Lives of Famous Indian Chiefs: From Cofachiqui, the Indian Princess, and Powhatan; down to and including Chief Joseph and Geronimo. Also an answer, from the latest research, of the query, Whence came the Indian? Together with a number of thrillingly interesting Indian stories and anecdotes from historyWood, Norman B. (Norman Barton)
History
Lives of Famous Indian Chiefs: From Cofachiqui, the Indian Princess, and Powhatan; down to and including Chief Joseph and Geronimo. Also an answer, from the latest research, of the query, Whence came the Indian? Together with a number of thrillingly interesting Indian stories and anecdotes from history
Wood, Norman B. (Norman Barton)
Indians -- Origin; Indians of North America -- Anecdotes; Indians of North America -- Biography
{FN} This Captain William Wells, when a lad, was captured with four others
while hunting near Louisville, Kentucky. The Indians conveyed them to
Indiana. Afterward Wells was taken to a village of the Miamis in Ohio,
and, on being adopted into the tribe became a brother-in-law to Little
Turtle. He afterward left the Indians to become one of Wayne's scouts, and
was killed at the Fort Dearborn massacre in 1812. He left a family of half
breed children, and for him Wells street, Chicago, is named.
Little Turtle seems to have been an all-round reformer. He it was who first
introduced the practice of inoculation for the prevention of smallpox among
the Indians--a scourge second only to whisky, as we learn from the European
(London) Magazine, of April, 1802. The article was compiled from American
papers, and made this statement: "Last winter, there was a grand embassy of
Indians to the President and Congress at Washington. Little Turtle was the
head warrior. The President had supplied them with plows, spinning-wheels,
etc., and to crown all he explained to them how the Great Spirit had made a
donation to the white men--first to one in England (Dr. Jenner), and then
to one in America (Dr. Waterhouse, of Boston)--of a means of preventing
the smallpox. Such a confidence had the copper-colored King in the words of
his 'Father,' that he submitted to be inoculated, together with the rest of
the warriors. It further appears that he took a quantity of the vaccine
matter home with him, which he probably administered in person not long
afterward fifteen more of his tribe visited the seat of government in
pursuit of the same remedy."
{Illustration: Ouray, late principal chief of he Utes.}
We shall conclude our sketch of this eminent chief with a few anecdotes
preserved by Mr. Dawson:
"What distinguished him most," says that writer, "was his ardent desire to
be informed of all that relates to our institutions; and he seemed to
possess a mind capable of understanding and valuing the advantages of
civilized life, in a degree far superior to any other Indian of his time.
During the frequent visits which he made to the seat of government, he
examined everything he saw with an inquisitive eye, and never failed to
embrace every opportunity to acquire information by inquiring of those with
whom he could take that liberty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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