Such conduct was
in them applauded as noble and magnanimous; in the hapless Indian
it was reviled as obstinate and sullen. How truly are we the
dupes of show and circumstance! How different is virtue clothed
in purple and enthroned in state, from virtue naked and destitute
and perishing obscurely in a wilderness!
But I forbear to dwell on these gloomy pictures. The eastern
tribes have long since disappeared; the forests that sheltered
them have been laid low, and scarce any traces remain of them in
the thickly-settled States of New England, excepting here and
there the Indian name of a village or a stream. And such must,
sooner or later, be the fate of those other tribes which skirt
the frontiers, and have occasionally been inveigled from their
forests to mingle in the wars of white men. In a little while,
and they will go the way that their brethren have gone before.
The few hordes which still linger about the shores of Huron and
Superior and the tributary streams of the Mississippi will share
the fate of those tribes that once spread over Massachusetts and
Connecticut and lorded it along the proud banks of the Hudson, of
that gigantic race said to have existed on the borders of the
Susquehanna, and of those various nations that flourished about
the Potomac and the Rappahannock and that peopled the forests of
the vast valley of Shenandoah.
Pages:
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446