USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Wilkes-Barre > A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania : from its first beginnings to the present time, including chapters of newly-discovered early Wyoming Valley history, together with many biographical sketches and much genealogical material. Volume I > Part 21
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Dr. Charles A. Eastman, a genuine Sioux Indian, a graduate of Dartmouth College and a gentleman of intelligence and culture, said not long since that "the North American Indian is the most picturesque and interesting uncivilized man who has ever lived." This is without doubt a fact ; but furthermore "he is an enigma"-as was stated more than a hundred years ago, in a report to L'Académie Française written by a competent and famous investigator. And, in the sense that what- soever is puzzling and inexplicable is enigmatic, the Indian, an enigma at first, is a much greater enigma the more his life and character are examined. The truth of this statement will be made very apparent to
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any one who will dip into some of the numerous books and essays relat- ing to North American Indians which are referred to in the forepart of this chapter.
For a generation or more there has been a disposition among some writers, and a very general tendency among professional soldiers and "Indian-fighters," to reject the old traditions and beliefs regarding "the noble red men of the forest"-that is, the red men more particularly who dwelt on this continent in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ; and in the meantime the people generally have become familiar with the adage (originated, it is said, by a distinguished General in the United States Army) that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian." We ought to be reminded, however, that the bad Indian of to-day is in part the creation of the white man, whose vices have degraded him and whose greed has impoverished him. The white man early initiated the Indian into the mystery of drunkenness, for it is nowhere recorded that the latter had an intoxicant prior to the time the Europeans first met him. Cursing and swearing were among the first things learned from the white man, whose peculiarly vicious expressions were at the same time adopted ; for, relying upon his own language, the Indian could not in- dulge in the practice of profanity. Smallpox and certain other loath- some diseases were also the white man's contribution to his red brother's ills. Then, thirty-five or forty years ago, "the dirt, disease and dis- honesty of the alcoholic civilization of the West" of that period did their work, and so the reservation Indian of our time is in a transition stage. He has lost, or is losing, his own virtues, and has not yet acquired those of the white man. The old-fashioned, wild, pagan Indian, before he was tamed, was far superior to the "blanket" Indian of to-day as a type of the American aboriginal.
Palfrey maintains in his "History of New England"-and some sub- sequent writers agree with him-that the Indians, being "a cowardly lot," were paralyzed into comparative inactivity by the evident superi- ority of the whites. This view of the case does not seem to be borne out by the facts of recorded history, and the majority of those writers, early and late, who had personal knowledge of the Indians did not look at the matter in this light.
One of the distinguished national traits of the American Indian, . that stamped his character as so mentally superior to that of the African and some other races, was his inalienable and uncompromising tenacity of unbounded freedom in all matters and under all circumstances. And so it was that, inured from infancy to the severest vicissitudes, and fortified by savage maxims from age to age, the Indian was not possessed of very lively sensibilities, and acts of harshness, cruelty and injustice- inroads and impositions upon his right of freedom-only served to in- furiate and embitter him. "The Indian, of necessity, had to give way to the progress of the age. His game preserves-the vast area of land over which the buffalo roamed-began to feel the influence of a nation's growth. Game became scarce, and then Indian food and clothing were more difficult to obtain. The Indian, a wild man pure and simple-in- genious, it is true, and, for his surroundings and conditions, more so than most white men-could not (and does not) realize the necessity for
change. * * * He was a good man until something he did not like or understand occurred, and then the wild man became a live child of the
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plains. He roamed as free as air, and without restraint. The in- closures of civilized life were the end of his old methods and customs, and the smoke of the settler's cabin the doom of his freedom. He met what to him was death, with bloody and fierce resistance." But yet, claims Catlin, the Indians were a people not only human by nature, but humane, and "they evinced a degree of submission and forbearance that would be a virtue and an honor for any race."
