Three Years on the Plains Part 1

Three Years on the Plains.

by Edmund B. Tuttle.

INTRODUCTION

The interest which boys are taking in all that relates to our Indian tribes, and the greediness they manifest in devouring the sensational stories published so cheaply, filling their imaginations with stories of wild Indian life on the plains and borders, without regard to their truthfulness, cannot but be harmful; and therefore the writer, after three years' experience on the plains, feels desirous of giving youthful minds a right direction, in a true history of the red men of our forests. Thus can they teach their children, in time to come, what kind of races have peopled this continent; especially before civilization had marked them for destruction, and their hunting-grounds for our possession.

The RIGHTS and WRONGS of the Indians should be told fairly, in order that justice may be done to such as have befriended the white men who have met the Indians in pioneer life, and been befriended often by the savage, since the Mayflower landed her pilgrims on these sh.o.r.es some two hundred and fifty years ago.

The writer proposes now only a history of Indians since he began to know the "Six Nations" in Western New York, about forty years ago.

Since then, these have dwindled down to a handful, and do not now exist in their separate tribal relations, but mixed in with others, far away from the beautiful lakes they once inhabited.

WHERE DID THE INDIANS COME FROM?

The origin of the native American Indian has puzzled the wisest heads.

The most plausible theory seems to be that they are one of the lost tribes of Israel; that they crossed a narrow frith from the confines of Asia, and that their traditions, it is said, go far to prove it.

For instance, the Sioux tell us that they were, many moons ago, set upon by a race larger in number than they, and were driven from the north in great fear, till they came to the banks of the North Platte, and finding the river swollen up to its banks, they were stopped there, with all their women, children, and horses. The enemy was pursuing, and their hearts grew white with fear. They made an offering to the Great Spirit, and he blew a wind into the water, so as to open a path on the bed of the river, and they all went over in safety, and the waters, closing up, left their enemies on the other side. This, probably, is derived from a tradition of their forefathers, coming down to them from the pa.s.sing of the children of Israel through the Red Sea.

Elias Boudinot, many years ago, and a minister in Vermont also, published books to show that the American Indians were a portion of the lost tribes, from resemblances between their religious customs and those of the Israelites. Later still, a converted Jew named Simon, undertook to identify the ancient South American races, Mexicans, Peruvians, etc., as descendants of ancient Israel, from similarity of language and of civil and religious customs. These authors have taken as their starting-point the resolution which, Esdras informs us (in the Apocrypha), the ten tribes took after being first placed in the cities of the Medes, viz., that they would leave the mult.i.tude of the heathen and go into a land wherein never mankind dwelt, that they might there keep their laws, which G.o.d gave them; and they suppose that, in pursuance of this resolution, the tribes continued in a northeasterly direction until they came to Behring Straits, which they crossed, and set foot on this continent, spreading over it from north to south, until, at the discovery of it by Columbus, they had peopled every part.

It must be admitted that this theory is very plausible, and that if our Indians are not the descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, they show by their traditions and customs a knowledge of the ancient religion, such as calling the Great Spirit Yo-he-wah, the Jehovah of the Scriptures, and in many festivals corresponding to the Mosaic law.[1]

The country to which the ten tribes, in a journey of a year and a half, would arrive, from the river Euphrates, east, would be somewhere adjoining Tartary, and intercourse between the two races would easily lead to the adoption of the religious ideas and customs of the one by the other.

[1] Labagh.

The gypsy tribes came from Tartary, and in my intercourse with these wandering people, I found they had a custom somewhat like our Indians'

practice, in removing from place to place. For instance, the gypsies, when they leave a part of their company to follow them, fix leaves in such wise as to direct their friends to follow in their course. This is called "_patteran_" in Romany or gypsy language. And the Indian cuts a notch in a tree as he pa.s.ses through a forest, or places stones in the plains in such a way as to show in what direction he has gone. An officer saw a large stone, upon which an Indian had drawn the figure of a soldier on horseback, to indicate to others which way the soldiers had gone.

_Origin of Evil_.--They have a tradition handed down that the Great Spirit said they might eat of all the animals he had made, except the beaver. But some bad Indians went and killed a beaver, and the Great Spirit was angry and said they must all die. But after awhile he became willing that Indians should kill and eat them, so the beaver is hunted for his skin, and his meat is eaten as often as he suffers himself to be caught.

