Diary in America, Series One

Thirdly. “I was riding out one day in Arkansas, and it so happened I had not my rifle with me, nor indeed a weapon of any description, not even my jack-knife. As I came upon the skirts of a prairie, near a small copse, a buck started out, and dashed away as if much alarmed. I thought it was my sudden appearance which had alarmed him; I stopped my horse to look after him, and turning my eyes afterwards in the direction from whence it had started, I perceived, as I thought, on a small mound of earth raised by an animal called a gopher, just the head of the doe, her body concealed by the high grass. I had no arms, but it occurred to me, that if I could contrive to crawl up very softly, the high grass might conceal my approach, and I should be able to spring upon her and secure her by main strength. ‘If I can manage this,’ said I to myself, ‘it will be something to talk about.’ I tied my horse to a tree, and commenced crawling very softly on my hands and knees towards the gopher hill; I arrived close to it, and the doe had not started; I rose gently with both hands ready for a grab, and prepared to spring, slowly raising my head that I might get a sight of the animal. It appeared that the animal was equally inquisitive, and wished to gain a sight of me, and it slowly raised its head from the grass as I did mine. Imagine what was my surprise and consternation, to find that, instead of a doe, I was face to face with a large male panther. It was this brute which had so scared the buck, and now equally scared me. There I was, at hardly one yard’s distance from him, without arms of any description, and almost in the paws of the panther. I knew that my only chance was keeping my eyes fixed steadfastly on his, and not moving hand or foot; the least motion to retreat would have been his signal to spring: so there I was, as white as a sheet, with my eyes fixed on him. Luckily he did not know what was passing within me. For some seconds the animal met my gaze, and I began to give myself up for lost. ’Tis time for you to go, thought I, or I am gone: will you never go? At last, the animal blinked, and then his eyes opened like balls of fire; I remained fascinated as it were; he blinked again, turned his head a very little, then turned round and went away at a light canter. Imagine the relief. I hastened back to my horse, and away also went I at a light canter, and with a lighter heart, grateful to Heaven for having preserved me.”

Volume Two—Chapter Eight

The band of warriors attached to Monsieur Rainville have set up their war-tent close to the factory, and have entertained us with a variety of dances. Their dresses are very beautiful, and the people, who have been accustomed to witness these exhibitions for years, say that they have never seen any thing equal to them before, I was very anxious to obtain one of them, and applied to Mr Rainville to effect my purpose; but it required all his influence to induce them to part with it, and they had many arguments and debates among themselves before they could make up their minds to consent to do so. I was the more anxious about it, as I had seen Mr Catlin’s splendid exhibition, and I knew that he had not one in his possession. The dress in question consisted of a sort of kilt of fine skins, ornamented with beautiful porcupine quill-work, and eagle’s feathers; garters of animals’ tails, worn at their ankles, head-dress of eagle’s feathers and ermine’s tails, etcetera. They made little objection to part with any portions of the dress except the kilt; at last they had a meeting of the whole band, as the dress was not the property of any one individual; and I was informed that the warriors would come and have a talk with me.

I received them at the factory’s new house, in my room, which was large, and held them all. One came and presented me with a pair of garters; another with a portion of the head-dress; another with moccasins; at last, the kilt or girdle was handed to me. M. Rainville sat by as interpreter. He who had presented me with the kilt or girdle spoke for half a minute, and then stopped while what he said was being interpreted.

“You are an Englishman, and a warrior in your own country. You cross the great waters as fast as we can our prairies. We recollect the English, and we like them; they used us well. The rifles and blankets which they gave us, according to promise, were of good quality: not like the American goods; their rifles are bad, and their blankets are thin. The English keep their word, and they live in our memory.”

“Ho!” replied I; which is as much as to say, I understand what you have said, and you may proceed.

“You have asked for the dress which we wear when we dance; we have never parted with one as yet; they belong to the band of warriors; when one who has worn a dress goes to the land of spirits, we hold a council, to see who is most worthy to put it on in his place. We value them highly; and we tell you so not to enhance their value, but to prove what we will do for an English warrior.”

