Perhaps you will ask how it happens that the Indians are now aliens and paupers in a land of which they were once the undisputed possessors? It is easy to see how it all came about, but it is a story by no means creditable to the white man. In the first place, the European sovereigns claimed their lands by right of discovery. Precisely as though you should claim another boy's sled because it was the first time you had seen it, and then should wrest it from him because you were the stronger. This is just what the white man did to the Indian: in plain language, robbed him.

It is true that in some cases lands were bought of the natives, but the Indian had no idea of exclusive ownership in land, and supposed he was giving the white man only an equal privilege in it with himself. The price paid was often insignificant enough. For the territory now covered by the great city of New York the Indians received twenty-four pounds—about one hundred and twenty dollars—a sum which would now buy little more than a square foot of it.

One way to cheat the Indian out of his land was this: a tract of territory granted by the Delawares to William Penn fifty years before was to extend in a given direction as far as a man could walk in a day and a half, and from this point eastwardly to the Delaware River. The Indians justly complained that, instead of walking, the men appointed by the ran. Not only did they run, but they had previously cut a path through the forest and removed whatever could hinder their swift passage. This was not all. Instead of running the northern line direct to the Delaware, the plain meaning of the deed, the proprietors inclined it so far to the north as to form an acute angle with the river.

By these fraudulent methods they gained possession of many hundred thousand acres of valuable land which the Indians had no intention of surrendering, and from which they were compelled immediately to remove. This and other injuries and aggressions ended in a terrible border war, in which the French joined the Delawares against the English.

When the Indian turned upon his white oppressor, the effort was made to crush and exterminate him. By alternate wars and treaties he was pushed back from his ancient seats, until at length, cooped up in reservations under the eye of the military, he is fed and clothed by the government, having no rights as a citizen.

To this state of things there are some notable exceptions. In the Indian Territory the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles, known as the Five Civilized Tribes, live under a government of their own; in New York the remaining Iroquois, having become civilized, are citizens; in New Mexico the Pueblo Indians are semi-civilized; and in Michigan and North Carolina there are a few Indians not on reservations. All these are self-supporting.

Is it to be wondered at that the Indian has made no greater progress in civilization? If white men had been treated as he has been, and placed beyond the necessity of labor, they would quickly become worthless vagabonds. It will not do to assume the inherent inferiority of the red men. We must remember that, like them, our British ancestors were savages, who painted their bodies, clothed themselves in the skins of wild beasts, and lived in rude huts in a country covered with forests and swamps.

The folly and wickedness of most of our Indian wars is only too apparent when we reflect that the injury the Indian could inflict upon the innocent settlers on our border was many times greater than we could possibly inflict upon him, and that simple justice and honesty in our dealings with him would have prevented them altogether.

It was a blunder—the first of a long series in our dealings with them—to call the natives "Indians." On discovering America, Columbus supposed he had reached India, the object of his voyage. Indeed, the great navigator died in ignorance of the fact that he had discovered a new continent. To this day the lands he first saw are known as the West Indies.

It is supposed that this country was inhabited by an earlier race of men called Mound Builders from the earthworks of various forms and sizes found in the valley of the Mississippi and elsewhere.

In Wisconsin many of these mounds are in the form of gigantic animals. The builders must have been familiar with the mastodon, or elephant, judging from the "Big Elephant" mound found a few miles below the mouth of the Wisconsin River. It is 135 feet long, and well proportioned. One in Adams County, Ohio, represents a serpent 1000 feet long, its body gracefully curved, and its open jaws about to swallow a figure shaped like an egg.

The great mound of Cabokia, opposite St. Louis, is 90 feet in height and 700 feet in length. Unity of design and mathematical precision of construction appear in all these works, most of which are of a defensive character, and in which are represented the square, the circle, the octagon, and the rhomb. They have gate-ways, parallel lines, and outlooks; and it is evident that they are the results of the labors of a vast number of men directed by a single governing mind having a definite object in view. At Newark, Ohio, a fortification exists which covers an area of several miles, and has over two miles of embankment from two to twenty feet high.