At the beginning they were a hospitable and kindly race, who would have scorned to attack strangers. The leading authorities point out that nearly all the European adventurers, who sailed along the eastern coast of North America during the first century after Columbus, reported the natives as peaceable and kind when not inisused. Ponce de Leon, on his first visit to Florida, was hospitably received by the red men. It was only on his second visit, when the atrocious treatment of the natives of Cuba by the Spaniards had become known on the neigh- boring mainland, that he and his followers were set upon and driven from the peninsula. It is well known that the French-who were more just, sympathetic and politic in their attitude toward the aborigines than were the English-had but little trouble with the red inen in Canada ; while, for more than seventy years after William Penn concluded his "Great Treaty" with the Indians at Shackamaxon, not a war-whoop was sounded in Pennsylvania. In a word, the animosity and cruelty ex- hibited by Indians toward white inen during most of the last one hundred and fifty years is the outcome of desperation, the natural, in- evitable result of the faithless and cruel treatment received by them at the hands of the greater part of the English colonists, and of their descendants, the citizens of the United States .*
In the judgment of the present writer the most intelligent and best- informed men and women-both of past and present times-who have written honestly and with understanding and discernment about the North American Indian, have concurred in the opinion that, before he had come much in contact with the white man, he was brave, indus- trious and strictly honest. Lying was so despised that habitual caution in speech has always been the Indian's rule. He was faithful in friend- ship and to family and tribal ties ; self-respecting, hospitable, light- hearted and mirth-loving. Heckewelder (mentioned on page 42) viewed the Indians in a very favorable light. He gives, in his various publica- tions, instances of kindness so disinterested and of generosity so noble and chivalrous, on the part of the uncorrupted Indians, as to excite our admiration and win our applause. When we read his descriptions of the sincerity and lasting nature of their friendship, their simple-liearted hospitality and their commanding greatness of mind, we are compelled, despite our horror at their cruelties and repugnance to their savage mode of life, to deplore their hard fate and pity their misfortunes.
Turner, in his "Pioneer History of the Holland Purchase of West- ern New York" (Buffalo, 1849), wrote :
"Nowhere in a long career of discovery, of enterprise and extension of empire, have Europeans found natives of the soil with as many of the noblest attributes of humanity-moral and physical elements which, if they could not have been blended with ours, could have maintained a separate existence and been fostered by the proximity of civilization and the arts. Everywhere when first approached by our race, they welcomed
* Lieut. Gen. W. T. SHERMAN, U. S. A., in an official communication made in August, 1868, said : "The co-existence of two races such as .ours and the Indian in the same district of country is a simple impos- sibility, without a constant state of war."-Harper's Magazine, XL : 735.
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us and inade demonstrations of friendship and peace. Savage as they were usually called, savage as they inay have been in their assaults and wars upon each other, there is no act of theirs recorded in the history of our early settlements and colonization of this new world, of wrong or outrage, that was not provoked by assault, treachery or deception- breaches of the hospitality which they had extended to us as strangers in a bare and foreign land. Whatever of savage character they may have possessed, so far as our race was concerned, it was dormant until aroused to action by assault, or treachery of intruders upon their soil, whoin they had niet and treated as friends."
George Catlin, some years after his death, was charged by the writer of a Government report* with having "permitted his sympathy for the Indian to warp his judgment." "Mr. Catlin," said the writer, "saw but the man. He queried not at policies. His plea was humanity. His creed never changed. * * No one has had the courage as yet to publicly defend all the acts of the nation against the Indian. It would be a bold act in any person to even attempt it. But Mr. Catlin took the sentimental side of the Indian question in the matter of state policy until the day of his death. His creed was theory or opinion deduced from a most delightful eight years with the Indians."
