}

The Indians believed in a God or "Great Spirit" whom they worshiped, and to whom they prayed for courage and success in war. It was a general belief among the different tribes that the Deity possesses a human form. With their general idea of the Deity and the creation various traditions were blended. According to the tradition of the Chippewas, a man was created and placed on the earth during the summer season. He subsisted on berries until winter, when he supported life by hunting. Finding it difficult to walk through deep snow, he attempted to make a snow-shoe. He succeeded, without difficulty, in making the frame, but being unable to weave in the web, he abandoned it. Every evening, on returning from hunting, he perceived that the work was progressing. This he attributed to a bird which he captured by strategem, and it immediately changed into a beautiful woman.

The Indians believe in the existence of good and evil spirits; the former of whom endow certain persons with superior power. These were called medicine men. If in case of disease a cure was effected by one of them, he was thought to have gained a victory over the evil spirit, and if unsuccessful it was through no fault of the medicine man, and the blame was attached to the evil spirit.

They imagined that the soul when freed from the body passed over a dark river, into which the wicked were precipitated, where they remained forever struggling among the waves, or were borne to a place of torment. The good crossed in safety, and hastened to the happy hunting grounds which abounded in the choicest game.

A want of foresight is peculiar to the Indian race. This deficiency in their character has been the cause of much distress. They provide but little food at a time, and consequently when no game is to be obtained they suffer greatly from want of food. Among other prominent traits of character are caution and fortitude. When among friends or enemies every word and action is looked upon with suspicion, and, when undergoing the most excruciating tortures at the hand of an enemy, their sufferings are betrayed by neither sigh nor groan.

The Indians inhabiting the Indian territory at the present time number about one hundred and fifty thousand. The United States purchased the lands they occupied, and gives them others within the new territory which the government has assigned them, transports them, furnishes agricultural implements, plows and fences a portion of their fields, erects school-houses and supports teachers in them the year through. (See views of government school.)

A form of government in each tribe has been established similar to the state governments.

The Choctaws inhabit the southern part of the territory, and are engaged in the cultivation of corn, flax, hemp, tobacco, and cotton. Their government is divided into four departments; legislative, executive, judicial and military.

The Chickasaws have amassed considerable wealth from the sale of their lands east of the Mississippi, to the United States. They have a fund of ten thousand dollars annually applied to education.

The Cherokees take the lead in civilization. Their form of government is similar to the Choctaws. They work the lead mines, manufacture salt, and are also engaged in agriculture.

The Creeks, among which are about sixteen hundred Seminoles, are less advanced in civilization, and their form of government less perfect than the other tribes.

The emigrating tribes are the Senecas, Shawnees, Pottawatomies, Iowas, Weas, Piankashaws, Peorias, Kaskaskias, Ottawas, Delawares, Kickapoos, Wyandots, Sacs and Foxes, all of which are more or less civilized, and receive annuities from the gov

ernment.

The native tribes residing in the Indian territory are the Pawnees, Sioux, Quapaws, Kansas, Otoes, Omahoes and Ponsars, all of which are in a degraded condition. They receive annuties from the United States. (See views of Sioux and Pawnees.)

The Camanches are a warlike tribe, living south of the Great Platte. They follow the buffalo north in summer, and in winter return with them to the plains of Texas.

North of the Great Platte are fifteen or twenty small tribes.

In the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains are Shoshonees or Snakes, Arapahoes, Crows and Blackfeet, the last two of which are very warlike tribes. The Blackfeet stole a blanket, infected with small pox, from the American Fur company, which caused the disease to spread all through their tribe, and they were reduced in number about two-thirds.

Such is the brief history of the Aboriginal nations that inhabited our country, and annihilation seems to be their destiny. "The great garden of the western world needed tillers, and white men came. They have thoroughly changed the condition of the land and the people. The light of civilization has revealed, and industry developed, vast treasures in the soil, while, before its radiance, the Aboriginals are rapidly melting like snow in the sunbeams. A few generations will pass, and no representatives of the North American Indians will remain upon the earth."

CHAPTER XI.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

A DECLARATION BY THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident-that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient

sufferance of these colonies, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

To

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operations till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature-a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the repository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the dangers of invasions from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for the naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.