The present native race has neither knowledge nor tradition respecting these singular remains. Their builders have left us no other record than the mounds themselves, and the tools and ornaments, some of them of copper, and the tastefully moulded pottery found in them.

A probable conjecture about tins mysterious people is that they were village Indians of New Mexico, and that some of these earthworks were the foundations of their long houses, in which great numbers of them lived, and that they were finally driven off by fierce savage hordes from the West and North. Their houses, being of wood, long since disappeared. Contributions to Knowledge, by Squier and Davis, contains much information relative to the aboriginal monuments in the Mississippi valley.")?>

Let me now tell you what the Indian is like. Picture to yourselves a man with straight black hair, a scanty beard, small black eyes, high cheek-bones, large thick lips, a narrow forehead, and a reddish-brown or cinnamon complexion, and you have a tolerably correct idea of how the North American Indian appears. Though divided into seven or eight stocks or families, each speaking a different language, the Indians throughout the United States have a common physical likeness and similar manners and institutions.

The principal of these great divisions or families are:

Algonkins;  found throughout the eastern portion of the country, from Nova Scotia to North Carolina, and west to the Mississippi. They covered sixty degrees of longitude and twenty degrees of latitude, and numbered 90,000—more than one-third of the entire Indian population.

Iroquois, or Five Nations;  in western and central New York, and, farther north, the Hurons, or Wyandots.

Dakotas, or Sioux;  west of the Algonkins, and extending from the Saskatchewan River to southern Arkansas, and from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains.

Muskokis, or Appalachians;  all the south-eastern part of the United States, extending west to the Mississippi. They embraced the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, Uchees, and several other small tribes.

Shoshonis, or Snakes;  this division forms six groups, extending over parts of Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Oregon, Nevada, Montana, Arizona, Texas, California, and New Mexico.

Besides these are the Athabascas, Yumas, and New Mexican Pueblos. The first are, perhaps, the most numerous, inhabiting Alaska, Canada, and a part of Oregon. The Yumas inhabit Arizona and California. The Pueblos (village Indians) speak six different languages. The wide diversity of tongues in these twenty-six towns in New Mexico, of similar habits and social life, is a most singular circumstance.

Ali these great families were divided into numerous tribes and clans, and these again into smaller tribes, bands, and villages. They are now distributed among one hundred reservations, and more than half of them wear citizen's dress. Some of these reservations are very extensive; that of the Sioux, in Dakota, is larger than the State of New York. The Indian Territory, with a population of 76,585, of whom more than one-fourth are yet uncivilized, contains some thirty-five tribes or parts of tribes.

Having shown you how the Indian appears, I will now tell you what he is.

The characteristic traits of the Indian are such as are common to all barbarous races. Ambitious, vindictive, cruel, envious, and suspicious, he is also sagacious, warlike, and courageous, and, at the same time, excessively cautious. Revenge is with him a sacred duty. Treacherous and deceitful to his foes, he prefers to slay his enemy by a secret rather than an open blow.

On the other hand, he loves liberty passionately; will brave famine, torture, and even death in the pursuit of glory; is strongly affectionate to his family; hospitable to the extent of sharing his last morsel with a stranger, though famine stares him in the face; faithful in friendship, he will lay down his life for his comrade, and never forgets a kindness. He is grave, dignified, and patient, and possesses a stoicism that enables him to control his emotions under the most trying circumstances. His out-door life and habitual self-control keep him from all effeminate vices. He uses tobacco for smoking only, and, before the white man came, was happily ignorant even of the existence of intoxicating drinks.

