Having finished my travels in the “Far West” for awhile, and being detained a little time, sans occupation, in my nineteenth or twentieth transit of what, in common parlance is denominated the Frontier; I have seated myself down to give some further account of it, and of the doings and habits of people, both red and white, who live upon it.

The Frontier may properly be denominated the fleeting and unsettled line extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Lake of the Woods, a distance of three thousand miles; which indefinitely separates civilized from Indian population—a moving barrier, where the unrestrained and natural propensities of two people are concentrated, in an atmosphere of lawless iniquity, that offends Heaven, and holds in mutual ignorance of each other, the honourable and virtuous portions of two people, which seem destined never to meet.

From what has been said in the foregoing epistles, the reader will agree that I have pretty closely adhered to my promise made in the commencement of them; that I should confine my remarks chiefly to people I have visited, and customs that I have seen, rather than by taking up his time with matter that might be gleaned from books. He will also agree, that I have principally devoted my pages, as I promised, to an account of the condition and customs of those Indians whom I have found entirely beyond the Frontier, acting and living as Nature taught them to live and act, without the examples, and consequently without the taints of civilized encroachments.

He will, I flatter myself, also yield me some credit for devoting the time and space I have occupied in my first appeal to the world, entirely to the condition and actions of the living, rather than fatiguing him with theories of the living or the dead. I have theories enough of my own, and have as closely examined the condition and customs of these people on the Frontier, as of those living beyond it—and also their past and present, and prospective history; but the reader will have learned, that my chief object in these Letters, has been not only to describe what I have seen, but of those things, such as I deemed the most novel and least understood; which has of course confined my remarks heretofore, mostly to the character and condition of those tribes living entirely in a state of nature.

And as I have now a little leisure, and no particular tribes before me to speak of, the reader will allow me to glance my eye over the whole Indian country for awhile, both along the Frontier and beyond it; taking a hasty and brief survey of them, and their prospects in the aggregate; and by not seeing quite as distinctly as I have been in the habit of doing heretofore, taking pains to tell a little more emphatically what I think, and what I have thought of those things that I have seen, and yet have told but in part.

I have seen a vast many of these wild people in my travels, it will be admitted by all. And I have had toils and difficulties, and dangers to encounter in paying them my visits; yet I have had my pleasures as I went along, in shaking their friendly hands, that never had felt the contaminating touch of money, or the withering embrace of pockets; I have shared the comforts of their hospitable wigwams, and always have been preserved unharmed in their country. And if I have spoken, or am to speak of them, with a seeming bias, the reader will know what allowance to make for me, who am standing as the champion of a people, who have treated me kindly, of whom I feel bound to speak well; and who have no means of speaking for themselves.

Of the dead, to speak kindly, and to their character to render justice, is always a praiseworthy act; but it is yet far more charitable to extend the hand of liberality, or to hold the scale of justice, to the living who are able to feel the benefit of it. Justice to the dead is generally a charity, inasmuch as it is a kindness to living friends; but to the poor Indian dead, if it is meted out at all, which is seldom the case, it is thrown to the grave with him, where he has generally gone without friends left behind him to inherit the little fame that is reluctantly allowed him while living, and much less likely to be awarded to him when dead. Of the thousands and millions, therefore, of these poor fellows who are dead, and whom we have thrown into their graves, there is nothing that I could now say, that would do them any good, or that would not answer the world as well at a future time as at the present; while there is a debt that we are owing to those of them who are yet living, which I think justly demands our attention, and all our sympathies at this moment.

The peculiar condition in which we are obliged to contemplate these most unfortunate people at this time—hastening to destruction and extinction, as they evidently are, lays an uncompromising claim upon the sympathies of the civilized world, and gives a deep interest and value to such records as are truly made—setting up, and perpetuating from the life, their true native character and customs.

If the great family of North American Indians were all dying by a scourge or epidemic of the country, it would be natural, and a virtue, to weep for them; but merely to sympathize with them (and but partially to do that) when they are dying at our hands, and rendering their glebe to our possession, would be to subvert the simplest law of Nature, and turn civilized man, with all his boasted virtues, back to worse than savage barbarism.

Justice to a nation who are dying, need never be expected from the hands of their destroyers; and where injustice and injury are visited upon the weak and defenceless, from ten thousand hands—from Governments—monopolies and individuals—the offence is lost in the inseverable iniquity in which all join, and for which nobody is answerable, unless it be for their respective amounts, at a final day of retribution.

Long and cruel experience has well proved that it is impossible for enlightened Governments or money-making individuals to deal with these credulous and unsophisticated people, without the sin of injustice; but the humble biographer or historian, who goes amongst them from a different motive, may come out of their country with his hands and his conscience clean, and himself an anomaly, a white man dealing with Indians, and meting out justice to them; which I hope it may be my good province to do with my pen and my brush, with which, at least, I will have the singular and valuable satisfaction of having done them no harm.

With this view, and a desire to render justice to my readers also, I have much yet to say of the general appearance and character of the Indians—of their condition and treatment; and far more, I fear, than I can allot to the little space I have designed for the completion of these epistles.