Because of the length of time spent by Mr. Catlin among the Indians, carefully observing and endeavoring to understand their customs of life and traits of character ; because he had come in contact with so many Indians (forty-eight tribes, as previously mentioned) in almost all parts of this continent ; because he was a native of, and spent several years of his early manhood in, Wyoming Valley (where he learned well the story of Indian customs and cruelties that had been practised in this region in the lifetime of many of his friends and relatives, and upon the persons of some of them), and because he was an intelligent, honorable, God-fearing man, the present writer is firm in the belief that the "creed," or "theory," or "opinion," of George Catlin-as well as the vast amount of information obtained and recorded by him-regarding the North American Indians, was and is of value. Although we have already quoted many paragraphs from the writings of Mr. Catlin, we will here introduce a portion of his "Indian Creed" written in 1868 :+
"I have had some unfriendly denunciations by the press, and by those critics I have been reproachfully designated the 'Indian-loving Catlin.' What of this? What have I to answer? Have I any apology to make for loving the Indians? The Indians have always loved me, and why should I not love the Indians?
"I love the people who have always made me welcome to the best they had.
"I love a people who are honest without laws, who have no jails and no poor- houses.
"I love a people who keep the Commandments without ever having read them or heard theni preached from the pulpit.
"I love a people who never swear, who never take the name of God in vain.
"I love a people who love their neighbors as they love themselves.
"I love a people who worship God without a Bible, for I believe that God loves them also.
"I love the people whose religion is all the same, and who are free from religious animosities.
"I love a people who have never raised a hand against me, or stolen my property, where there was no law to punish them for either.
"I love the people who never have fought a battle with white men except on their own ground.
"I love and don't fear mankind where God has made and left them, for they are children.
"'I love a people who live and keep what is their own without locks and keys.
"I love all people who do the best they can-and, oh ! how I love a people who don't live for the love of money. * * * I was luckily born in time to see these people in their native dignity and beauty and independence, and to be a living witness to the cruelties with which they have
*"Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, to July, 1885," II : 737-739. + See his "Last Rambles," referred to on pages 84 and 85, ante.
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been treated worse than dogs, and now to be treated worse than wolves. And in my former publications I have predicted just what is now taking place-that in their thrown and hunted down condition the future 'gallopers' across the Plains and Rocky Mountains would see here and there the scattered and starving and begging and haggard remnants of these once proud and handsome people, [and would] represent them in their en- tailed misery and wretchedness as 'the Sioux,' 'the Cheyennes,' 'the Osages,' etc., and me, of course, as a liar." * * *
Catlin was not the only inan of his time who wrote and spoke enthusiastically and eulogistically of the Indian. Many other Amer- icans of that period, and some of earlier as well as later times-and nearly all of them men of knowledge and ability-raised their voices and wielded their pens in behalf of the Indian. We would like to in- troduce here a number of extracts from some of the eloquent tributes and appeals referred to, but lack of space prohibits the insertion of more than the two following-which are from addresses delivered in the year preceding that in which Catlin began his work among the Indians. The following is from an address entitled "Character and Fate of the Amer- ican Indians," delivered by the Hon. Joseph Story* before the Essex (Massachusetts) Historical Society, September 18, 1828.
"In the fate of the aborigines of our country-the American Indians-there is, in1y friends, much to awaken our sympathy, and much to disturb the sobriety of our judg- ments ; much which may be urged to excuse their own atrocities ; much in their charac- ters which betrays us into an involuntary admiration. What can be more melancholy than their history? Two centuries ago the smoke of their wigwams and the fires of their councils rose in every valley from Hudson's Bay to the farthest Florida-from the ocean to the Mississippi and the lakes. The shouts of victory and the war-dance rang through the mountains and the glades. The thick arrows and the deadly tomahawk whistled through the forests, and the hunter's trace and the dark encampment startled the wild beasts in their lairs. The warriors stood forth in their glory. The young listened to the songs of other days. The mothers played with their infants, and gazed on the scene with warm hopes of the future. The aged sat down, but they wept 110t. They would soon be at rest in fairer regions-where the Great Spirit dwelt-in a home prepared for the brave beyond the western skies. Braver men never lived ; truer mien never drew the bow. They had courage and fortitude and sagacity and perseverance beyond most of the human race. They shrank from no dangers, and they feared no hardships. If they had the vices of savage life, they had the virtues also. They were true to their country, their friends and their homes. If they forgave not injury, neither did they forget kindness. If their vengeance was terrible, their fidelity and generosity were unconquerable also. Their love, like their hate, stopped not on this side of the grave.
