Notes on the Iroquois: or, Contributions to the Statistics, Aboriginal History, Antiquities and General Ethnology of Western New-YorkSchoolcraft, Henry Rowe
History
Notes on the Iroquois: or, Contributions to the Statistics, Aboriginal History, Antiquities and General Ethnology of Western New-York
Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe
Indians of North America -- New York (State); Iroquois Indians
private or missionary schools, and so far as I could obtain returns,
some 250 adults are enrolled as members of Protestant churches. Of
this number, there are several catechists and intelligent educated
translators and interpreters of the language. On the four reservations,
there are fifteen native mechanics and three physicians.
Thus it appears that the energies once devoted by their ancestors to
war and hunting, are in good earnest now directed to husbandry and
the arts; and there is every encouragement to hope, and reason to
believe, that by a continuance in the best measures, they will be
wholly reclaimed and added to the number of useful, intelligent and
moral citizens. In viewing the condition of such a people, hardy, well
formed and active, and pressing forward, as they are, in the great
experiment of civilization, humanity consoles itself with the hope,
that the energy and firmness of purpose which once carried them, in
pursuit of warlike glory, far and wide, will develope itself, as it
has already signally commenced to do, in the labors of the field and
the workshop. Their rude picture-writing upon the bark of trees, has
given place to the school. Their prophets’ lodges have been converted
into churches; their midnight orgies, at the Indian dancing house,
into societies to promote temperance. It is but applying present
experience to future results, to predict that these results may become
general. The eloquence thrown out by a Red Jacket, in opposition to
the further curtailment of their territory may shine out, in some of
his descendants, to enlighten his people in agriculture, morals and
political economy. Nor ought we to doubt that the desk and the forum
are yet to resound with Seneca eloquence.
[_f._] Tuscaroras.
The traditions of this canton affirm, that they are descendants of
the original family of Iroquois, who began their existence, or their
nationality, at least at or near the falls of the Oswego. After the
migration of the parent tribe towards the sea, and their return west
and separation into tribes, this band went on west till they reached
Lake Erie. From hence they travelled southwest till they reached
the Mississippi. Part of them crossed the river, and they were thus
divided. Those who went over, became, in time, the enemies of such as
remained on its eastern banks, and were finally lost and forgotten from
their memory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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