The superiority of Indian hospitality to that of the white man was, no doubt, truly stated by Canassatego, a chief of the Six Nations, in a conversation with an English friend:

"If," said he, "a white man enters one of our cabins, we all treat him as I do you; we dry him if he is wet, we warm him if he is cold, and give him meat and drink that he may allay his thirst and hunger, and we spread soft furs for him to rest and sleep on. We demand nothing in return. But if I go into a white man's house in Albany and ask for victuals and drink, they say, 'Where is your money?' and, if I have none, they say, 'Get out, you Indian dog?'"

Out of many instances of Indian humanity I select that of Petalashara, a distinguished Pawnee brave. The son of a chief, he had, at the age of twenty-one, earned from his tribe the title accorded to the celebrated French soldier, Marshal Ney, "the bravest of the brave."

A female captive was about to suffer torture at the stake in accordance with Indian custom. A large crowd had, as usual, gathered to witness the horrible scene.

The brave, unobserved, had stationed two fleet horses near at hand, and silently waited the moment for action. The flames were about to envelop the victim, when, to the astonishment of all, Petalashara was seen severing the cords that bound her, and, with the swiftness of thought, bearing her off in his arms; and then, placing her upon one horse, and himself mounting the other, he bore her safely away to her friends and country. Such an act would have endangered the life of any ordinary warrior; but such was his sway over the tribe that no one presumed to censure the daring act.

Though not the equal of the white man in bodily strength, the Indian was his superior in endurance and fleetness of foot. Some of their best runners could make seventy or eighty miles in a day through the unbroken wilderness. A close observer of natural phenomena, in the densest forest the Indian could travel for miles in a straight line, and could note signs and sounds the white man could not perceive. His temperament is poetic and imaginative, and his simple eloquence possesses great dignity and force.

A little anecdote will give an idea of his native wit and shrewdness. A half-naked Indian was looking on at some workmen in the employ of Governor Dudley, of Massachusetts.

"Why don't you work and get yourself some clothes?" asked the governor.

"Why don't you work?" retorted the son of the forest.

"I work head-work," said Dudley, pointing to his head.

The Indian said he was willing to work, and agreed to kill a calf for the governor. Having done so, he came for his pay.

"But," said the governor, "you have not dressed the calf."

"No, no," said the Indian; "I was to have a shilling for killing him. Am he no dead, governor?" Finding himself out-witted, the governor gave him another shilling for dressing it. It was not long before the Indian came back demanding a good shilling in place of a bad one which he claimed that the governor had paid him. The governor gave him another. Returning a second time with still another brass piece to be exchanged, the governor, convinced of his knavery, offered him half a crown if he would deliver a letter for him. The letter was directed to the keeper of the prison, and ordered him to give the bearer a certain number of lashes.

The Indian suspected that all was not right, and, meeting a servant of the governor, induced him to take the letter to its address. The result of the Indian's stratagem was that a severe whipping was administered to the unfortunate servant. The governor was greatly chagrined at being a second time out-witted by the Indian. On falling in with him some time after, he accosted him with some severity, asking him how he had dared to cheat and deceive him so many times.

"Head-work, governor; head-work," was the reply. Pleased at the fellow's wit and audacity, the governor freely forgave him.

Perhaps some of my younger readers may wonder how people could exist in a wilderness where there were no houses to live in, no markets where they could buy food, and no stores in which clothing and other necessary articles could be procured. If they look into the matter, they will find that the Creator had provided whatever was required by their simple mode of life, and that they had no artificial wants. For these they were indebted to the white man.

Formerly the Indians were clad in the skins of animals; a robe and breech cloth for the man, and a short petticoat for the women. On great occasions, as councils or war-dances, they daubed themselves with paint, the color being varied for joy or grief, peace or war. They also decorated themselves with beads, feathers, porcupine quills, and parts of birds and animals. The women wore their hair long, the men shaved theirs off, except the scalp-lock, which was left as a point of honor.

