American Institutions and Their Influence

213

"The Indians," says Messrs. Clarke and Cass in their report to congress, p. 15, "are attached to their country by the same feelings which bind us to ours; and, besides, there are certain superstitious notions connected with the alienation of what the Great Spirit gave to their ancestors, which operate strongly upon the tribes who have made few or no cessions, but which are gradually weakened as our intercourse with them is extended. 'We will not sell the spot which contains the bones of our fathers,' is almost always the first answer to a proposition for a sale."

214

See in the legislative documents of congress (Doc. 117), the narrative of what takes place on these occasions. This curious passage is from the abovementioned report, made to congress by Messrs. Clarke and Cass, in February, 1829. Mr. Cass is now secretary of war.

"The Indians," says the report, "reach the treaty-ground poor, and almost naked. Large quantities of goods are taken there by the traders, and are seen and examined by the Indians. The women and children become importunate to have their wants supplied, and their influence is soon exerted to induce a sale. Their improvidence is habitual and unconquerable. The gratification of his immediate wants and desires is the ruling passion of an Indian: the expectation of future advantages seldom produces much effect. The experience of the past is lost, and the prospects of the future disregarded. It would be utterly hopeless to demand a cession of land unless the means were at hand of gratifying their immediate wants; and when their condition and circumstances are fairly considered, it ought not to surprise us that they are so anxious to relieve themselves."

215

On the 19th of May, 1830, Mr. Edward Everett affirmed before the house of representatives, that the Americans had already acquired by treaty, to the east and west of the Mississippi, 230,000,000 of acres. In 1808, the Osages gave up 48,000,000 acres for an annual payment of 1,000 dollars. In 1818, the Quapaws yielded up 29,000,000 acres for 4,000 dollars. They reserved for themselves a territory of 1,000,000 acres for a hunting-ground. A solemn oath was taken that it should be respected: but before long it was invaded like the rest. Mr. Bell, in his "Report of the Committee on Indian Affairs," February 24th, 1830, has these words: "To pay an Indian tribe what their ancient hunting-grounds are worth to them, after the game is fled or destroyed, as a mode of appropriating wild lands claimed by Indians, has been found more convenient, and certainly it is more agreeable to the forms of justice, as well as more merciful, than to assert the possession of them by the sword. Thus the practice of buying Indian titles is but the substitute which humanity and expediency have imposed, in place of the sword, in arriving at the actual enjoyment of property claimed by the right of discovery, and sanctioned by the natural superiority allowed to the claims of civilized communities over those of savage tribes. Up to the present time, so invariable has been the operation of certain causes, first in diminishing the value of forest lands to the Indians, and secondly in disposing them to sell readily, that the plan of buying their right of occupancy has never threatened to retard, in any perceptible degree, the prosperity of any of the states." (Legislative documents, 21st congress, No. 227, p. 6.)

216

This seems, indeed, to be the opinion of almost all the American statesmen. "Judging of the future by the past," says Mr. Cass, "we cannot err in anticipating a progressive diminution of their numbers, and their eventual extinction, unless our border should become stationary, and they be removed beyond it, or unless some radical change should take place in the principles of our intercourse with them, which it is easier to hope for than to expect."

217

Among other warlike enterprises, there was one of the Wampanoags, and other confederate tribes, under Metacom in 1675, against the colonists of New England; the English were also engaged in war in Virginia in 1622.

218

See the "Histoire de la Nouvelle France," by Charlevoix, and the work entitled "Lettres Edifiantes."

219

"In all the tribes," says Volney, in his "Tableau des Etats Unis," p. 423, "there still exists a generation of old warriors, who cannot forbear, when they see their countrymen using the hoe, from exclaiming against the degradation of ancient manners, and asserting that the savages owe their decline to these innovations: adding, that they have only to return to their primitive habits, in order to recover their power and their glory."

220

The following description occurs in an official document: "Until a young man has been engaged with an enemy, and has performed some acts of valor, he gains no consideration, but is regarded nearly as a woman. In their great war-dances all the warriors in succession strike the post, as it is called, and recount their exploits. On these occasions their auditory consists of the kinsmen, friends, and comrades of the narrator. The profound impression which his discourse produces on them is manifested by the silent attention it receives, and by the loud shouts which hail its termination. The young man who finds himself at such a meeting without anything to recount, is very unhappy; and instances have sometimes occurred of young warriors whose passions had been thus inflamed, quitting the war-dance suddenly, and going off alone to seek for trophies which they might exhibit, and adventures which they might be allowed to relate."