DESPOILING THE GRAVE OF AN OLD ONONDAGA CHIEF.

On-on-da-ga was the name of an Indian chief, who died about the year 1830, near Elbridge, a town lying north of Auburn, in the State of New York. This Indian belonged to the Onondagas, one of the tribes called "the Six Nations of the IROQUOIS" (E-ro-kwa), a confederacy consisting of the MOHAWKS, ONEIDAS, SENECAS, CAYUGAS, ONONDAGAS, and TUSCARORAS or CHIPPEWAS. I was a lad at the time of this chief's death, having my home in Auburn, New York, where my father was the physician and surgeon to the State prison. My father had a cousin, who was also a doctor and surgeon, a man of stalwart frame, raised in Vermont, named Cogswell. He was proud of his skill in surgery, and devoted to the science. He had learned of the death of the Onondaga chief, and conceived the idea of getting the body out of the grave for the purpose of dissecting the old fellow,--that is, of cutting him up and preserving his bones to hang up on the walls of his office; of course, there was only one way of doing it, and that was by stealing the body under cover of night, as the Indians are very superst.i.tious and careful about the graves of their dead. You know they place all the trappings of the dead--his bow and arrows, tomahawk and wampum--in the grave, as they think he will need them to hunt and supply his wants with on his journey to the happy hunting-grounds. They place food and tobacco, with other things, in the grave.

Dr. Cogswell took two men one night, with a wagon, and as the distance was only twelve miles, they performed the journey and got back safely before daylight, depositing the body of the Indian in a barn belonging to a Mr. Hopkins, in the north part of the town. It was soon noised about town what they had done, and there lived a man there who threatened to go and inform the tribe of the despoiling of the chief's grave, unless he was paid thirty dollars to keep silence. The doctor, being a bold, courageous man, refused to comply with a request he had no right to make, because it was an attempt to "levy black mail," as it is called.

Sure enough, he kept his word, and told the Onondagas, who were living between Elbridge and Syracuse. They were very much exasperated when they heard what had been done, and threatened vengeance on the town where the dead chief lay.

The tribe was soon called together, and a march was planned to go up to Auburn by the way of Skaneateles Lake,--a beautiful sheet of water lying six miles east of Auburn. They encamped in the pine woods,--a range called the "pine ridge,"--half-way between the two villages, and sent a few of the tribe into Auburn for the purpose of trading off the baskets they had made for powder and shot; but the real purpose they had in view was to find out just where the body was (deposited in the barn of Mr. Josiah Hopkins), intending to set fire to the barn and burn the town, rescuing the dead chief at the same time.

For several days the town was greatly excited, and every fireside at night was surrounded with anxious faces; the children listening with greedy ears to narratives of Indian cruelties perpetrated during the war with the English about Canada, in 1812; and I remember how it was told of a cruel Indian named Philip, that he would seize little babes from their mothers' arms and dash out their brains against the wall! No wonder we dreamed horrid dreams of the dusky faces every night.

At that time the military did not amount to much. There was a company of citizen soldiers there, called the "AUBURN GUARDS," numbering about forty men, with a captain whose name I forget, but who became suddenly seized with the idea of his unfitness to defend the town against the threatened Indian invasion, and did the wisest thing he could, and resigned his commission on a plea of "_sudden indisposition_." The doctor walked the street as bold as a lion, but acting also with the shrewd cunning of the fox. And now, my young friends, instead of weaving a b.l.o.o.d.y romance in the style of the "Dime Novels," depicting the terrible ma.s.sacre, which might have happened, with so great a wrong to provoke the hostility of the poor Indians, I am about to tell you how the town was saved, and how the doctor outwitted them. If you pause here, and guess, I think you will be far from the mark in reaching the shrewdness of the surgeon, who had not been bred among the hills of old Vermont for nothing.

As I said, at Auburn there is a State prison, and when the convicts die, their bodies, unless claimed by relatives or friends within twenty-four hours after death, are at the disposal of the surgeon for dissection.