“Ho!” says I.

“An American, in the fort, has tried hard to obtain this dress from us; he offered us two barrels of flour, and other things. You know that we have no game, and we are hungry; but if he had offered twelve barrels of flour, we would not have parted with them. (This was true.) But our father, Rainville, has spoken; and we have pleasure in giving them to an English warrior. I have spoken.”

“Ho!” says I; upon which the Indian took his seat with the other; and it was my turn to speak. I was very near beginning, “Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking;” but I knew that such an acknowledgment would in their estimation, have very much lessened my value as a warrior; for, like the Duke of Wellington, one must be as valuable in the council as in the field, to come up to their notions of excellence. So I rose, and said—

“I receive with great pleasure the dress which you have given me.—I know that you do not like to part with it, and that you have refused the American at the fort, and I therefore value it the more. I shall never look upon it, when I am on the other side of the great waters, without thinking of my friends the Sioux; and I will tell my nation that you gave them to me because I was an English warrior, and because you liked the English.”

“Ho!” grunted the whole conclave, after this was interpreted.

“I am very glad that you do not forget the English, and that you say they kept their word, and that their rifles and blankets were good. I know that the blankets of the Americans are thin and cold. (I did not think it worth while to say that they were all made in England.) We have buried the hatchet now; but should the tomahawk be raised again between the Americans and the English, you must not take part with the Americans.”

“Ho!” said they.

“In the Fur Company’s store you will find many things acceptable to you. I leave Mr Rainville to select for you what you wish; and beg you will receive them in return for the present which you have made me.”

“Ho!” said they; and thus ended my first Indian council.

It is remarkable that the Sioux have no expression to signify, “I thank you,” although other Indians have. When they receive a present, they always say, Wash tay: it is good.

Of all the tribes I believe the Sioux to be the most inimical to the Americans. They have no hesitation in openly declaring so; and it must be acknowledged that it is not without just grounds. During the time that I was at St. Peters, a council was held at the Indian agent’s. It appears that the American Government, in its paternal care for the Indians, had decided that at any strike taking place between tribes of Indians near to the confines, no war should take place in consequence: that is to say, that should any Indians of one tribe attack or kill any Indians belonging to another, that instead of the tribes going to war, they should apply for and receive redress from the American Government. Some time back, a party of Chippeways came down to a trader’s house, about half a mile from Port Snelling. Being almost hereditary enemies of the Sioux, they were fired at, at night, by some of the young men of the Sioux village close by, and two of the Chippeways were wounded. In conformity with the intimation received, and the law laid down by the American Government, and promulgated by the Indian agent, the Chippeways applied for redress. It was granted—four Sioux were taken and shot. This summary justice was expected to produce the best effects, and, had it been followed up, it might have prevented bloodshed: but, since the above occurrence, some Chippeways came down, and meeting a party of Sioux, were received kindly into their lodges; they returned this hospitality by treacherously murdering eleven of the Sioux, while they were asleep. This time the Sioux brought forward their complaint. “You tell us not to go to war; we will not; you shot four of our people for wounding two Chippeways; now do us justice against the Chippeways, who have murdered eleven of our Sioux.” As yet no justice has been done to the Sioux. The fact is, that the Chippeways live a long way off; and there are not sufficient men to garrison the fort, still less to send a party out to capture the Chippeways; and the Sioux are, as may well be supposed, indignant at this partial proceeding.

