American fiction -- 19th century; Historical fiction; Indians of North America -- Fiction
in-most soul, a fiery hatred of each would have been found to be its
predominant feeling. But Corporal Flint fondly fancied he was making
a concealed march with an ally, while he thus accompanied one of the
fiercest enemies of his race.
Peter is not to be judged too harshly. It is always respectable to
defend the fireside, and the land of one's nativity, although the cause
connected with it may be sometimes wrong. This Indian knew nothing of
the principles of colonization, and had no conception that any
other than its original owners--original so far as his traditions
reached--could have a right to his own hunting-grounds. Of the slow but
certain steps by which an overruling Providence is extending a knowledge
of the true God, and of the great atonement through the death of his
blessed Son, Peter had no conception; nor would it probably have seemed
right to his contracted mind, had he even seen and understood this
general tendency of things. To him, the pale-face appeared only as
a rapacious invader, and not a creature obeying the great law of his
destiny, the end of which is doubtless to help knowledge to abound,
until it shall “cover the whole earth as the waters cover the sea.”
Hatred, inextinguishable and active hatred, appeared to be the law
of this man's being; and he devoted all the means, aided by all
the intelligence he possessed, to the furtherance of his narrow and
short-sighted means of vengeance and redress. In all this, he acted in
common with Tecumseh and his brother, though his consummate art kept him
behind a veil, while the others were known and recognized as open and
active foes. No publication speaks of this Peter, nor does any orator
enumerate his qualities, while the other two chiefs have been the
subjects of every species of descriptive talent, from that of the poet
to that of the painter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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