As good luck would have it, a negro convict died at the time of our story; and the doctor conceived the idea of getting out of his difficulty by transferring the dead body of the negro Jim to the despoiled empty grave of Onondaga! This done, he easily persuaded the Indians to go back and find the body of their chief all right: and so he succeeded in humbugging the weak-minded Indians, while the bones of old Onondaga were duly prepared and hung up to show students how Indians and all men are made of bone and muscle. The doctor thought he had done a good thing; but when I went into the office and saw the horrid skull grinning at me, I was thankful that the spirit of old Onondaga could not say of me, "You did it!"

II.

The most notable of the chiefs belonging to the Six Nations were Hiawatha, Thayendanega (or Brant, his English name), Sagoyewatha, or Red Jacket,--the most intelligent of the chiefs, and who is said to have been the uncle of General Parker, a full-blood Chippewa, and at one time Indian Commissioner at Washington. (Parker served as an aide of General Grant during the war. In early life, he was a pupil at the normal school, in Albany; and was reckoned quite a proficient in music by Prof. Bowen.)

Most of these tribes, inhabiting the country bordering on the Mohawk River, Onondaga Lake, Skaneateles, Owasco, Cayuga, Seneca, Ontario, and Erie, migrated at an early day to Green Bay, and to the Straits of Mackinaw. As remnants of the Onondagas were pa.s.sing through Auburn, they often slept on the floor of our kitchen, and they never stole anything or did us any harm. One day, they were pa.s.sing the American Hotel, and, as usual, begged a few sixpences of all they met. A gentleman sitting on the porch said to one of them, "No, you'll spend it for whisky."

"Oh, no," he replied; "_give it to my wife,--he's a Methodist woman_!"

I met a tribe of Chippewas at Marquette, a short time since, on Lake Superior, whither they had migrated from Green Bay. _An-ges-ta_, the chief, was a tall, n.o.ble-looking fellow. He wanted the church to help his people, who were very poor.

Said he, "We lived in Green Bay a great while, but when I looked into our cabins and saw so many of them empty, and into the graveyard, and counted more graves than we had living, my heart was sad, and I went away farther toward the setting sun!"

He made an eloquent speech to the Prince of Wales on his visit to the West, and it was p.r.o.nounced a fine piece of natural oratory.

A few remnants of the New York tribes are living not far from Buffalo, on a reservation, where they cultivate farms and have schools and churches.

Such were the Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, Mohawks, and Chippewas. Only one band is left in New York State now, that of the Onondagas.

The present generation of grown people have read with delight the beautiful novels of J. Fenimore Cooper, Esq., but they have been disappointed in not finding any living examples of his n.o.ble heroes. As a general thing, the Indian of our day is an untidy lord of the soil, over which he roams unfettered by any laws of society, and often--in his wild state--not controlled by its decencies or in possession of its privileges. But I think this is the fault of Christians more interested in foreign pagans, while neglecting these heathen at our own doors.

THE FIDELITY OF AN INDIAN CHIEF.

The following story about an Oneida chief is told by Judge W----:

Early in the settlement of the western part of New York, the judge was living in Whitesboro', four miles west of Utica. All around was an unbroken forest of beech, maple, and other trees, held by wild tribes of Indians, who had been for ever so long owners of the soil. Judge W----, feeling how much he was at their mercy in his lonely place, was anxious to keep on good terms with them, and secure their friendship in return.

Many of the chiefs had heard of his friendly ways, and went to see him, carrying presents, because of the gifts he had sent them; but he was much troubled that an old chief of the tribe, having great influence with his people, had never come to see him, or sent him any presents, or shown any signs of welcome. After awhile the judge made up his mind to go and see the sachem in his wigwam, and thus secure a friendship he might rely on in case of any difficulty. His family was small,--only his daughter, a widow, and her only child, a fine boy, five years old.

So, one day he went to pay the chief a visit, taking the widow and her son along with him. He found him seated at the door of his tent, enjoying a nice breeze of a fine summer's morning, and was welcomed by the old chief with kind manners and the word "Sago," meaning, "How do you do?" Judge W---- presented his daughter and her little boy to the old chief, and said they had come to live in his country; they were anxious to live in peace with them, and introduce among them the arts of civilization. Listening to these words, the chief said,--

"Brother, you ask much and promise much; what pledge can you give of your good faith?"

_Judge._--"The honor of a man who never knew deceit."

_Sachem._--"The white man's word may be good to the white man, yet it is but wind when spoken to the Indian."