I was at the council, and heard all the speeches made by the Sioux chiefs on the occasion. They were some of them very eloquent, and occasionally very severe; and the reply of the Indian agent must have rendered the American Government very contemptible in the eyes of the Indians—not that the agent was so much in fault as was the American Government, which, by not taking proper measures to put their promises and agreements into force, had left their officer in such a position. First, the Indian agent said, that the wounding of the two Chippeways took place close to the fort, and that it was on account of the insult offered to the American flag that it was so promptly punished—a very different explanation, and quite at variance with the principle laid down by the American Government. The Indians replied; and the agent then said, that they had not sufficient troops to defend the fort, and, therefore, could not send out a party; an admission very unwise to make, although strictly true. The Indians again replied; and then the agent said wait a little till we hear from Washington, and then, if you have no redress, you are brave men, you have arms in your hands, and your enemies are before you. This was worse than all, for it implied the inability or the indifference of the American Government to do them justice, and told them, after that government had distinctly declared that they should fight no longer, but receive redress from it, that they now might do what the government had forbidden them to do, and that they had no other chance of redress. The result of this council was very unsatisfactory. The Indian chiefs declared that they were ashamed to look their people in the lace, and walked solemnly away.

To make this matter still worse, after I left St. Peters, I read in the St. Louis Gazette a report of some Chippeways having come down, and that, in consequence of the advice given by the Indian agent, the Sioux had taken the law into their own hands and murdered some of the Chippeways; and that although they had never received redress for the murder of their own people, some of the Sioux were again taken and executed.

The arms of the Sioux are the rifle, tomahawk, and bow; they carry spears more for parade than use. Their bows are not more than three feet long, but their execution with them is surprising. A Sioux, when on horseback chasing the buffalo, will drive his arrow which is about eighteen inches long, with such force that the barb shall appear on the opposite side of the animal. And one of their greatest chiefs, Wanataw, has been known to kill two buffaloes with one arrow, it having passed through the first of the animals, and mortally wounded the second on the other side of it. I was about two hundred yards from the fort, and asked a Sioux if he could send his arrow into one of the apertures for air, which were near the foundation, and about three inches wide. It appeared more like a thread from where we stood. He took his bow, and apparently with a most careless aim he threw the arrow right into it.

The men are tall and straight, and very finely made, with the exception of their arms, which are too small. The arms of the squaws, who do all the labour, are much more muscular. One day, as I was on the prairie, I witnessed the effect of custom upon these people. A Sioux was coming up without perceiving me; his squaw followed very heavily laden, and to assist her he had himself a large package on his shoulder. As soon as they perceived me, he dropped his burden, and it was taken up by the squaw and added to what she had already. If a woman wishes to upbraid another, the severest thing she can say is, “You let your husband carry burthens.”

Volume Two—Chapter Nine

Left St. Peters. Taking the two varieties in the mass, the Indians must be acknowledged the most perfect gentlemen in America, particularly in their deportment. It was with regret that I parted with my friends in the fort, my kind host, Mr Sibley, and my noble-minded warrior Sioux. I could have remained at St. Peters for a year with pleasure, and could only regret that life was so short, and the Mississippi so long.

There is, however, one serious drawback in all America to life in the woods, or life in cities, or every other kind of life; which is the manner, go where you will, in which you are pestered by the mosquitoes. Strangers are not the only sufferers; those who are born and die in the country are equally tormented, and it is slap, slap, slap, all day and all night long, for these animals bite through everything less thick than a buffalo’s skin. As we ascended the river they attacked us on the crown of the head—a very unusual thing,—and raised swellings as large as pigeons’ eggs. I must have immolated at least five hundred of them upon my bump of benevolence. Whatever people may think, I feel that no one can be very imaginative where these animals are so eternally tormenting them. You meditate under the shady boughs of some forest-king (slap knee, slap cheek), and farewell to anything like concentration of thought; you ponder on the sailing moon (clap again, right and left, above, below), always unpleasantly interrupted. It won’t do at all: you are teased and phlebotomised out of all poetry and patience.

