Wigwam and War-path Or the Royal Chief in Chains Part 1

Wigwam and War-path; Or the Royal Chief in Chains.

by A. B. (Alfred Benjamin) Meacham.

PREFACE.

The Hon. A. B. Meacham has committed to me the difficult and delicate, yet delightful task of revising the ma.n.u.script and arranging the table of contents of the present work.

I have endeavored to review every page as an impartial critic, and have, as far as possible, retained, in all its simplicity and beauty, the singularly eloquent and fascinating style of the gifted author. The changes which I have made have been, for the most part, quite immaterial--no more nor greater than would be required in the ma.n.u.script of writers commonly called "learned." In no case have I attempted (for the attempt would have been vain) to give shape and tone to the writer's thoughts. His mind was so full, both of the comedy and the tragedy of his thrilling narrative, that it has flowed on like a mighty torrent, bidding defiance to any attempt either to direct or control.

None, it seems to me, can peruse the work without being charmed with the love of justice and the fidelity to truth which pervade its every page, as well as the manly courage with which the writer arraigns _Power_ for the crime of crushing _Weakness_--holding our Government to an awful accountability for the delays, the ignorance, the fickleness and treachery of its subordinates in dealing with a people whose very religion prompts them to wreak vengeance for wrongs done them, even on the innocent.

For the lover of romance and of thrilling adventure, the work possesses a charm scarcely equalled by the enchanting pages of a Fennimore Cooper; and, to the reader who appreciates truth, justice, and humanity, and delights to trace the outlines of such a career as Providence seems to have marked out for the author, as well as for the unfortunate tribes whose history he has given us, it will be a reliable, entertaining, and instructive companion.

Mr. Meacham's thirty years' experience among the Indian tribes of the North-west, and his official career as Superintendent of Indian affairs in Oregon, together with his partic.i.p.ation in the tragic events of the Lava Bed, invest his words with an authority which must outweigh that of every flippant politician in the land, who, to secure the huzzas of the mob, will applaud the oppressor and the tyrant one day, and the very next day clamor mercilessly for their blood.

D. L. EMERSON.

BOSTON, Oct. 1, 1874.

INTRODUCTION.

The chapter in our National history which tells our dealings with the Indian tribes, from Plymouth to San Francisco, will be one of the darkest and most disgraceful in our annals. Fraud and oppression, hypocrisy and violence, open, high-handed robbery and sly cheating, the swindling agent and the brutal soldier turned into a brigand, buying promotion by pandering to the hate and fears of the settlers, avarice and indifference to human life, and l.u.s.t for territory, all play their parts in the drama.

Except the negro, no race will lift up, at the judgment-seat, such accusing hands against this nation as the Indian. We have put him in charge of agents who have systematically cheated him. We have made causeless war on him merely as a pretext to steal his lands. Trampling under foot the rules of modern warfare, we have made war on his women and children. We have cheated him out of one hunting-ground by compelling him to accept another, and have robbed him of the last by driving him to frenzy, and then punishing resistance with confiscation. Meanwhile, neither pulpit nor press, nor political party, would listen to his complaints. Congress has handed him over, gagged and helpless, to the bands of ignorant, drunken and brutal soldiers. Neither on its floor, nor in any city of the Union, could his advocate obtain a hearing. Money has been poured out like water to feed and educate the Indian, of which one dollar in ten may have found its way to supply his needs, or pay the debts we owed him.

To show the folly of our method, examine the south side of the great lakes, and you will find in every thirty miles between Plymouth and Omaha the scene of an Indian ma.s.sacre. And since 1789 we have spent about one thousand million of dollars in dealing with the Indians. Meanwhile, under British rule, on the north of those same lakes, there has been no Indian outbreak, worth naming, for a hundred years, and hardly one hundred thousand dollars have been spent directly on the Indians of Canada. What is the solution of this astounding riddle? This, and none other. England gathers her Indian tribes, like ordinary citizens, within the girth of her usual laws. If injured, they complain, like other men, to a justice of the peace, not to a camp captain. If offenders, they are arraigned before such a justice, or some superior court. Complaint, indictment, evidence, trial, sentence, are all after the old Saxon pattern. With us martial law, or no law at all, is their portion; no civil rights, no right to property that a white man is bound to respect. Of course quarrel, war, expense, oppression, robbery, resistance, like begetting like, and degradation of the Indian even to the level of the frontiersman who would plunder him, have been the result of such a method. If such a result were singular, if our case stood alone, we should receive the pitiless curses of mankind.

But the same result has almost always followed the contact of the civilized and the savage man.