Of the general appearance of the North American Indians, much might be yet said, that would be new and instructive. In stature, as I have already said, there are some of the tribes that are considerably above the ordinary height of man, and others that are evidently below it; allowing their average to be about equal to that of their fellow-men in the civilized world. In girth they are less, and lighter in their limbs, and almost entirely free from corpulency or useless flesh. Their bones are lighter, their skulls are thinner, and their muscles less hard than those of their civilized neighbours, excepting in the legs and feet, where they are brought into more continual action by their violent exercise on foot and on horseback, which swells the muscles and gives them great strength in those limbs, which is often quite as conspicuous as the extraordinary development of muscles in the shoulders and arms of our labouring men.

Although the Indians are generally narrow in the shoulders, and less powerful with the arms, yet it does not always happen by any means, that they are so effeminate as they look, and so widely inferior in brachial strength, as the spectator is apt to believe, from the smooth and rounded appearance of their limbs. The contrast between one of our labouring men when he denudes his limbs, and the figure of a naked Indian is to be sure very striking, and entirely too much so, for the actual difference in the power of the two persons. There are several reasons for this which account for so disproportionate a contrast, and should be named.

The labouring man, who is using his limbs the greater part of his life in lifting heavy weights, &c. sweats them with the weight of clothes which he has on him, which softens the integuments and the flesh, leaving the muscles to stand out in more conspicuous relief when they are exposed; whilst the Indian, who exercises his limbs for the most of his life, denuded and exposed to the air, gets over his muscles a thicker and more compact layer of integuments which hide them from the view, leaving the casual spectator, who sees them only at rest, to suppose them too decidedly inferior to those which are found amongst people of his own colour. Of muscular strength in the legs, I have met many of the most extraordinary instances in the Indian country, that ever I have seen in my life; and I have watched and studied such for hours together, with utter surprise and admiration, in the violent exertions of their dances, where they leap and jump with every nerve strung, and every muscle swelled, till their legs will often look like a bundle of ropes, rather than a mass of human flesh. And from all that I have seen, I am inclined to say, that whatever differences there may be between the North American Indians and their civilized neighbours in the above respects, they are decidedly the results of different habits of life and modes of education rather than of any difference in constitution. And I would also venture the assertion, that he who would see the Indian in a condition to judge of his muscles, must see him in motion; and he who would get a perfect study for an Hercules or an Atlas, should take a stone-mason for the upper part of his figure, and a Camanchee or a Blackfoot Indian from the waist downwards to the feet.

There is a general and striking character in the facial outline of the North American Indians, which is bold and free, and would seem at once to stamp them as distinct from natives of other parts of the world. Their noses are generally prominent and aquiline—and the whole face, if divested of paint and of copper-colour, would seem to approach to the bold and European character. Many travellers have thought that their eyes were smaller than those of Europeans; and there is good cause for one to believe so, if he judges from first impressions, without taking pains to inquire into the truth and causes of things. I have been struck, as most travellers, no doubt have, with the want of expansion and apparent smallness of the Indians’ eyes, which I have found upon examination, to be principally the effect of continual exposure to the rays of the sun and the wind, without the shields that are used by the civilized world; and also when in-doors, and free from those causes, subjected generally to one more distressing, and calculated to produce similar results, the smoke that almost continually hangs about their wigwams, which necessarily contracts the lids of the eyes, forbidding that full flame and expansion of the eye, that the cool and clear shades of our civilized domicils are calculated to promote.

The teeth of the Indians are generally regular and sound, and wonderfully preserved to old age, owing, no doubt, to the fact that they live without the spices of life—without saccharine and without salt, which are equally destructive to teeth, in civilized communities. Their teeth, though sound, are not white, having a yellowish cast; but for the same reason that a negro’s teeth are “like ivory,” they look white—set as they are in bronze, as any one with a tolerable set of teeth can easily test, by painting his face the colour of an Indian, and grinning for a moment in his looking-glass.

Beards they generally have not—esteeming them great vulgarities, and using every possible means to eradicate them whenever they are so unfortunate as to be annoyed with them. Different writers have been very much at variance on this subject ever since the first accounts given of these people; and there seems still an unsatisfied curiosity on the subject, which I would be glad to say that I could put entirely at rest.

From the best information that I could obtain amongst forty-eight tribes that I have visited, I feel authorized to say, that, amongst the wild tribes, where they have made no efforts to imitate white men, at least, the proportion of eighteen out of twenty, by nature are entirely without the appearance of a beard; and of the very few who have them by nature, nineteen out of twenty eradicate it by plucking it out several times in succession, precisely at the age of puberty, when its growth is successfully arrested; and occasionally one may be seen, who has omitted to destroy it at that time, and subjects his chin to the repeated pains of its extractions, which he is performing with a pair of clamshells or other tweezers, nearly every day of his life—and occasionally again, but still more rarely, one is found, who from carelessness or inclination has omitted both of these, and is allowing it to grow to the length of an inch or two on his chin, in which case it is generally very soft, and exceedingly sparse. Wherever there is a cross of the blood with the European or African, which is frequently the case along the Frontier, a proportionate beard is the result; and it is allowed to grow, or is plucked out with much toil, and with great pain.