It is midnight, the darkness is intense, not even a star in the heavens above, and the steamboat appears as if it were gliding through a current of ink, with black masses rising just perceptible on either side of it; no sound except the reiterated note of the “Whip poor Will,” answered by the loud coughing of the high-pressure engine. Who, of those in existence fifty years ago, would have contemplated that these vast and still untenanted solitudes would have had their silence invaded by such an unearthly sound? a sound which ever gives you the idea of vitality. It is this appearance of breathing which makes the high-pressure engine the nearest approach to creation which was ever attained by the ingenuity of man. It appears to have respiration, and that short, quick respiration occasioned by exertion; its internal operations are performed as correctly and as mechanically as are our own; it is as easily put out of order and rendered useless as we are; and like us, it can only continue its powers of motion by being well supplied with aliment.

Ran up Fever River to Galena, the present emporium of the Mineral Country. There is an unpleasant feeling connected with the name of this river; it is, in fact, one of the American translations. It was originally called Fève, or Bean River, by the French, and this they have construed into Fever. The Mineral district comprehends a tract of country running about one hundred miles North and South, and fifty miles East and West, from the River Wisconsin to about twenty miles south of Galena. It was purchased by the American Government about fifteen years ago, the northern portion from the Winnebagos, and the southern from the Sioux and Fox Indians. The Indians used to work the diggings to a small extent, bringing the lead which they obtained to exchange with the traders. As may be supposed, they raised but little, the whole work of digging and smelting being carried on by the squaws. After the land was surveyed a portion of it was sold, but when the minerals made their appearance the fact was notified by the surveyors to the government, and the remaining portions were withdrawn from the market. A licence was granted to speculators to dig the ore and smelt it, upon condition of their paying to the government a percentage on the mineral obtained. Those who found a good vein had permission to work it for forty yards square on condition that they carried the ore to a licensed smelter. This occasioned a new class of people to spring up in this speculative country, namely, finders, who would search all over the country for what they called a good prospect, that is, every appearance on the surface of a good vein of metal. This when found they would sell to others, who would turn diggers; and as soon as these finders had spent their money, they would range over the whole country to find another prospect which they might dispose of. But although it was at first supposed that the government had retained all the mineral portion of the district in its own hands, it was soon discovered that nearly the whole country was one continued lead mine, and that there was an equal supply of mineral to be obtained from those portions which had been disposed of. Lead was found not only in the mountains and ravines, but under the surface of the wide prairies. As the lands sold by government had not to pay a percentage for the lead raised from them, those who worked upon the government lands refused to pay any longer, asserting that it was not legal. The superintendent of government soon found that his office was a sinecure, as all attempt at coercion in that half-civilised country would have been not only useless but dangerous. The government have gone to law with their tenants, but that is of no avail, for a verdict against the latter would not induce them to pay. The cause was not attempted to be tried at Galena, for the government knew what the decision of the jury would have been, but it is contested at Vandalia. It is three years since the mines have paid any percentage, and the government are now advised to sell all their reserved lands, and thus get rid of the business. How weak must that government be when it is compelled to submit to such a gross violation of all justice. The quantity of mineral found does not appear to affect the quality of the soil, which is as fine here, if not finer, than in those portions of Wisconsin where the mineral is not so plentiful. The quantity of lead annually smelted is said to amount to from 18,000,000 to 20,000,000 lbs. Galena is a small town, picturesquely situated on the banks of the river, but very dirty.

Ioway, the new district opposite to Wisconsin, on the western banks of the Mississippi, has, in all probability, a large proportion of metal under its surface. When it was in the possession of the Sioux Indians, they used to obtain from it a considerable portion of lead, which they brought down to barter; and I am inclined to think, that to the north of the Wisconsin river, they will find no want of minerals, even as high up as Lake Superior, where they have already discovered masses of native copper weighing many tons: and on the west side of the river, as you proceed south, you arrive at the iron mines, or rather mountains of iron, in the Missouri.