General Grant's recommendation of a policy which would acknowledge the Indian as a citizen, is the first step in our Indian history which gives us any claim to be considered a Christian people. The hostility it has met shows the fearful demoralization of our press and political parties.

Statesmanship, good sense and justice, even from a chief magistrate can hardly obtain a hearing when they relate to such long-time victims of popular hate and pillage as our Indian tribes. Some few men in times past have tried to stem this hideous current of national indifference and injustice. Some men do now try. Prominent among these is the author of this volume. Thirty years of practical experience in dealing with Indians while he represented the Government in different offices; long and familiar acquaintance with their genius, moods, habits and capabilities, enable and ent.i.tle him to testify in this case. That, having suffered, at the hands of Indians, all that man can suffer and still live, he should yet lift up a voice, s.n.a.t.c.hed almost miraculously from the grave, to claim for them, nevertheless, the treatment of men, of citizens, is a marvellous instance of fidelity to conviction against every temptation and injury.

Bearing all over his person the scars of nearly fatal wounds received from Indians, he still advocates Grant's policy. Familiar with the Indian tribes, and personally acquainted with their chiefs, with the old and young, men and women, their sports and faith, their history and aspirations, their education and capacity, their songs, amus.e.m.e.nts, legends, business, loves and hates, his descriptions lack no element of a faithful portrait; while his lightest ill.u.s.trations have always beneath the surface a meaning which cannot fail to arrest the attention of the American people, and enable them to understand this national problem.

Never before have we had just such a witness on the stand. Brilliant and graphic in description, and exceedingly happy in his choice of topics, he gives us pages startling and interesting as a novel. While his appeals stir the heart like a clarion, he still keeps cautiously to sober fact; and every statement, the most seemingly incredible, is based on more than sufficient evidence. I _commend this book to the public_--study it not only as accurate and striking in its pictures of Indian life, but as profoundly interesting to every student of human nature,--the picture of a race fast fading away and melting into white men's ways. His contribution to the solution of one of the most puzzling problems of American statesmanship is invaluable. Destined no doubt to provoke bitter criticism, I feel sure his views and statements will bear the amplest investigation. His volume will contribute largely to vindicate the President's policy, and to enable, while it disposes, the American people to understand and do justice to our native tribes.

(Signed,)

WENDELL PHILLIPS.

CHAPTER I.

EARLY REMINISCENCES, POW-E-SHIEK'S BAND.

"Oh, that mine enemy would write a book!" With that ominous warning ringing in my ears, I sit down to write out my own observations and experiences, not without full appreciation of the meaning and possible reiteration of the above portentous saying. In so doing I shall endeavor to state plain facts, in such a way, perhaps, that mine enemies will avail themselves of the privilege.

Hoping, however, that I may disarm all malice, and meet with a fair and impartial criticism, based on the principles of justice both to myself and to the peoples of whom I write, I begin this book with the conviction that the truths which I shall state, though told in homely phrase, will nevertheless be well received by the reading public, and will accomplish the purposes for which it is written; the first of which is to furnish reliable information on the subject under consideration, with the hope that when my readers shall have turned the last leaf of this volume they may have a better understanding of the wrongs suffered and crimes committed by the numerous tribes of Indians of the north-west.

Born on the free side of the Ohio river, of parents whose immediate ancestors, though slave-holders, had left the South at the command of conscientious convictions of the great wrong of human bondage, my earliest recollections are of political discussions relating to the crime against G.o.d and humanity; of _power_ compelling _weakness_ while groaning under the oppression of wrongs to surrender its rights.

Coupled with the "great wrong" of which I have spoken, occasionally that other wrong, twin to the first, was mentioned in my father's family; impressed upon my mind by stories I had heard of the treatment of Indians who had in early days been neighbors to my parents, driven mile by mile toward the setting sun, leaving a country billowed by the graves of their victims mingled with bones of their own ancestors. What wonder, then, that, while rambling through the beech woods of my native State, I should speculate on the remnants of ruined homes which these people had left behind them, and walk in awe over the battle-fields where they had resisted the aggressive march of civilization?

While yet in childhood my parents migrated to what was then the "Far West." Our new home in Iowa was on the outskirts of civilization, our nearest neighbors being a band of Sacs and Foxes,--"Saukees." This was the beginning of my personal acquaintance with Indians.

The stories that had kindled in my heart feelings of sympathy and commiseration for them were forgotten for a time in the present living history before my eyes.

I was one of a party who in 1844 a.s.sisted the Government in removing Pow-e-shiek's band from the Iowa river to their new home in the West. The scenes around the Indian village on the morning of their departure were photographed on my mind so plainly that now, after a lapse of thirty years, they are still fresh in my memory, and the impressions made on me, and resolves then made by me, have never been forgotten, notwithstanding the terrible dangers through which I have since pa.s.sed.

