New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-12-24
MINNESOTA.

II. Paul ms IL is, md II was three years
ago-St. Paul in WiIderness-Indian scalp
Dance-Removal Of Naturalization Char
ncter, &C., &c.
eorrss,.obdspcs d The n. T. Tribune.
ST. PAUL Thursday, NOV. 2J, 1852.
In the East, information of Minnesota andher
cities is sought after with avidity One year ago
Twas among the seekers, but could find from no
source any reliable information. Nine-tenths OF
your readers know really nothing of life on the
far western frontier. / now write from an e1-
treme border, upon the line which separates
civilization from the crudest barbarism. Here
is a young community, all from the East, just
struggling into existence. Here is magnificent
new Indian purchase, about the size of New
York, PENNSYLVANIA and Virginia combined, for
which the Indians, this 10th of November, re-
ceive the first payment, and TO which they re-
lease all right, title and claim forever, just
opened to the enterprise of the ambitious An
glO-Saxons. But yesterday, and all this was
wild, solitary, unbrOken wilderness. The naked
savage built his temporary wigwam, chased the
deer buffalo and wolf, where now all ia filed
with the noise and tumult of building Upon
the streams and lakes darkened by thick over
shadowing forests, he fOated silently in his birch
canoe in pursuit of game or fish. A wheelcar
rage had never marked the ground, nor plow
rufiled its surface. Age rolled upon age; all the
world had undergone change; but here, of these
vast open prairies and forests, we may say as
Byron does Of the ocean,
Time writes wrinkle on thine azure brow;
Such as Creations dawn behed, thou rolest now
A pale-faced wanderer who ventured into
these remote, solitary regions, tempted by curl
osity or hope of gain, while he was filled with
awe at the magnitude and beauty of the scenic
1t. all tt,
tious savage with terror and respect, when he
came to confront one of the white war-gods of
whom be had heard such marvellous reports
Thus stood things but three years ago in all
the Territory of Minnesota. Where the City of
St. Paul stands the Catholics had a small log
missionhouse surrounded by stunted copse,
and Hooking across the Mississippi from his eleya-
ted table-rock, the pious recluse saw gloomy
and silent forest frowning upon the sluggish
water and rising with the river hills falling back
for miles into the prairie presenting an aspect
Of interninable woodlands reaching TO the dis
tant sunset. There haunts of wild beasts are
as yet the launts of the scarcely less wild saw
age. Their villages are still within sight of st.
Paul. Their yels mingle with the midnight air.
Their devilish orgies are performed within sight
and hearing of Christian affairs. Yes, st. Paul,
with its imposing State house, l39 feet by %;
its six or seven churches, with lofty spires and
bells; its courthouse, with metallic dome gilt
tering in the sun like huge inverted tin basin;
ils numerous wholesale and retail stores; its
large line of steamers, of which, the past sum-
mer, there have been 40 arrivals; its popula-
ton Of thousands; its fashionable arstOcracy and
pennyless adventures; its forty lawyers and
twenty doctors; its splendid mail coaches and
Newark omnibuses, rafting and roaring through
the main street, which, by the way, has q natu-
raj pavement of smooth rock;-this same st.
Paul is in the wilderness. Look where YOU will,
stir out of it in any direction, and the primitive
features of olden times remain unchanged. Here
are the same dwarfed oaks, that, for aught l
know, are coeval with the pyramids of Egypt;
prairies bearing the same natural grass that
sprung up when dry land first appeared;
prairie hens may walk up TO the back gates aud
beg admission to the kitchen or larder; wolves
speak through the walls of the town houses, and
complain 10 the inmates, while quietly seated
round the evening FIRE, by hideous yelps, of the
scantiness Of their supper aud with this wild
woods concert, unmusical as il is, not uuire.
qucntly mingle the demonac yells of some hun.
dreds OF savases, engaged in scalp medicine or
war dance
Scalp DaRce.-It would be useless 10 Try "a
tonvey 70 the reader unaccustcmed 10 savage
life an ineligible idea Of the internal noises and
gestures Of these red devils when engaged in
their dances. For the scalp dance, they bury
themselves in the thick, secure forest, where
at nght-fall, they light their eamp-fres and
with naked bodies, painted, some jet black
others bright red, or buff, or striped in the most
fantastic manner, they form circle, holding the
scalp sloft, suspended in hoop, and set up
when they commence their leaping and bound
ing, the most unearthly screaching and yelpng
twisting their ugly bodies into every concev.
able contortion--and the squaws, too, becoming
excited even 10 frenzy, set up howlworse than
apack ofNamished wolves, making q pandemo-
mum, as seen from distance through the dark
ened gloom Of the forest, by the lurid glare OF
the freight, more shocking and specter-lke
than any scene witnessed by Dante in his descent
10 the Inferno. They look like band Of ull-
tanned devils iet loose upon midnight rcvel
Rtmorat Of Indians.-The Indians days of
residence about Sc. Paul are numbered. Their
lands are all purchased, so that, in very short
time, they will take up the line of march in the
direction of the Rocky Mountains, and the for
ests over which they roamed, the waters BY
which they dwelt, viii know of them no more
Their mausoleums ofthe dead will be trsmped
under foot and forgotten, and not a monument
will remain TO record the history of grea, ma
ton that has passed away forever. Poor fel-
lows-a feeling Of commisseration steals over
one in contemplating their actual condition.
Needy, improyident, ignorant, superstiticus
creatures. With sad hearts they hear the ex-
ulting cry Of the whites, that westward the
star of Empire takes its way" and as the
hungry crowd Of Anglo-Saxons, with this inscrip-
ton on their banners, rush forward with cheer