American fiction -- 19th century; Historical fiction; Indians of North America -- Fiction
“Yes,” returned Corporal Flint, who delighted in talking of the wars,
“it was very much as Parson Amen says. The savages, by their nimbleness
and artifices, would first ambush us, and then break away from our
charges, until the gin'ral bethought him of bringing cavalry into
the wilderness. Nobody ever thought of such a plan, until old Anthony
invented it. As soon as we got the fire of the savages, at the Mawmee,
we charged with the baggonet, and put 'em up; and no sooner was they
up, than away went the horse into them, flourishing the 'long knife'
and pressing the heel of the 'leather-stocking' into the flanks of their
beasts. Mr. Amen has found a varse in Scriptur's that does come near to
the p'int, and almost foretells our victory, and that, too, as plain as
it stood in dispatches, arterward, from headquarters.”
“'Gad, a TROOP shall overcome him,'” put in the missionary,
triumphantly.
“That's it--that's it; there was just one troop on 'em, and not a
man more! Mad Anthony said a troop would answer, arter we had put the
red-skins up out of their ambushes, or any other bushes; and so it did.
I must acknowledge that I think more of the Scriptur's than ever, since
Parson Amen read to me that varse.”
“Hearken unto this, friend bee-hunter,” added the missionary, who
by this time had fairly mounted his hobby, and fancied he saw a true
Israelite in every other Indian of the west, “and tell me if words were
ever more prophetic--'Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf; in the morning he
shall devour his prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil.' The art
of man could not draw a more faithful picture of these Indians.”
Boden was not much skilled in sacred lore, and scarce knew what to make
of all this. The idea that the American Indians were the descendants
of the lost tribes of Israel was entirely new to him; nor did he know
anything to boast of, touching those tribes, even in their palmiest
days, and while in possession of the promised land; still he had some
confused recollection of that which he had read when a child--what
American has not?--and was enabled to put a question or two, in return
for the information now received. “What, do you take the savages of
America for Jews?” he asked, understanding the general drift of the
missionary's meaning.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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