The _impression_ was, that _power_ and _might_ were compelling these people to leave their homes against their wishes, and in violation of justice and right. The resolution was, that, whenever and wherever I could, I would do them justice, and contribute whatever of talent and influence I might have to better their condition.

These impressions and resolutions have been my constant companions through a stormy life of many years on the frontier of Iowa, California, and Oregon.

The b.l.o.o.d.y tragedy in the Lava Beds, April, 1873, through which the lamented Christian soldier, Gen. Canby, and the no less lamented eminent preacher, Dr. Thomas, lost their lives, and by which I had pa.s.sed so close to the portals of eternity, has not changed my conviction of right, or my determination to do justice to even those who so earnestly sought my life.

Narrow-minded, short-sighted men have said to me, more than once, "I reckon you have suffered enough to cure all your fanatical notions of humanity for these people!"

I pity the heart and intelligence of any man who measures principles of justice and right by the gauge of personal suffering or personal interest. It is unworthy of enlightened Christian manhood.

"By their works ye shall know them." So may these people of whom I write be adjudged in the lights of 1874; so shall this nation be adjudged; so judge ye the author of this book.

The spring of 1845, Pow-e-shiek's band of Sacs and Foxes were removed from their home on Iowa river, twenty-five miles above Iowa City, Iowa, to Skunk river, one hundred miles west. Eighteen or twenty teams were hired by the Government to convey the household goods and supplies.

Among the number who furnished teams, my father was one, and I went as captain of the ox-team. The Indians were a.s.sembled at the "Trading Post"

preparatory to starting. While the wagons were being loaded, some of them were gathering up their horses and packing their goods, ready for shipment; others were making the air vocal with wails of grief over the graves of their friends, or from sadness, consequent on leaving the scenes of a life-time.

I wonder not that they should reluctantly yield to inexorable fate, which compelled them to leave their beautiful valley of the Iowa. "_The white man wanted it_," and they must retreat before the onward march of empire, notwithstanding their nationality and their ownership of the country had been acknowledged by the Government, when it went into treaty-council with them for the lands they held. This was not on the plea of "eminent domain," but on account of the clamor for more room for the expanding energies of a growing population.

"The white man wanted it," tells the story, as it has been repeated, time after time, since the founding of the Colonies in America.

I do not know that, in this instance, any advantage was taken of these Indians, except that advantage which the powerful always have over the weak. But I do know that if they had been allowed a choice, they never would have consented to leave the graves of their fathers. 'Twas easy to say, "It was a fair transaction of selling and buying."

So is it a business transaction when a man buys the lots adjoining your own, and builds high walls on three sides, erects powder magazines and glycerine manufactories, corrupts city councils, and, by means of extra privileges and excessive taxation, compels you to sell your valuable property for a mere song, by saying, "Take my price for your property, or run the risk of being blown up."

Is it a fair "business transaction," after he has thus forced the trade?

What though he does faithfully pay the contract-price? Does it atone for the first moral wrong, in legally forcing the sale? And how much more aggravated the injury becomes, when, through his agents, or his sons, he "legitimately," under various pretences, permits the unfortunate seller to be robbed, by paying him off in "chips and whetstones," that he does not desire nor need, so that in the end he is practically defrauded out of his property, and finds himself at the last payment, homeless and penniless.

All done, however, under the sanction of law, and in the shade of church-steeples, and with sanctimonious semblance of honesty and justice.

The picture is not overdrawn. The ill.u.s.tration is fair, or, if deficient at all, it has bean in excess of advantage to the princ.i.p.al, not the victim. The latter has accepted the situation and suffered the consequences.

To return to Pow-e-shiek's band leaving their home. Who shall ever recount the sorrows and anguish of those people, while they formed in line of march, and turned their eyes for the last time upon the scenes that had been all the world to them? What mattered it though they realized all the pangs their natures were capable of, in those parting hours, with the uncomfortable promises that the ploughshare of civilization would level down the graves of their fathers, before their retreating footprints had been obliterated from the trail which led them sadly away? They were "Injins;" and they ought to have been in better luck than _being_ "Injins."

Such was the speech of a white man in whose hearing I had said some word of sympathy on the occasion. I did not like the unfeeling wretch then, and have not much respect for him, or for the cla.s.s he represents. Now I may have charity and pity, too, for all such. Charity for the poverty of a soul so devoid of the finer sensibilities of "common humanity that make mankind akin;" pity for a heart overflowing with selfishness, made manifest in thoughtless or spiteful speech.