“Some of our chiefs have got lazy, and instead of cultivating their lands themselves, employ white people to do so. There are now eleven white families living on our reservations at Buffalo; this is wrong, and ought not to be permitted. The great source of all our grievances is that the white men are among us. Let them be removed, and we will be happy and contented among ourselves. We now cry to the governor for help, and hope that he will attend to our complaints, and speedily give us redress. “RED JACKET.” This letter was dictated by Red Jacket, and interpreted by Henry Obeal, in the presence of the following Indians:— “RED JACKET’S SON, CORN PLANTER, JOHN COBB, PETER, YOUNG KING’S BROTHER, TOM THE INFANT, BLUE SKY, JOHN SKY, JEMMY JOHNSON, MARCUS, BIG FIRE, CAPTAIN JEMMY.”[84] To this may be added the testimony of Timothy Flint, who had ample opportunities of judging of the effects of the proselyting scheme on the character of the Indians. “During my long residence,” he observes, “in the Mississippi valley, I have seen them [the Indians] in every point of view, when hunting, when residing in their cabins, in their permanent stations, wild and unsophisticated in the woods, in their councils and deputations, when making treaties in our towns. I have seen their wisest, bravest, and most considered; and I have seen the wretched families that hang round the large towns, to trade and to beg, intoxicated subdued, filthy, and miserable, the very outcasts of nature. I have seen much of the Creeks and Cherokees, whose civilization and improvement are so much vaunted. I have seen the wretched remains of the tribes on the lower Mississippi, that stroll about New Orleans. I have taken observations at Alexandria and Nachitoches of the Indians of those regions, and from the adjoining country of New Spain. I have resided on the Arkansas, and have been conversant with its savages. While I was at St. Charles, savages came down from the rocky mountains, so untamed, so unbroken to the ways of the whites, that they were said never to have eaten bread until on that trip. While I was at St. Louis, a grand deputation from the northern points of the Missouri, the Mississippi, and the Lakes, comprising a selection of their principal warriors and chiefs, to the number of 1800, was there for a length of time. They were there to make treaties and settle the relations which had been broken during the war, in which most of them had taken a part hostile to the United States. Thus I have inspected the Northern, the Middle, and Southern Indians for a length of ten years, and I mention it only to prove that my opportunities of observation have been considerable, and that I do not undertake to form a judgment of their character, without at least having seen much of it.”