There has been much speculation, and great variety of opinions, as to the results of the intercourse between the European and African population with the Indians on the borders; and I would not undertake to decide so difficult a question, though I cannot help but express my opinion, which is made up from the vast many instances that I have seen, that generally speaking, these half-breed specimens are in both instances a decided deterioration from the two stocks, from which they have sprung; which I grant may be the consequence that generally flows from illicit intercourse, and from the inferior rank in which they are held by both, (which is mostly confined to the lowest and most degraded portions of society), rather than from any constitutional objection, necessarily growing out of the amalgamation.

The finest built and most powerful men that I have ever yet seen, have been some of the last-mentioned, the negro and the North American Indian mixed, of equal blood. These instances are rare to be sure, yet are occasionally to be found amongst the Seminolees and Cherokees, and also amongst the Camanchees, even, and the Caddoes; and I account for it in this way: From the slave-holding States to the heart of the country of a wild tribe of Indians, through almost boundless and impassable wilds and swamps, for hundreds of miles, it requires a negro of extraordinary leg and courage and perseverance, to travel; absconding from his master’s fields, to throw himself into a tribe of wild and hostile Indians, for the enjoyment of his liberty; of which there are occasional instances, and when they succeed, they are admired by the savage; and as they come with a good share of the tricks and arts of civilization, they are at once looked upon by the tribe, as extraordinary and important personages; and generally marry the daughters of chiefs, thus uniting theirs with the best blood in the nation, which produce these remarkably fine and powerful men that I have spoken of above.

Although the Indians of North America, where dissipation and disease have not got amongst them, undoubtedly are a longer lived and healthier race, and capable of enduring far more bodily privation and pain, than civilized people can; yet I do not believe that the differences are constitutional, or anything more than the results of different circumstances, and a different education. As an evidence in support of this assertion, I will allude to the hundreds of men whom I have seen, and travelled with, who have been for several years together in the Rocky Mountains, in the employment of the Fur Companies; where they have lived exactly upon the Indian system, continually exposed to the open air, and the weather, and, to all the disappointments and privations peculiar to that mode of life; and I am bound to say, that I never saw a more hardy and healthy race of men in my life, whilst they remain in the country; nor any who fall to pieces quicker when they get back to confined and dissipated life, which they easily fall into, when they return to their own country.

The Indian women who are obliged to lead lives of severe toil and drudgery, become exceedingly healthy and robust, giving easy birth and strong constitutions to their children; which, in a measure, may account for the simplicity and fewness of their diseases, which in infancy and childhood are very seldom known to destroy life.

If there were anything like an equal proportion of deaths amongst the Indian children, that is found in the civilized portions of the world, the Indian country would long since have been depopulated, on account of the decided disproportion of children they produce. It is a very rare occurrence for an Indian woman to be “blessed” with more than four or five children during her life; and generally speaking, they seem contented with two or three; when in civilized communities it is no uncommon thing for a woman to be the mother of ten or twelve, and sometimes to bear two or even three at a time; of which I never recollect to have met an instance during all my extensive travels in the Indian country, though it is possible that I might occasionally have passed them.

For so striking a dissimilarity as there evidently is between these people, and those living according to the more artificial modes of life, in a subject, seemingly alike natural to both, the reader will perhaps expect me to furnish some rational and decisive causes. Several very plausible reasons have been advanced for such a deficiency on the part of the Indians, by authors who have written on the subject, but whose opinions I should be very slow to adopt; inasmuch as they have been based upon the Indian’s inferiority, (as the same authors have taken great pains to prove in most other respects,) to their pale-faced neighbours.

I know of but one decided cause for this difference, which I would venture to advance, and which I confidently believe to be the principal obstacle to a more rapid increase of their families; which is the very great length of time that the women submit to lactation, generally carrying their children at the breast to the age of two, and sometimes three, and even four years!

The astonishing ease and success with which the Indian women pass through the most painful and most trying of all human difficulties, which fall exclusively to the lot of the gentler sex; is quite equal, I have found from continued enquiry, to the representations that have often been made to the world by other travellers, who have gone before me. Many people have thought this a wise provision of Nature, in framing the constitutions of these people, to suit the exigencies of their exposed lives, where they are beyond the pale of skilful surgeons, and the nice little comforts that visit the sick beds in the enlightened world; but I never have been willing to give to Nature quite so much credit, for stepping aside of her own rule, which I believe to be about half way between—from which I am inclined to think that the refinements of art, and its spices, have led the civilized world into the pains and perils of one unnatural extreme; whilst the extraordinary fatigue and exposure, and habits of Indian life, have greatly released them from natural pains, on the other. With this view of the case, I fully believe that Nature has dealt everywhere impartially; and that, if from their childhood, our mothers had, like the Indian women, carried loads like beasts of burthen—and those over the longest journeys, and highest mountains—had swam the broadest rivers—and galloped about for months and even years of their lives, astride of their horse’s backs; we should have taxed them as lightly in stepping into the world, as an Indian pappoose does its mother, who ties her horse under the shade of a tree for half an hour, and before night, overtakes her travelling companions with her infant in her arms, which has often been the case.

