F the red men have been benefited by their intercourse with the whites, they have also received much degradation from the same cause. Created with strong and active physical powers, united with keen sensibility, they have an innate love of excitement, of which the white man has taken advantage to work their ruin. For a few bottles of any kind of ardent spirits, which the Indians term “firewater,” keen traders have purchased the produce of weeks of hunting and toil, and even the land which contains within its bosom the bones of the red man’s ancestors. How many of these noble children of the woods, whose native powers of intellect rivalled those of the most distinguished orators, statesmen, and warriors, among the civilized nations, have become degraded in mind and weakened in body through the influence of the evil spirit sent to them by the avaricious and wiser white men! See Logan, whose qualities of mind, and whose misfortunes have excited so much admiration and sympathy, spending the evening of his days in beastly intoxication! See the mighty Sagona, more widely known as Red Jacket, who maybe considered as the Demosthenes of his race; whose judgment and foresight guided his nation in many an intricate negotiation, and whose eloquence has been compared to the Niagara, near whose thundering tumult he was reared, weakened in body and mind by the “firewater” given him by those who feared his influence! This bane of the red man has ever been extended to him by the hand of civilization; and those tribes which inhabit the country nearest the citizens of the western states are fast melting away under its blighting breath. Occasionally a chief has arisen who despised the “fire-water,” and who indignantly denounced those who introduced it among his people. Of one of these we are about to speak. [Illustration: 0222] Pontiac was a chief of the Ottawas, a tribe which inhabited the neighborhood of Lake Erie, in the territory now included in the state of Michigan. But at one time, he was the chief of a confederacy, consisting of the Ottawas, Miamis, Chippewas, Wyandottes, Pot-towatomies, Missisagas, Shawanese, Ottaga-mies, and Winnebagoes--all powerful tribes. Pontiac was gifted with a great and noble spirit, which fitted him for command. He possessed a daring courage, tempered and guided by wisdom and judgment. Fertile in the invention of means to gain an end, he was generally successful in his undertakings, and became a formidable enemy to the whites, whose encroachments roused his hatred.