221

These nations are now swallowed up in the states of Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi. There were formerly in the south four great nations (remnants of which still exist), the Choctaws, the Chickasaws, the Creeks, and the Cherokees. The remnants of these four nations amounted, in 1830, to about 75,000 individuals. It is computed that there are now remaining in the territory occupied or claimed by the Anglo-American Union about 300,000 Indians. (See proceedings of the Indian board in the city of New York.) The official documents supplied to congress make the number amount to 313,130. The reader who is curious to know the names and numerical strength of all the tribes which inhabit the Anglo-American territory, should consult the documents I refer to. (Legislative Documents, 28th congress, No. 117, pp. 90-105.)

222

I brought back with me to France, one or two copies of this singular publication.

223

See in the report of the committee on Indian affairs, 21st congress, No. 227, p. 23, the reasons for the multiplication of Indians of mixed blood among the Cherokees. The principal cause dates from the war of independence. Many Anglo-Americans of Georgia, having taken the side of England, were obliged to retreat among the Indians where they married.

224

Unhappily the mixed race has been less numerous and less influential in North America than in any other country. The American continent was peopled by two great nations of Europe, the French and the English. The former were not slow in connecting themselves with the daughters of the natives; but there was an unfortunate affinity between the Indian character and their own: instead of giving the tastes and habits of civilized life to the savages, the French too often grew passionately fond of the state of wild freedom they found them in. They became the most dangerous of the inhabitants of the desert, and won the friendship of the Indian by exaggerating his vices and his virtues. M. de Senonville, the governor of Canada, wrote thus to Louis XIV., in 1685: "It has long been believed that in order to civilize the savages we ought to draw them nearer to us, but there is every reason to suppose we have been mistaken. Those which have been brought into contact with us have not become French, and the French who have lived among them are changed into savages, affecting to live and dress like them." (History of New France, by Charlevoix, vol. ii., p. 345.) The Englishman, on the contrary, continuing obstinately attached to the customs and the most insignificant habits of his forefathers, has remained in the midst of the American solitudes just what he was in the bosom of European cities; he would not allow of any communication with savages whom he despised, and avoided with care the union of his race with theirs. Thus, while the French exercised no salutary influence over the Indians, the English have always remained alien from them.

225

There is in the adventurous life of the hunter a certain irresistible charm which seizes the heart of man, and carries him away in spite of reason and experience. This is plainly shown by the memoirs of Tanner. Tanner is a European who was carried away at the age of six by the Indians, and has remained thirty years with them in the woods. Nothing can be conceived more appalling than the miseries which he describes. He tells us of tribes without a chief, families without a nation to call their own, men in a state of isolation, wrecks of powerful tribes wandering at random amid the ice and snow and desolate solitudes of Canada. Hunger and cold pursue them; every day their life is in jeopardy. Among these men manners have lost their empire, traditions are without power. They become more and more savage. Tanner shared in all these miseries; he was aware of his European origin; he was not kept away from the whites by force; on the contrary, he came every year to trade with them, entered their dwellings, and saw their enjoyments; he knew that whenever he chose to return to civilized life, he was perfectly able to do so—and he remained thirty years in the deserts. When he came to civilized society, he declared that the rude existence which he described had a secret charm for him which he was unable to define: he returned to it again and again: at length he abandoned it with poignant regret; and when he was at length fixed among the whites, several of his children refused to share his tranquil and easy situation. I saw Tanner myself at the lower end of Lake Superior; he seemed to be more like a savage than a civilized being. His book is written without either taste or order; but he gives, even unconsciously, a lively picture of the prejudices, the passions, vices, and, above all, of the destitution in which he lived.

226

The destructive influence of highly civilized nations upon others which are less so, has been exemplified by the Europeans themselves. About a century ago the French founded the town of Vincennes upon the Wabash, in the middle of the desert; and they lived there in great plenty, until the arrival of the American settlers, who first ruined the previous inhabitants by their competition, and afterward purchased their lands at a very low rate. At the time when M. de Volney, from whom I borrow these details, passed through Vincennes, the number of the French was reduced to a hundred individuals, most of whom were about to pass over to Louisiana or to Canada. These French settlers were worthy people, but idle and uninstructed: they had contracted many of the habits of the savages. The Americans, who were perhaps their inferiors in a moral point of view, were immeasurably superior to them in intelligence: they were industrious, well-informed, rich, and accustomed to govern their own community.

I myself saw in Canada, where the intellectual difference between the two races is less striking, that the English are the masters of commerce and manufacture in the Canadian country, that they spread on all sides, and confine the French within limits which scarcely suffice to contain them. In like manner, in Louisiana, almost all activity in commerce and manufacture centres in the hands of the Anglo-Americans.

