-muck. She stuck fast on the mud, and we were
all glad to escape and go up to the town of Navarino in boats. After
spending some days here in an agreeable manner, most of the party,
indeed nearly all who were not connected with the commission,
returned in the boat, Mrs. S. in the number, and the commissioners
soon proceeded up the Fox River to Butte des Morts. Here
temporary buildings of logs, a mess house, etc., were constructed,
and a very large number of Indians were collected. We found the
Menomonies assembled in mass, with full delegations of the midland
Chippewas, and the removed bands of Iroquois and Stockbridges, some
Pottowattomies from the west shores of Lake Michigan, and one hand
of the Winnebagoes. Circumstances had prepared this latter tribe for
hostilities against the United States. The replies of the leading
chief, Four-Legs, were evasive and contradictory; in the meantime,
reports from the Wisconsin and the Mississippi rivers denoted this
tribe ripe for a blow. They had fired into a boat descending the
Mississippi, at Prairie du Chien, and committed other outrages.
General Cass was not slow to perceive or provide the only remedy for
this state of things, and, leaving the camp under the charge of
Colonel McKenney and the agents, he took a strongly manned light
canoe, and passed over to the Mississippi, and, pushing night and
day, reached St. Louis, and ordered up troops from Jefferson
Barracks, for the protection of the settlement. In this trip, he
passed through the centre of the tribe, and incurred some
extraordinary risks. He then returned up the Illinois, and through
Lake Michigan, and reached the Butte des Morts in an
incredibly short space of time. Within a few days, the Mississippi
settlements were covered; the Winnebagoes were overawed, and the
business of the treaty was resumed, and successfully concluded on
the 11th of August.
During the long assemblage of the Indians on these grounds, I was
sitting one afternoon, in the Governor's log shanty, with the doors
open, when a sharp cry of murder suddenly fell on our ears. I sprang
impulsively to the spot, with Major Forsyth, who was present. Within
fifty yards, directly in front of the house, stood two Indians, who
were, apparently, the murderers, and a middle aged female, near
them, bleeding profusely. I seized one of them by his long black
hair, and, giving him a sudden wrench, brought him to his back in an
instant, and, placing my knees firmly on his breast, held him there,
my hand clenched in his hair. The Major had done something similar
with the other fellow. Inquiry proved one of these men to be the
perpetrator of the deed. He had drawn his knife to stab his
mother-in-law, she quickly placed her arms over her breast and chest
and received the wounds, two strokes, in them, and thus saved her
life. It was determined, as her life was saved, though the wounds
were ghastly, to degrade the man in a public assemblage of all the
Indians, the next day, by investing him with a petticoat, for
so unmanly an act. The thing was, accordingly, done with great
ceremony. The man then sneaked away in this imposed matchcota,
in a stolid manner, slowly, all the Indians looking stedfastly, but
uttering no sound approvingly or disapprovingly.
I embraced the opportunity of the delay created by the Winnebago
outbreak, and the presence of the Stockbridges on the treaty ground,
to obtain from them some outlines of their history and language.
Every day, the chiefs and old men came to my quarters, and spent
some time with me. Metoxon gave me the words for a vocabulary of the
language, and, together with Quinney, entered so far into its
principles, and furnished such examples, as led me, at once, to
perceive that it was of the Algonquin type, near akin, indeed, to
the Chippewa, and the conclusion followed, that all the New England
dialects, which were cognate with this, were of the same type. The
history of this people clears up, with such disclosures, and the
fact shows us how little we can know of their history without the
languages.
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of a particular period or place. These items are presented as part of the
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Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the
Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers, 1851
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