As to the probable origin of the North American Indians, which is one of the first questions that suggests itself to the enquiring mind, and will be perhaps, the last to be settled; I shall have little to say in this place, for the reason that so abstruse a subject, and one so barren of positive proof, would require in its discussion too much circumstantial evidence for my allowed limits; which I am sure the world will agree will be filled up much more consistently with the avowed spirit of this work, by treating of that which admits of an abundance of proof—their actual existence, their customs—and misfortunes; and the suggestions of modes for the amelioration of their condition.

For a professed philanthropist, I should deem it cruel and hypocritical to waste time and space in the discussion of a subject, ever so interesting, (though unimportant), when the present condition and prospects of these people are calling so loudly upon the world for justice, and for mercy; and when their evanescent existence and customs are turning, as it were, on a wheel before us, but soon to be lost; whilst the mystery of their origin can as well be fathomed at a future day as now, and recorded with their exit.

Very many people look upon the savages of this vast country, as an “Anomaly in Nature;” and their existence and origin, and locality, things that needs must be at once accounted for.

Now, if the world will allow me, (and perhaps they may think me singular for saying it), I would say, that these things are, in my opinion, natural and simple; and, like all other works of Nature, destined to remain a mystery to mortal man; and if man be anywhere entitled to the name of an anomaly, it is he who has departed the farthest from the simple walks and actions of his nature.

It seems natural to enquire at once who these people are, and from whence they came; but this question is natural, only because we are out of nature. To an Indian, such a question would seem absurd—he would stand aghast and astounded at the anomaly before him—himself upon his own ground, “where the Great Spirit made him”—hunting in his own forests; if an exotic, with a “pale face,” and from across the ocean, should stand before him, to ask him where he came from, and how he got there!

I would invite this querist, this votary of science, to sit upon a log with his red acquaintance, and answer the following questions:—

“You white man, where you come from?”

“From England, across the water.”

“How white man come to see England? how you face come to get white, ha?”

I never yet have been made to see the necessity of showing how these people came here, or that they came here at all; which might easily have been done, by the way of Behring’s Straits from the North of Asia. I should much rather dispense with such a necessity, than undertake the other necessities that must follow the establishment of this; those of showing how the savages paddled or drifted in their canoes from this Continent, after they had got here, or from the Asiatic Coast, and landed on all the South Sea Islands, which we find to be inhabited nearly to the South Pole. For myself I am quite satisfied with the fact, which is a thing certain, and to be relied on, that this Continent was found peopled in every part, by savages; and so, nearly every Island in the South Seas, at the distance of several thousand miles from either Continent; and I am quite willing to surrender the mystery to abler pens than my own—to theorists who may have the time, and the means to prove to the world, how those rude people wandered there in their bark canoes, without water for their subsistence, or compasses to guide them on their way.

The North American Indians, and all the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, speaking some two or three hundred different languages, entirely dissimilar, may have all sprung from one stock; and the Almighty, after creating man. for some reason that is unfathomable to human wisdom, might have left the whole vast universe, with its severed continents, and its thousand distant isles everywhere teeming with necessaries and luxuries, spread out for man’s use; and there to vegetate and rot, for hundreds and even thousands of centuries, until ultimate, abstract accident should throw him amongst these infinite mysteries of creation; the least and most insignificant of which have been created and placed by design. Human reason is weak, and human ignorance is palpable, when man attempts to approach these unsearchable mysteries; and I consider human discretion well applied, when it beckons him back to things that he can comprehend; where his reason, and all his mental energies can be employed for the advancement and benefit of his species. With this conviction, I feel disposed to retreat to the ground that I have before occupied—to the Indians, as they are, and where they are; recording amongst them living evidences whilst they live, for the use of abler theorists than myself—who may labour to establish their origin, which may be as well (and perhaps better) done, a century hence, than at the present day.

The reader is apprised, that I have nearly filled the limits allotted to these epistles; and I assure him that a vast deal which I have seen must remain untold—whilst from the same necessity, I must tell him much less than I think, and beg to be pardoned if I withhold, till some future occasion, many of my reasons for, thinking.

I believe, with many others, that the North American Indians are a mixed people—that they have Jewish blood in their veins, though I would not assert, as some have undertaken to prove, “that they are Jews,” or that they are “the ten lost tribes of Israel.” From the character and conformation of their heads, I am compelled to look upon them as an amalgam race, but still savages; and from many of their customs, which seem to me, to be peculiarly Jewish, as well as from the character of their heads, I am forced to believe that some part of those ancient tribes, who have been dispersed by Christians in so many ways, and in so many different eras, have found their way To this country, where they have entered amongst the native stock, and have lived and intermarried with the Indians, until their identity has been swallowed up and lost in the greater numbers of their new acquaintance, save the bold and decided character which they have bequeathed to the Indian races; and such of their customs as the Indians were pleased to adopt, and which they have preserved to the present day.