But the case of Texas is still more striking: the state of Texas is a part of Mexico, and lies upon the frontier between that country and the United States. In the course of the last few years the Anglo-Americans have penetrated into this province, which is still thinly peopled; they purchase land, they produce the commodities of the country, and supplant the original population. It may easily be foreseen that if Mexico takes no steps to check this change, the province of Texas will very shortly cease to belong to that government.

If the different degrees, comparatively so light, which exist in European civilisation, produce results of such magnitude, the consequences which must ensue from the collision of the most perfect European civilisation with Indian savages may readily be conceived.

227

See in the legislative documents (21st congress, No. 89), instances of excesses of every kind committed by the whites upon the territory of the Indians, either in taking possession of a part of their lands, until compelled to retire by the troops of congress, or carrying off their cattle, burning their houses, cutting down their corn, and doing violence to their persons.

It appears, nevertheless, from all these documents, that the claims of the natives are constantly protected by the government from the abuse of force. The Union has a representative agent continually employed to reside among the Indians; and the report of the Cherokee agent, which is among the documents I have referred to, is almost always favorable to the Indians. "The intrusion of whites," he says, "upon the lands of the Cherokees would cause ruin to the poor, helpless, and inoffensive inhabitants." And he farther remarks upon the attempt of the state of Georgia to establish a division line for the purpose of limiting the boundaries of the Cherokees, that the line drawn having been made by the whites, and entirely upon exparte evidence of their several rights, was of no validity whatever.

228

In 1829 the state of Alabama divided the Creek territory into counties, and subjected the Indian population to the power of European magistrates.

In 1830 the state of Mississippi assimilated the Choctaws and Chickasaws to the white population, and declared that any of them that should take the title of chief would be punished by a fine of 1,000 dollars and 3 year's imprisonment. When these laws were enforced upon the Choctaws who inhabited that district, the tribes assembled, their chief communicated to them the intentions of the whites, and read to them some of the laws to which it was intended that they should submit; and they unanimously declared that it was better at once to retreat again into the wilds.

229

The Georgians, who are so much annoyed by the proximity of the Indians, inhabit a territory which does not at present contain more than seven inhabitants to the square mile. In France there are one hundred and sixty-two inhabitants to the same extent of country.

230

In 1818 congress appointed commissioners to visit the Arkansas territory accompanied by a deputation of Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. This expedition was commanded by Messrs. Kennerly, M'Coy, Wash Hood, and John Bell. See the different reports of the commissioners, and their journal, in the documents of congress, No. 87 house of representatives.

231

The fifth article of the treaty made with the Creeks in August, 1790, is in the following words: "The United States solemnly guaranty to the Creek nation all their land within the limits of the United States."

The seventh article of the treaty concluded in 1791 with the Cherokees says: "The United States solemnly guaranty to the Cherokee nation all their lands not hereby ceded." The following article declared that if any citizen of the United States or other settler not of the Indian race, should establish himself upon the territory of the Cherokees, the United States would withdraw their protection from that individual, and give him up to be punished as the Cherokee nation should think fit.

232

This does not prevent them from promising in the most solemn manner to do so. See the letter of the president addressed to the Creek Indians, 23d March, 1829. ("Proceedings of the Indian Board, in the City of New York," p. 5.) "Beyond the great river Mississippi, where a part of your nation has gone, your father has provided a country large enough for all of you, and he advises you to remove to it. There your white brothers will not trouble you; they will have no claim to the land, and you can live upon it, you and all your children, as long as the grass grows or the water runs, in peace and plenty. It will be yours for ever."

The secretary of war, in a letter written to the Cherokees, April 18th, 1829 (see the same work, page 6), declares to them that they cannot expect to retain possession of the land, at the time occupied by them, but gives them the most positive assurance of uninterrupted peace if they would remove beyond the Mississippi: as if the power which could not grant them protection then, would be able to afford it them hereafter!

233

To obtain a correct idea of the policy pursued by the several states and the Union with respect to the Indians, it is necessary to consult, 1st, "The laws of the colonial and state governments relating to the Indian inhabitants." (See the legislative documents, 21st congress, No. 319.) 2d, "The laws of the Union on the same subject, and especially that of March 20th, 1802." (See Story's Laws of the United States.) 3d, "The report of Mr. Cass, secretary of war, relative to Indian affairs, November 29th, 1823".

234

December 18th, 1829.

235

The honor of this result is, however, by no means due to the Spaniards. If the Indian tribes had not been tillers of the ground at the time of the arrival of the Europeans, they would unquestionably have been destroyed in South as well as in North America.