For food the Indian relied upon the chase, the fisheries, and agriculture. Maize, or Indian corn, was his principal food. It grew luxuriantly without cultivation, was gathered by hand and roasted before the fire; a small supply of it parched and pounded sufficed for a long journey. He also raised beans and pumpkins, and a little tobacco. If all other supplies failed, he had nuts, roots, berries, and acorns, which grew wild. His cooking was simple and without seasoning, usually by roasting over a fire. Baking was done in holes in the ground, and water was boiled by throwing heated stones into it.

Most of the natives lived in cabins or wigwams. These were made by fixing long poles in the ground, bending them towards each other at the top, and covering them outside with bark or skins, and inside with mats. A bear-skin served for the door; an opening in the roof was the chimney. There were no windows. It could be quickly set up and easily removed. Its size was proportioned to the number it was to hold. In these dirty, smoky habitations men, women, and children huddled together. Some of the tribes built permanent villages, with streets and rows of houses; these were generally surrounded with palisades of logs and brushwood. Nearly all the tribes changed their abode at different seasons in pursuit of the various kinds of game.

A remarkable exception to the usual form of the Indian dwelling is found among the Pueblo, or village, Indians of New Mexico.

In the face of a line of cliffs extending over sixty miles on the western side of the Rio Grande, between Cochiti and Santa Clara, are seen numerous excavations which had once been human habitations, but which are now in ruins. At a distance they look like a long line of dark spots. They were approached by foot-paths and stairways cut in the rock, which was soft and easily worked, and were in tiers of two, three, four, and occasionally five, rows, one above the other and not far apart. The only entrance was by an arch-shaped door-way, widening until there was room enough within for a single family. Wooden structures in front served as out-door habitations for the women and children.

So numerous are these caves that one hundred thousand persons might have lived at once where only a few hundred of their descendants now dwell. It is wonderful how this region, which is exceedingly desolate, volcanic, and sterile, and in which there are few watercourses, could have sustained such a dense population.

The fort-like community houses of the Zuni Indians outwardly present one unbroken wall of hard mud. Their inner faces consist of a series of terraces or houses, piled one above the other, from two to five stories in height. Each tier above is less than the one beneath by the width of one story, and is entered over the roof of the tier below. Formerly the only house-doors were hatchways in the roof; and to enter their habitation the family—babies, dogs, and all—went up an outside ladder to the roof, and down an inside ladder to the floor. Narrow door-ways cut in the rock are now made use of.

The Indian's implements of husbandry were of the rudest kind, yet he had learned many useful arts. He knew the art of striking fire; of making the bow with the string of sinew, and the arrow-head both of flint and bone; of making vessels of pottery; of curing and tanning skills: of making moccasins, snow-shoes, and wearing apparel, together with various implements and utensils of stone, wood, and bone; of rope and net-making from fibres of bark; of finger-weaving with warp and woof the same materials into sashes, burden-straps, and other useful fabrics; of weaving rush-mats; of making pipes of clay or stone, often artistically carved; of basket-making with osier, cane, and splints; of canoe-making—the skin, birch-bark, and that hollowed from the trunk of a tree; of constructing timber-framed lodges and skin tents; of shaping stone mauls, hammers, axes, and chisels; of making fish spears, nets, and bone hooks; implements for athletic games; musical instruments, such as the flute and the drum; weapons and ornaments of shell, bone, and stone.

His most ingenious inventions were the snow-shoe, the birch canoe, the method of dressing the skins of animals with the brains, and the Dakota tent, or tepee, the model of the Sibley army tent. With the snow-shoe he could travel forty miles a day over the surface of the snow, and easily overtake the deer and the moose, whose hoofs penetrated the crust and prevented their escape. The bark canoe, sometimes thirty feet long and carrying twelve persons, was very light and easily propelled. The bark of the tree was stripped off whole and stretched over a light, white cedar frame. The edges were sewed with thongs, and then covered with gum. They varied in pattern, drew little water, and were often graceful in shape. The Iroquois used elm-bark, the Algonkins birch. The Pacific tribes made baskets, some of which were so skilfully woven as to hold water.