I am induced to believe thus from the very many customs which I have witnessed amongst them, that appear to be decidedly Jewish; and many of them so peculiarly so, that it would seem almost impossible, or at all events, exceedingly improbable, that two people in a state of nature should have hit upon them, and practiced them exactly alike.

The world need not expect me to decide so interesting and difficult a question; but I am sure they will be disposed to hear simply my opinion, which I give in this place, quite briefly, and with the utmost respectful deference to those who think differently. I claim no merit whatever, for advancing such an opinion, which is not new, having been in several works advanced to the world by far abler pens than my own, with volumes of evidence, to the catalogue of which, I feel quite sure I shall be able to add some new proofs in the proper place. If I could establish the fact by positive proof, I should claim a great deal of applause from the world, and should, no doubt, obtain it; but, like everything relating to the origin and early history of these unchronicled people, I believe this question is one that will never be settled, but will remain open for the opinions of the world, which will be variously given, and that upon circumstantial evidence alone.

I am compelled to believe that the Continent of America, and each of the other Continents, have had their aboriginal stocks, peculiar in colour and in character—and that each of these native stocks has undergone repeated mutations (at periods, of which history has kept no records), by erratic colonies from abroad, that have been engrafted upon them—mingling with them, and materially affecting their original character. By this process, I believe that the North American Indians, even where we find them in their wildest condition, are several degrees removed from their original character; and that one of their principal alloys has been a part of those dispersed people, who have mingled their blood and their customs with them, and even in their new disguise, seem destined to be followed up with oppression and endless persecution.

The first and most striking fact amongst the North American Indians that refers us to the Jews, is that of their worshipping in all parts, the Great Spirit, or Jehovah, as the Hebrews were ordered to do by Divine precept, instead of a plurality of gods, as ancient pagans and heathens did—and their idols of their own formation. The North American Indians, are nowhere idolaters—they appeal at once to the Great Spirit, and know of no mediator, either personal or symbolical.

The Indian tribes are everywhere divided into bands, with chiefs, symbols, badges, &c., and many of their modes of worship I have found exceedingly like those of the Mosaic institution. The Jews had their sanctum sanctorums, and so may it be said the Indians have, in their council or medicine-houses, which are always held as sacred places. As the Jews had, they have their high-priests and their prophets. Amongst the Indians as amongst the ancient Hebrews, the women are not allowed to worship with the men—and in all cases also, they eat separately. The Indians everywhere, like the Jews, believe that they are the favourite people of the Great Spirit, and they are certainly, like those ancient people, persecuted, as every man’s hand seems raised against them—and they, like the Jews, destined to be dispersed over the world, and seemingly scourged by the Almighty, and despised of man.

In their marriages, the Indians, as did the ancient Jews, uniformly buy their wives by giving presents—and in many tribes, very closely resemble them in other forms and ceremonies of their marriages.

In their preparations for war, and in peace-making, they are strikingly similar. In their treatment of the sick, burial of the dead and mourning, they are also similar.

In their bathing and ablutions, at all seasons of the year, as a part of their religious observances—having separate places for men and women to perform these immersions—they resemble again. And the custom amongst the women, of absenting themselves during the lunar influences, is exactly consonant to the Mosaic law. This custom of separation is an uniform one amongst the different tribes, as far as I have seen them in their primitive state, and be it Jewish, natural or conventional, it is an indispensable form with these wild people, who are setting to the civilized world, this and many other examples of decency and propriety, only to be laughed at by their wiser neighbours, who, rather than award to the red man any merit for them, have taken exceeding pains to call them but the results of ignorance and superstition.

So, in nearly every family of a tribe, will be found a small lodge, large enough to contain one person, which is erected at a little distance from the family lodge, and occupied by the wife or the daughter, to whose possession circumstances allot it; where she dwells alone until she is prepared to move back, and in the meantime the touch of her hand or her finger to the chief’s lodge, or his gun, or other article of his household, consigns it to destruction at once; and in case of non-conformity to this indispensable form, a woman’s life may, in some tribes, be answerable for misfortunes that happen to individuals or the tribe, in the interim.

After this season of separation, purification in running water, and annointing, precisely in accordance with the Jewish command, is requisite before she can enter the family lodge. Such is one of the extraordinary observances amongst these people in their wild state; but along the Frontier, where white people have laughed at them for their forms, they have departed from this, as from nearly everything else that is native and original about them.

In their feasts, fastings and sacrificing, they are exceedingly like those ancient people. Many of them have a feast closely resembling the annual feast of the Jewish passover; and amongst others, an occasion much like the Israelitish feast of the tabernacles, which lasted eight days, (when history tells us they carried bundles of willow boughs, and fasted several days and nights) making sacrifices of the first fruits and best of everything, closely resembling the sin-offering and peace-offering of the Hebrews.[41]

These, and many others of their customs would seem to be decidedly Jewish; yet it is for the world to decide how many of them, or whether all of them, might be natural to all people, and, therefore, as well practiced by these people in a state of nature, as to have been borrowed from a foreign nation.

