Sketches of Indian Character: Being a Brief Survey of the Principal Features of Character Exhibited by the North American Indians; Illustrating the Aphorism of the Socialists, that "Man is the creature of circumstances"Bailey, James Napier
Philosophy
Sketches of Indian Character: Being a Brief Survey of the Principal Features of Character Exhibited by the North American Indians; Illustrating the Aphorism of the Socialists, that "Man is the creature of circumstances"
Bailey, James Napier
Indians of North America
They are now settled in a delightful spot on the banks of the Credit,
about sixteen miles from York, in a village consisting of twenty
substantial log huts, eighteen feet by twenty-four, having an upper story
or garret to each. They have a school-house for the boys (in which is
combined decent arrangement for the performance of divine service, which
is regularly attended,) and another for the girls.
The progress made in the former is highly creditable to the
superintendent, considering the short time it has been established. I
found it attended by thirty-one boys, mostly very young, who spelt and
read fluently in English; they also answered several questions which I
put to them promiscuously from the church catechism, and sung a hymn,
remarkable for the loyalty of its sentiments. Finding the houses built
for them too few for their numbers, they have added some of their own
construction similar to those first erected.
They have two enclosures of about seven acres of wheat, and a field on
the banks of the river, containing about thirty-five acres of Indian
corn, in a promising state of cultivation. A small plot is attached to
each house for their potatoes or other garden stuff.
The expense of these buildings has not exceeded, I believe, £14 currency
each, say £250 sterling on the whole. A respectable Englishman, now a
Methodist missionary, who receives a pension from the British government
for the loss of an arm in the late war, when he served in the provincial
marine of Upper Canada, resides amongst these Indians, and as his
feelings towards Great Britain have been well tried, there is every
reason to hope that his exertions for the perfect civilization of his
flock will be crowned with success.
_Mohawks and the Six Nations._—Under 2000 souls are settled on the banks
of the Ouse, or Grand River, a fine and fertile tract of country, which
was purchased from the Chippawas (the Aborigines) exclusively from them
when they were brought to this country from the Mohawk River, in the
State of New York, at the termination of the revolutionary American war.
The proclamation of Sir F. Haldimand, which constitutes, I believe, their
only title, allots them “six miles deep from each side of the river,
beginning at Lake Erie, and extending in that proportion to the head of
the river.”
They are now considered as having retained about 260,000 acres of
land, mostly of the best quality. Their possessions were formerly more
extensive, but large tracts of land have been sold by them, with the
permission of his majesty’s government; the monies arising from which
sales were either founded in England, or lent on interest in this
country. The proceeds amount to about £1500 per annum.
The principal village, or Mohawk Castle, as it is called, consists now of
half a dozen miserable huts, scattered without any order, and a paltry
church.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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