"But where are they? Where are the villages and warriors and youth? The sachems and the tribes? The hunters and their families? They have perished! They are consunied ! The wasting pestilence has not alone done the mighty work. No ! nor famine nor war! There has been a mightier power, a moral canker, which hath eaten into their heart-cores-a plague, which the touch of the white man communicated-a poison, which betrayed them into a lingering ruin. The winds of the Atlantic fan not a single region which they may now call their own. Already the last feeble remnants of the race are preparing for their journey beyond the Mississippi. I see them leave their miserable homes-the aged, the helpless, the women and the warriors-'few and faint, yet fearless still.' The ashes are cold on their native hearths. The smoke no longer curls round their lowly cabins. They move on with a slow, unsteady step. The white man is upon their heels, for terror or despatch; but they heed him not. They turn to take a last look of their deserted villages. They cast a last glance upon the graves of their fathers. They shed no tears ; they utter no cries ; they heave no groans. There is something in their hearts which passes speech. There is something in their looks-11ot of vengeance or submission, but of hard necessity, which stifles both ; which chokes all utterance ; which has no aim or method. It is courage absorbed in despair ! They linger but for a moment. Their look is onward. They have passed the fatal stream. * * They know and feel that there is for them still one remove farther-not distant nor unseen. It is to the general burial-ground of their race."
* JOSEPH STORY was born at Marblehead, Massachusetts, September 18, 1779, and died September 10, 1845. He was graduated at Harvard University in 1798, and was admitted to the bar in 1801. From 1811 until his death he was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1829 he became Professor of Law at Harvard. He was the author of "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States," "Equity Jurisprudence," "The Conflict of Laws," and other important works.
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The following paragraphs are from an address entitled "Aboriginals of New England," delivered by the Rev. William B. Sprague, S. T. D .*
* * * "Here the wigwam blaze beamed on the tender and helpless, the council- fire glared on the wise and daring. Now they dipped their noble limbs in your sedgy lakes, and now they paddled the light canoe along your rocky shores. Here they warred. The echoing whoop, the bloody grapple, the defying death-song-all were here ; and when the tiger strife was over, here curled the smoke of peace. Here, too, they worshipped ; and from many a dark bosom went up a pure prayer to the Great Spirit. He had not written His laws for them on tables of stone, but He had traced them on the tables of their hearts. The poor child of Nature knew not the God of Revelation, but the God of the Universe he acknowledged in everything around. He beheld him in the star that sank in beauty behind his lonely dwelling ; in the sacred orb that flamed on him from his midday throne ; in the flower that snapped in the morning breeze ; in the lofty pine that defied a thousand whirlwinds ; in the timid warbler that never left its native grove ; in the fearless eagle whose untired pinion was wet in the clouds ; in the worm that crawled at his foot, and in his own matchless form, glowing with a spark of that light to whose mysterious source he bent in humble, though blind, adoration.
"And all this has passed away. Across the ocean came a pilgrim bark bearing the seeds of life and death. The former were sown for you ; the latter sprang up in the path of the simple native. Two hundred years have changed the character of a great con- tinent, and blotted forever from its face a whole, peculiar people. Art has usurped the bowers of Nature, and the anointed children of education have been too powerful for the tribes of the ignorant. Here and there a stricken few remain, but how unlike their bold, untamable progenitors ! The Indian of falcon glance and lion bearing, the theme of the touching ballad, the hero of the pathetic tale, is gone ; and his degraded offspring crawl upon the soil, where he walked in majesty, to remind us how miserable is man when the foot of the conqueror is on his neck.