Amongst the list of their customs however, we meet a number which had their origin it would seem, in the Jewish Ceremonial code, and which are so very peculiar in their forms, that it would seem quite improbable, and almost impossible, that two different people should ever have hit upon them alike, without some knowledge of each other. These I consider, go farther than anything else as evidence, and carry, in my mind, conclusive proof that these people are tinctured with Jewish blood; even though the Jewish sabbath has been lost, and circumcision probably rejected; and dog’s flesh, which was an abomination to the Jews, continued to be eaten at their feasts by all the tribes of Indians; not because the Jews have been prevailed upon to use it, but, because they have survived only, as their blood was mixed with that of the Indians, and the Indians have imposed on that mixed blood the same rules and regulations that governed the members of the tribes in general.

Many writers are of opinion, that the natives of America are all from one stock, and their languages from one root—that that stock is exotic, and that that language was introduced with it. And the reason assigned for this theory is, that amongst the various tribes, there is a reigning similarity in looks—and in their languages a striking resemblance to each other.

Now, if all the world were to argue in this way, I should reason just in the other; and pronounce this, though evidence to a certain degree, to be very far from conclusive, inasmuch as it is far easier and more natural for distinct tribes, or languages, grouped and used together, to assimilate than to dissimilate; as the pebbles on a sea-shore, that are washed about and jostled together, lose their angles, and incline at last to one rounded and uniform shape. So that if there had been, ab origine, a variety of different stocks in America, with different complexions, with different characters and customs, and of different statures, and speaking entirely different tongues; where they have been for a series of centuries living neighbours to each other, moving about and intermarrying; I think we might reasonably look for quite as great a similarity in their personal appearance and languages, as we now find; when, on the other hand, if we are to suppose that they were all from one foreign stock, with but one language, it is a difficult thing to conceive how or in what space of time, or for what purpose, they could have formed so many tongues, and so widely different, as those that are now spoken on the Continent.

It is evident I think, that if an island or continent had been peopled with black, white and red; a succession of revolving centuries of intercourse amongst these different colours would have had a tendency to bring them to one standard complexion, when no computable space of time, nor any conceivable circumstances could restore them again; reproducing all, or either of the distinct colours, from the compound.

That customs should be found similar, or many of them exactly the same, on the most opposite parts of the Continent, is still less surprising; for these will travel more rapidly, being more easily taught at Treaties and festivals between hostile bands, or disseminated by individuals travelling through neighbouring tribes, whilst languages and blood require more time for their admixture.

That the languages of the North American Indians, should be found to be so numerous at this day, and so very many of them radically different, is a subject of great surprise, and unaccountable, whether these people are derived from one individual stock, or from one hundred, or one thousand.

Though languages like colour and like customs, are calculated to assimilate, under the circumstances above named; yet it is evident that, (if derived from a variety of sources), they have been unaccountably kept more distinct than the others; and if from one root, have still more unaccountably dissimulated and divided into at least one hundred and fifty, two-thirds of which, I venture to say, are entirely and radically distinct; whilst amongst the people who speak them, there is a reigning similarity in looks, in features and in customs, which would go very far to pronounce them one family, by nature or by convention.

I do not believe, with some very learned and distinguished writers, that the languages of the North American Indians can be traced to one root or to three or four, or any number of distinct idioms; nor do I believe all, or any one of them, will ever be fairly traced to a foreign origin.

If the looks and customs of the Jews, are decidedly found and identified with these people—and also those of the Japanese, and Calmuc Tartars, I think we have but little, if any need of looking for the Hebrew language, or either of the others, for the reasons that I have already given; for the feeble colonies of these, or any other foreign people that might have fallen by accident upon the shores of this great Continent, or who might have approached it by Behring’s Straits, have been too feeble to give a language to fifteen or twenty millions of people, or in fact to any portion of them; being in all probability, in great part cut to pieces and destroyed by a natural foe; leaving enough perhaps, who had intermarried, to innoculate their blood and their customs; which have run, like a drop in a bucket, and slightly tinctured the character of tribes who have sternly resisted their languages, which would naturally, under such circumstances, have made but very little impression.

Such I consider the condition of the Jews in North America; and perhaps the Scandanavians, and the followers of Madoc, who by some means, and some period that I cannot name, have thrown themselves upon the shores of this country, and amongst the ranks of the savages; where, from destructive wars with their new neighbours, they have been overpowered, and perhaps, with the exception of those who had intermarried, they have been destroyed, yet leaving amongst the savages decided marks of their character; and many of their peculiar customs, which had pleased, and been adopted by the savages, while they had sternly resisted others: and decidedly shut out and discarded their language, and of course obliterated everything of their history.

That there should often be found contiguous to each other, several tribes speaking dialects of the same language, is a matter of no surprise at all; and wherever such is the case, there is resemblance enough also, in looks and customs, to show that they are parts of the same tribes, which have comparatively recently severed and wandered apart, as their traditions will generally show; and such resemblances are often found and traced, nearly across the Continent, and have been accounted for in some of my former Letters. Several very learned gentlemen, whose opinions I would treat with the greatest respect, have supposed that all the native languages of America were traceable to three or four roots; a position which I will venture to say will be an exceedingly difficult one for them to maintain, whilst remaining at home and consulting books, in the way that too many theories are supported; and one infinitely more difficult to prove if they travel amongst the different tribes, and collect their own information as they travel.[42] I am quite certain that I have found in a number of instances, tribes who have long lived neighbours to each other, and who, from continued intercourse, had learned mutually, many words of each others language, and adopted them for common use or mottoes, as often, or oftener than we introduce the French or Latin phrases in our conversation; from which the casual visitor to one of these tribes, might naturally suppose there was a similarity in their languages; when a closer examiner would find that the idioms and structure of the several languages were entirely distinct.