After you proceed south of Prairie du Chien, the features of the Mississippi river gradually change; the bluffs decrease in number and in height, until you descend to Rock Island, below which point they are rarely to be met with. The country on each side now is chiefly composed of variegated rolling prairies, with a less proportion of timber. To describe these prairies would be difficult; that is, to describe the effect of them upon a stranger: I have found myself lost, as it were; and indeed sometimes, although on horseback, have lost myself, having only the sun for my guide. Look round in every quarter of the compass, and there you are as if on the ocean—not a landmark, not a vestige of any thing human but yourself. Instead of sky and water, it is one vast field, bounded only by the horizon, its surface gently undulating like the waves of the ocean; and as the wind (which always blows fresh on the prairies) bows down the heads of the high grass, it gives you the idea of a running swell. Every three or four weeks there is a succession of beautiful flowers, giving a variety of tints to the whole map, which die away and are succeeded by others equally beautiful; and in the spring, the strawberries are in such profusion, that you have but to sit down wherever you may happen to be, and eat as long as you please.

We stopped at Alton, in the State of Missouri, to put on shore three thousand pigs of lead. This town has been rendered notorious by the murder—for murder it was, although it was brought on by his own intemperate conduct—of Mr Lovejoy, who is now raised to the dignity of a martyr by the abolitionists. Alton is a well-built town, of stone, and, from its locality, must increase; it is, however, spoilt by the erection of a penitentiary with huge walls, on a most central and commanding situation. I read a sign put out by a small eating-house, and which was very characteristic of the country—

“Stranger, here’s your chicken fixings.”

Four miles below Alton, the Missouri joins its waters with the Mississippi; and the change which takes place at the mingling of the two streams is very remarkable—the clear pellucid current of the upper Mississippi being completely extinguished by the foul mud of the other turbid and impetuous river. It was a great mistake of the first explorers, when they called the western branch, at the meeting of the two rivers, the Missouri, and the eastern the Mississippi: the western branch, or the Missouri, is really the Mississippi, and should have been so designated: it is the longest and farthest navigable of the two branches, and therefore is the main river.

The Falls of St. Anthony put an end to the navigation of the eastern branch, or present upper Missouri, about nine hundred miles above St. Louis; while the western branch, or present Missouri, is navigable above St. Louis for more than one thousand two hundred miles.

The waters of the present upper Mississippi are clear and beautiful; it is a swift, but not an angry stream, full of beauty and freshness, and fertilising as it sweeps along; while the Missouri is the same impetuous, discoloured, devastating current as the Mississippi continues to be after its junction—like it, constantly sweeping down forests of trees in its wild course, overflowing, inundating, and destroying, and exciting awe and fear.

As soon as you arrive at St. Louis, you feel that you are on the great waters of Mississippi. St. Louis is a well-built town, now containing about twenty thousand inhabitants, and situated on a hill shelving down to the river. The population increases daily; the river a-breast of the town is crowded with steamboats, lying in two or three tiers, and ready to start up or down, or to the many tributary navigable rivers which pour their waters into the Mississippi.

In point of heat, St. Louis certainly approaches the nearest to the Black Hole of Calcutta of any city that I have sojourned in. The lower part of the town is badly drained, and very filthy. The flies, on a moderate calculation, are in many parts fifty to the square inch. I wonder that they have not a contagious disease here during the whole summer; it is, however, indebted to heavy rains for its occasional purification. They have not the yellow-fever here; but during the autumn they have one which, under another name, is almost as fatal—the bilious congestive fever. I found sleep almost impossible from the sultriness of the air, and used to remain at the open window for the greater part of the night. I did not expect that the muddy Mississippi would be able to reflect the silver light of the moon; yet it did, and the effect was very beautiful. Truly it may be said of this river, as it is of many ladies, that it is a candle-light beauty. There is another serious evil to which strangers who sojourn here are subject—the violent effects of the waters of the Mississippi upon those who are not used to them. The suburbs of the town are very pretty; and a few miles behind it you are again in a charming prairie country, full of game, large and small. Large and small are only so by comparison. An American was asked what game they had in his district? and his reply was, “Why, we’ve plenty of baar (bear) and deer, but no large game to count on.”