"As a race they have withered from the land. Their arrows are broken, their springs are dried up, their cabins are in the dust. Their council-fire has long since gone out on the shore, and their war-cry is fast dying to the untrodden west. Slowly and sadly they climb the distant mountains and read their doom in the setting sun. They are shrinking before the mighty tide which is pressing them away ; they must soon hear the roar of the last wave which will settle over them forever. Ages hence the inquisitive white man, as he stands by some growing city, will ponder on the structure of their disturbed remains and wonder to what manner of persons they belonged. They will live only in the songs and chronicles of their exterminators. Let these be faithful to their rude virtues as men, and pay due tribute to their unhappy fate as a people."
When the Confederation of the American Colonies was formed in September, 1774, the Indians of the country became a charge, and under the control, of the Continental Congress; and in June, 1775, three departments of Indian affairs were created by the Congress. The first, known as the Northern Department, embraced the Indians of the Six Nations and all Indians northward of them ; the Southern Department included the Cherokees (then and for a long time previously settled in Georgia) and all Indians south of them, while the Middle Department included all the Indian nations inhabiting the country lying between the other two departments. The affairs of each department were attended to by a board of commissioners, who were empowered to make treaties and were supplied with money for the purchase of presents to be made and for other expenses. This system was adopted and put into operation, not for the purpose of ameliorating the condition of the Indians, but simply in order that peace with them might be preserved during an anticipated period of trouble between the Colonies and the mother country.
In March, 1778, the Continental Congress first authorized the em- ployment of Indians in the army, "if General Washington thinks it prudent and proper ; " and later in the same year the first formal treaty was made between the United States and an Indian tribe-the Dela- wares. The treaty system thus inaugurated-by and between the
* WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE was born in October, 1795. From 1829 to 1869 he was pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, Albany, New York. In 1828 he received the degree of S. T. D. from Columbia College. He was the author of more than one hundred published sermons, memoirs, addresses and essays.
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United States (by its commissioners) and the various Indian tribes as separate and independent nations-continued until the year 1869, resulting in about 380 treaties and almost endless confusion. Then Congress ordered that the making of such treaties should be stopped, and thenceforward the Indians of the United States (with the exception of those in Alaska) have been regarded and treated as "wards of the Nation." Indirectly at first, and then directly, the affairs of the Indians were under the supervision and management of the Departinent of War from 1787 till 1849, when the Bureau of Indian Affairs was transferred to the Department of the Interior, where it is now known as the "Office of Indian Affairs," is presided over by a "Commissioner" (who is subor- dinate to the Secretary of the Interior), and "has charge of the Indian tribes of the United States (exclusive of Alaska), their lands, moneys, schools, purchase of supplies, and general welfare."
Since the year 1794, by means of treaties, purchases and executive orders made in pursuance of Acts of Congress, reservations in various parts of the United States have been from time to time erected for the use and occupancy of particular tribes or nations of Indians, and they have been required to live thereon. These reservations, as they exist now, are domains ranging in area from 350 to 9,442,240 acres within the bounds of certain States and Territories. When occupied they are under the absolute control of United States Indian Agents, who are supervised and directed by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. For a good many years-particularly during the time that the Department of War had the supervision of Indian affairs-many of the Indian Agents were United States Army officers, drawn from the active as well as the retired list of the Army. But the reservation system-even with trained military officers as Agents-did not, of course, put a stop to Indian out- breaks, and whenever they occurred the strong military arm of the Government was used to quell them and to punish with severity the law- less and refractory "wards of the Nation.". Finally, in December, 1869, President Grant, in his annual message to Congress, wrote :
"From the foundation of the Government to the present time the management of the original inhabitants of this continent, the Indians, has been a subject of embarrass- ment and expense, and has been attended with continuous robberies, murders and wars. From my own experience, upon the frontier and in Indian countries, I do not hold either legislation or the conduct of the whites who come most in contact with the Indians blame- less for these hostilities. *
* * I have adopted a new policy towards these wards of the Nation ( they cannot be regarded in any other light than as wards), with fair results so far as tried, and which I hope will be attended ultimately with great success."
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