I believe that in this way, the world who take but a superficial glance at them, are, and will be, led into continual error on this interesting subject; one that invites, and well deserves from those learned gentlemen, a fair investigation by them, on the spot; rather than so limited and feeble an examination as I have been able to make of it, or that they, can make, in their parlours, at so great a distance from them, and through such channels as they are obliged to look to for their information.

Amongst the tribes that I have visited, I consider that thirty, out of the forty-eight, are distinct and radically different in their languages, and eighteen are dialects of some three or four. It is a very simple thing for the off-hand theorists of the scientific world, who do not go near these people, to arrange and classify them; and a very clever thing to simplify the subject, and bring it, like everything else, under three or four heads, and to solve, and resolve it, by as many simple rules.

I do not pretend to be able to give to this subject, or to that of the probable origin of these people, the close investigation that these interesting subjects require and deserve; yet I have travelled and observed enough amongst them, and collected enough, to enable me to form decided opinions of my own; and in my conviction, have acquired confidence enough to tell them, and at the same time to recommend to the Government or institutions of my own country, to employ men of science, such as I have mentioned, and protect them in their visits to these tribes, where “the truth, and the whole truth” may be got; and the languages of all the tribes that are yet in existence, (many of which are just now gasping them out in their last breath,) may be snatched and preserved from oblivion; as well as their looks and their customs, to the preservation of which my labours have been principally devoted.

I undertake to say to such gentlemen, who are enthusiastic and qualified, that here is one of the most interesting subjects that they could spend the energies of their valuable lives upon, and one the most sure to secure for them that immortality for which it is natural and fair for all men to look.

From what has been said in the foregoing Letters, it will have been seen that there are three divisions under which the North American Indians may be justly considered; those who are dead—those who are dying, and those who are yet living and flourishing in their primitive condition. Of the dead, I have little to say at present, and I can render them no service—of the living, there is much to be said, and I shall regret that the prescribed limits of these epistles, will forbid me saying all that I desire to say of them and their condition.

The present condition of these once numerous people, contrasted with what, it was, and what it is soon to be, is a subject of curious interest, as well as some importance, to the civilized world—a subject well entitled to the attention, and very justly commanding the sympathies of, enlightened communities. There are abundant proofs recorded in the history of this country, and to which I need not at this time more particularly refer, to shew that this very numerous and respectable part of the human family, which occupied the different parts of North America, at the time of its first settlement by the Anglo-Americans, contained more than fourteen millions, who have been reduced since that time, and undoubtedly in consequence of that settlement, to something less than two millions!

This is a startling fact, and one which carries with it, if it be the truth, other facts and their results, which are equally startling, and such as every inquiring mind should look into. The first deduction that the mind draws from such premises, is the rapid declension of these people, which must at that rate be going on at this day; and sooner or later, lead to the most melancholy result of their final extinction.

Of this sad termination of their existence, there need not be a doubt in the minds of any man who will read the history of their former destruction; contemplating them swept already from two-thirds of the Continent; and who will then travel as I have done, over the vast extent of Frontier, and witness the modes by which the poor fellows are falling, whilst contending for their rights, with acquisitive white men. Such a reader, and such a traveller, I venture to say, if he has not the heart of a brute, will shed tears for them; and be ready to admit that their character and customs, are at this time, a subject of interest and importance, and rendered peculiarly so from the facts that they are dying at the hands of their Christian neighbours; and, from all past experience, that there will probably be no effectual plan instituted, that will save the remainder of them from a similar fate. As they stand at this day, there may be four or five hundred thousand in their primitive state; and a million and a half, that may be said to be semi-civilized, contending with the sophistry of white men, amongst whom they are timidly and unsuccessfully endeavouring to hold up their heads, and aping their modes; whilst they are swallowing their poisons, and yielding their lands and their lives, to the superior tact and cunning of their merciless cajolers.

In such parts of their community, their customs are uninteresting; being but poor and ridiculous imitations of those that are bad enough, those practiced by their first teachers—but in their primitive state, their modes of life and character, before they are changed, are subjects of curious interest, and all that I have aimed to preserve. Their personal appearance, their dress, and many of their modes of life, I have already described.

For their Government, which is purely such as has been dictated to them by Nature and necessity alone, they are indebted to no foreign, native or civilized nation. For their religion, which is simply Theism, they are indebted to the Great Spirit, and not to the Christian world. For their modes of war, they owe nothing to enlightened nations—using only those weapons and those modes which are prompted by nature, and within the means of their rude manufactures.