236

See among other documents, the report made by Mr. Bell in the name of the committee on Indian affairs, Feb. 24th, 1830, in which it is most logically established and most learnedly proved, that "the fundamental principle, that the Indians had no right by virtue of their ancient possession either of will or sovereignty, has never been abandoned either expressly or by implication."

In perusing this report, which is evidently drawn up by an able hand, one is astonished at the facility with which the author gets rid of all arguments founded upon reason and natural right, which he designates as abstract and theoretical principles. The more I contemplate the difference between civilized and uncivilized man with regard to the principles of justice, the more I observe that the former contests the justice of those rights, which the latter simply violates.

237

It is well known that several of the most distinguished authors of antiquity, and among them Æsop and Terence, were or had been slaves. Slaves were not always taken from barbarous nations, and the chances of war reduced highly civilized men to servitude.

238

To induce the whites to abandon the opinion they have conceived of the moral and intellectual inferiority of their former slaves, the negroes must change; but as long as this opinion subsists, to change is impossible.

239

See Beverley's History of Virginia. See also in Jefferson's Memoirs some curious details concerning the introduction of negroes into Virginia, and the first act which prohibited the importation of them in 1778.

240

The number of slaves was less considerable in the north, but the advantages resulting from slavery were not more contested there than in the south. In 1740, the legislature of the state of New York declared that the direct importation of slaves ought to be encouraged as much as possible, and smuggling severely punished, in order not to discourage the fair trader. (Kent's Commentaries, vol. ii., p. 206.) Curious researches, by Belknap, upon slavery in New England, are to be found in the Historical Collections of Massachusetts, vol. iv., p. 193. It appears that negroes were introduced there in 1630, but that the legislation and manners of the people were opposed to slavery from the first; see also, in the same work, the manner in which public opinion, and afterward the laws, finally put an end to slavery.

241

Not only is slavery prohibited in Ohio, but no free negroes are allowed to enter the territory of that state, or to hold property in it. See the statutes of Ohio.

242

The activity of Ohio is not confined to individuals, but the undertakings of the state are surprisingly great: a canal has been established between Lake Erie and the Ohio, by means of which the valley of the Mississippi communicates with the river of the north, and the European commodities with arrive at New York, may be forwarded by water to New Orleans across five hundred leagues of continent.

243

The exact numbers given by the census of 1830 were: Kentucky, 588,844; Ohio, 937,679. {In 1840 the census gave, Kentucky 779,828; Ohio 1,519,467.}

244

Independently of these causes which, wherever free workmen abound, render their labor more productive and more economical than that of slaves, another cause may be pointed out which is peculiar to the United States: the sugar-cane has hitherto been cultivated with success only upon the banks of the Mississippi, near the mouth of that river in the gulf of Mexico. In Louisiana the cultivation of the sugar-cane is exceedingly lucrative; nowhere does a laborer earn so much by his work: and, as there is always a certain relation between the cost of production and the value of the produce, the price of slaves is very high in Louisiana. But Louisiana is one of the confederate states, and slaves may be carried thither from all parts of the Union; the price given for slaves in New Orleans consequently raises the value of slaves in all the other markets. The consequence of this is, that in the countries where the land is less productive, the cost of slave labor is still very considerable, which gives an additional advantage to the competition of free labor.

245

A peculiar reason contributes to detach the two last-mentioned states from the cause of slavery. The former wealth of this part of the Union was principally derived from the cultivation of tobacco. This cultivation is specially carried on by slaves; but within the last few years the market-price of tobacco has diminished, while the value of the slaves remains the same. Thus the ratio between the cost of production and the value of the produce is changed. The natives of Maryland and Virginia are therefore more disposed than they were thirty years ago, to give up slave labor in the cultivation of tobacco, or to give up slavery and tobacco at the same time.

246

The states in which slavery is abolished usually do what they can to render their territory disagreeable to the negroes as a place of residence; and as a kind of emulation exists between the different states in this respect, the unhappy blacks can only choose the least of the evils which beset them.

247

There is a very great difference between the mortality of the blacks and of the whites in the states in which slavery is abolished; from 1820 to 1831 only one out of forty-two individuals of the white population died in Philadelphia; but one negro out of twenty-one individuals of the black population died in the same space of time. The mortality is by no means so great among the negroes who are still slaves. (See Emmerson's Medical Statistics, p. 28.)

248

This is true of the spots in which rice is cultivated; rice-grounds, which are unwholesome in all countries, are particularly dangerous in those regions which are exposed to the beams of a tropical sun. Europeans would not find it easy to cultivate the soil in that part of the New World if it must necessarily be made to produce rice: but may they not subsist without rice-grounds?