In hunting, the bow and arrow, and sometimes the dart or spear, were used. The smaller animals were trapped. When game was plenty it was sometimes driven into an enclosure and killed. The southern tribes used the lasso and stone balls attached to hide ropes. Fish were taken in nets, and with bone hooks, or speared.

Though the Indian believed his own way of life superior to all others, and in accordance with the design of the Great Spirit, and detested civilization, he has been unable to resist its progress. The gun has taken the place of the bow and arrow, and his rude arts and implements have gradually been replaced by those of greater utility and simplicity. The printing-press is already employed by the Cherokees, who publish a newspaper in their own language at Tahlequah; another is issued at Caddo, in the Creek nation, in the Creek or Choctaw tongue. The plough is in very general use among the tribes.

Having no alphabet, the aborigines conveyed their ideas to the eye by means of rude pictures of visible objects engraved upon smooth stones or the bark of trees, and sometimes drawn on the skins of animals. Their records of treaties were kept by strings or belts of wampum made of shells and beads, which was also in use as money. These beads were commonly used for ornament. Ten thousand of then have been known to be wrought into a single war-belt four inches wide.

The accompanying sketch was copied from a tree on the banks of the Muskingum River, Ohio. The characters were drawn with charcoal and bear's oil. It describes the part borne in Pontiac's war by the Delawares of the Muskingum, under the noted chief, Wingemund.

No. 1 represents the oldest and main branch of the Delaware tribe by its ancient symbol, the tortoise. No. 2 is the totem, or armorial badge, of Wingemund, denoting him to be the actor. No. 3 is the sun; the ten horizontal strokes beneath it denote the number of war-parties in which this chief had participated. No. 4 represents men's scalps. No. 5, women's scalps. No. 6, male prisoners. No. 7, female prisoners. No. 8, a small fort situated on the banks of Lake Erie, which was taken by the Indians in 1762, by surprise. No. 9 represents the fort at Detroit, under the command of Major Gladwyn, which, in 1763, resisted a siege of three months. No. 10 is Fort Pitt, denoted by its striking position on the extreme point of land at the confluence of the Alleghany and the Monongahela rivers. No. 11 signifies the incipient town near it. The eleven crosses or figures arranged below the tortoise denote the number of persons who were either killed or taken prisoners by this chief; the prisoners are distinguished from the slain by the figure of a ball or circle above the cross-figure denoting a head. Those devices without the circle are symbols of the slain; but four out of the eleven appear to have been women, and of these two were retained as prisoners. It appears that but two of the six men were led into captivity. The twenty-three nearly vertical strokes at the foot of the inscription indicate the strength of the chieftain's party. The inclination denotes the course of their march to the scene of conflict. This course, in the actual position of the tribe, and of the side of the tree chosen to depict it, was northward. As an evidence of the order and exactitude of these rude memorials in recording facts, it is to be observed that the number of persons captured or killed in each expedition of the chief is set on the left of the picture, exactly opposite the symbolical mark of the expedition.

Similar devices upon Indian grave-posts commemorate the family and the deeds of the deceased. The one here represented is that of Wabojeeg, a celebrated Chippewa war-chief. He was of the family of the Addik, or American Reindeer. This fact is represented by the figure of a deer. The reversed position denotes death. The seven transverse marks on the left denote that he had led seven war-parties. The three perpendicular lines below the totem represent three wounds received in battle. The figure of a moose's head denotes a desperate conflict with an enraged animal of that kind. The symbols of the arrow and pipe indicate his influence in war and peace. The Indians mourned their dead sincerely and preserved their remains with affectionate veneration.

The famous Dighton Rock inscription, once ascribed to the Northmen, is now known to be merely the record of a battle between two Indian tribes. The amazement of the vanquished at the sudden assault of the victors is shown by their being deprived of both hands and arms, or the power of resistance. Nothing in the inscription denotes a foreigner, nor is there any figure or sign for any weapon or implement brought by white, men from beyond the sea. This interesting object is situated on the border of the Taunton River.