If, therefore, we do not find in their systems of polity and jurisprudence, the efficacy and justice that are dispensed in civilized institutions—if we do not find in their religion the light and the grace that flow from Christian faith—if in wars they are less honourable, and wage them upon a system of “murderous stratagem,” it is the duty of the enlightened world, who administer justice in a better way—who worship in a more acceptable form—and who war on a more honourable scale, to make great allowance for their ignorance, and yield to their credit, the fact, that if their systems are less wise, they are often more free from injustice—from hypocrisy and from carnage.

Their Governments, if they have any (for I am almost disposed to question the propriety of applying the term), are generally alike; each tribe having at its head, a chief (and most generally a war and civil chief), whom it would seem, alternately hold the ascendency, as the circumstances of peace or war may demand their respective services. These chiefs, whose titles are generally hereditary, hold their offices only as long as their ages will enable them to perform the duties of them by taking the lead in war-parties, &c., after which they devolve upon the next incumbent, who is the eldest son of the chief, provided he is decided by the other chiefs to be as worthy of it as any other young man in the tribe—in default of which, a chief is elected from amongst the sub-chiefs; so that the office is hereditary on condition, and elective in emergency.

The chief has no controul over the life or limbs, or liberty of his subjects, nor other power whatever, excepting that of influence which he gains by his virtues, and his exploits in war, and which induces his warriors and braves to follow him, as he leads them to battle—or to listen to him when he speaks and advises in council. In fact, he is no more than a leader, whom every young warrior may follow, or turn about and go back from, as he pleases, if he is willing to meet the disgrace that awaits him, who deserts his chief in the hour of danger.

It may be a difficult question to decide, whether their Government savours most of a democracy or an aristocracy; it is in some respects purely democratic—and in others aristocratic. The influence of names and families is strictly kept up, and their qualities and relative distinctions preserved in heraldric family Arms; yet entirely severed, and free from influences of wealth, which is seldom amassed by any persons in Indian communities; and most sure to slip from the hands of chiefs, or others high in office, who are looked upon to be liberal and charitable; and oftentimes, for the sake of popularity, render themselves the poorest, and most meanly dressed and equipped of any in the tribe.

These people have no written laws, nor others, save the penalties affixed to certain crimes, by long-standing custom, or by the decisions of the chiefs in council, who form a sort of Court and Congress too, for the investigation of crimes, and transaction of the public business. For the sessions of these dignitaries, each tribe has, in the middle of their village, a Government or council-house, where the chiefs often try and convict, for capital offences—leaving the punishment to be inflicted by the nearest of kin, to whom all eyes of the nation are turned, and who has no means of evading it without suffering disgrace in his tribe. For this purpose, the custom, which is the common law of the land, allows him to use any means whatever, that he may deem necessary to bring the thing effectually about; and he is allowed to waylay and shoot down the criminal—so that punishment is certain and cruel, and as effective from the hands of a feeble, as from those of a stout man, and entirely beyond the hope that often arises from the “glorious uncertainty of the law.”

As I have in a former place said, cruelty is one of the leading traits of the Indian’s character; and a little familiarity with their modes of life and government will soon convince the reader, that certainty and cruelty in punishments are requisite (where individuals undertake to inflict the penalties of the laws), in order to secure the lives and property of individuals in society.

In the treatment of their prisoners also, in many tribes, they are in the habit of inflicting the most appalling tortures, for which the enlightened world are apt to condemn them as cruel and unfeeling in the extreme; without stopping to learn that in every one of these instances, these cruelties are practiced by way of retaliation, by individuals or families of the tribe, whose relatives have been previously dealt with in a similar way by their enemies, and whose manes they deem it their duty to appease by this horrid and cruel mode of retaliation.

And in justice to the savage, the reader should yet know, that amongst these tribes that torture their prisoners, these cruelties are practiced but upon the few whose lives are required to atone for those who have been similarly dealt with by their enemies, and that the remainder are adopted into the tribe, by marrying the widows whose husbands have fallen in battle, in which capacity they are received and respected like others of the tribe, and enjoy equal rights and immunities. And before we condemn them too far, we should yet pause and enquire whether in the enlightened world we are not guilty of equal cruelties—whether in the ravages and carnage of war, and treatment of prisoners, we practice any virtue superior to this; and whether the annals of history which are familiar to all, do not furnish abundant proof of equal cruelty to prisoners of war, as well as in many instances, to the members of our own respective communities. It is a remarkable fact and one well recorded in history, as it deserves to be, to the honour of the savage, that no instance has been known of violence to their captive females, a virtue yet to be learned in civilized warfare.

If their punishments are certain and cruel, they have the merit of being few, and those confined chiefly to their enemies. It is natural to be cruel to enemies; and in this, I do not see that the improvements of the enlightened and Christian world have yet elevated them so very much above the savage. To their friends, there are no people on earth that are more kind; and cruelties and punishments (except for capital offences) are amongst themselves, entirely dispensed with. No man in their communities is subject to any restraints upon his liberty, or to any corporal or degrading punishment; each one valuing his limbs, and his liberty to use them as his inviolable right, which no power in the tribe can deprive him of; whilst each one holds the chief as amenable to him as the most humble individual in the tribe.