Travels in North America during the years 1834, 1835 and 1836 Volume 2 ; Including a visit to Cuba and the Azore Islands
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1839 ...as an Indian. I know this is unphilosophical, because it certainly is a greater disgrace and debasement to a white man;--still, I then feel my pity lost in my disgust; while in the case of the Indian, (although I have lived too long among them to believe any more tales of their innocence, simplicity, &c.) my fancy fondly clings to the delusion of that state, " When wild in woods the noble savage ran." Thus, when I see him grovelling in the dirt, with a helpless body and a reeling brain, and uttering thick and half choked sounds, which 182 LEAVE NATCHEZ. no ear near him can understand, I cannot help thinking we have done this!--we, who boast of our civilization--we, who pretend to spread abroad the refinement of art and science, and the purity of the Gospel among the nations--we have reduced the eagle eye, the active limb, the stately form of our red brother, to the grovelling swinish animal which I now see before me! Of all the plunderers, thieves, and land-sharks on earth, there are none that I more detest, none that will hereafter have a heavier charge against them than those settlers and traders in the West (whether British or American) who cheat the Indians of three hundred per cent. in every bargain, by making whisky the medium of purchase, knowing, as they well do, that it leads to the degradation, the misery, and ere long the extirpation of the ignorant and unfortunate purchasers. Leaving Natchez at night (with much regret that I had not time to stay there a few days), I went on board our steamer, and we ran before morning past the mouth of Red River, one of the largest western tributaries of the it rises, I believe, somewhere not far from Santa Fe, and some parts of the valley which it makes in its descent are very fertile...