"The governor must not think hard of me for speaking thus of the preachers: I have observed their progress, and whenever I look back to see what has taken place of old, I perceive that whenever they came among the Indians, they were the forerunners of their dispersion; that they always excited enmities and quarrels amongst them; that they introduced the white people on their lands, by whom they were robbed and plundered of their property; and that the Indians were sure to dwindle and decrease, and be driven back, in proportion to the number of preachers that came among them. "Each nation has its own customs and its own religion. The Indians have theirs, given them by the Great Spirit, under which they were happy. It was not intended that they should embrace the religion of the whites, and be destroyed by the attempt to make them think differently on that subject from their fathers. "It is true, these preachers have got the consent of some of the chiefs to stay and preach amongst us; but I and my friends know this to be wrong, and that they ought to be removed; besides, we have been threatened by Mr. Hyde--who came among us as a schoolmaster and a teacher of our children, but has now become a black-coat, and refuses to teach them any more--that unless we listen to his preaching and become Christians, we shall be turned off our lands. We wish to know from the governor, if this is to be so? and if he has no right to say so, we think _he_ ought to be turned off our lands, and not allowed to plague us any more. We shall never be at peace while he is among us. "We are afraid too, that these preachers, by and by, will become poor, _and force us to pay them for living among us, and disturbing us._ "Some of our chiefs have got lazy, and instead of cultivating their lands themselves, employ white people to do so. There are now eleven families living on our reservation at Buffalo; this is wrong, and ought not to be permitted. The great source of all our grievances is, that the whites are among us. Let _them_ be removed, and we will be happy and contented among ourselves. We now cry to the governor for help, and hope that he will attend to our complaints, and speedily give us redress."[21]