Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1858-06-10
THE wIew AM;
THE HOME OF THE RED MAN.
A Tale of Aboriginal Life and Character.
INTRODUCTION.

INTRoDUCTIoN.
"Lo the poor Indian whose untutored mind
Sees God in Clouds or hears Him in the wind
His soul rroud Science snevestausht 10 strass ese
Far as the solar walk or milky way;
Yet simple nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud topped hill humber heaven
Some safer world in depths of woods embraced,
Some happier Island in the watery waste,
Where slaves once more their native lands behold,
No friends torment, no Christians thirst for gold
To be content his natural desire,
He asks no angels wings, no seraph's fire,
But thinks admitted to that equal sky,
Hisfaithful dog shall bear him company
Pope.
In undisputed possession, a race had long
roamed the valleys of country they called
their own, scaled the mountain nights, shared
the fnny tribes in their watery homes and out
witted or baaled the fleet deer, and with bow
and arrow brought down his proud antlers.
From what source this people came is left for
imagination in its happy conjecture, or to give
interest to their NEUROLOGICAL traditions of hav-
ing issued from the sun or moon, or tracing
their origin to their tribal and favorite totem of
beast or bird. Perchance branch, or root, of
the older tribes Of men had strayed across
the frozen pathway connecting the two hemi-
spheres. But whatever it be, and from whence
they came, aoe are only aware of the fact
of their long residence here ere the foot
step of the White Man pressed these shores,
and of the prophetic finger which Enthusiastically
points to their final extinction.
Over the plains of the western slopes, and
through the continuous forests, and the wild
unbroken wastes of Oregon along the broad
and deep-moving streams, and upon the shores
of the Great Lakes, dwelt these Red Men. Pos
sessed not of civilization or the knowledge of
the Arts and Sciences, but having their own
peculiar customs, instincts and traditions for
their government, their affections clung as close
ly and ardently about their wigwams and their
inmates, and their altar-fres were as brightly
kindled as among the more enlightened races OF
the Old World. And their deeds of possession,
if not Regulated by paper scrolls and ree5gds,
were planted in the soil +; and their long and
undisputed occupancy Of the territory upon
which an Unknown Hand had placed them, was
as valid as is the right to " life liberty and the
pursuit of happiness" in more enlightened
moral justice.
They owned those hunting grouds, those vast
fields of growing maize and spreading vine,
around which roamed the moose, the deer, and
the partridge; and the beautiful, shaded and
cool haunts of fish were all their own. They
!beheld the approach of their destroyers; looked
out from their thcket homes upon the telling
woodlands, and tho destruction of their hunting
grounds, with wonder and anger and with
sadness, from some overlooking hight, gazed
upon the growing clump of the village, and the
wide-spreadng desecration of their Inheritance.
When they saw these small, but sure, ap-
proaches to the final destruction of their happy
abodes, we see but the development of natural
instinct in their distrust of the White Man. and
their determined defence of their rights and
possessions. Untaught in their modes of war
fare; unused to the sly approach and artful de-
ception of the Pale Face, they received into
their bosoms viper which was to sting from
them their peace, their wild and enchanting
mode of life, and all else held dear and sacred
trample with sacriligious tread upon their hal
lowed customs; encroach upon their posses
sions, and finally crowd them westward to thu
brink of the Pacific wave.
But ere the tread of the White Man disturbed
the broad undulatng waves of the ocean forest
and while it heard only the echo of the wal
whoop, the scream Of the eagle and cry of th'
panther, these beings with power over the beast
of the field, and every living thing, had dissen
sions and wars among their own tribes and en-
gagged in the chase and gathered around the
council fires with not even the remotest though
of any people save their own bands, their enc
mics, and the Great Spirit who controlled thei
war expeditions for good or bad What wer
their customs, what motives prompted and wha
instincts guided their blissful ignorance, vii
only be known to posterity by the faded and ia
ding colors and the exaggerating bursts offancy
the glowing pictures of rhetoric, and patho
of historical narration.
While more of romance, fiction and strang
wonder will be coupled with the bare tradition
of the existence of the Red Man, as handle
down to posterity, than with all the old mythol
ogy and Knight-Erranty of the ancients. No
possessed of the arts Of civilization in any dc
gree, the reality of their former presence wi
fade and grow dimly indistinct, like the vibra
tons of the bell-tone heard afar off, as we Ii,
ten with rapt ear to its dying sound. Only bu
to-day, and our children have only vagueide
of the Red Man. Fancy tells of sylph-lk
race of men, moro perfect, and women MOI
fair and lovely than the ancient nymphs; an
VIC behold but the bold, manly warrior of a
most giant build, as he bent to the chase {
welded the tomahawk above some unprotecte
head strung thebow in the hunting expedition
or responded with the cloquence of q Red Jack
and Logan to tho harrangues of the Whites
1t is a trait of the present day to beauti
everything not recorded save in romance or tr
ton, we have no theme for song Or fiction
mythology. But have we not in the contra
afforded by the f,st-fading remnants of u on
populous race who dwelt in ignorance and
the wilderness, and the rapid increase and gro'