The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1860-01-12
INKLINGS FROM THE FRONTIER;

entered"
lNKLlNGS FROM THE FRONTIER;
Or,
LIFE ON THE PLAINS. AND ADVENTURES IN
THE TENTED FIELD.
CAMP ON BUENA VISTA PLAIN.
To the Editor Of the National Era:
Cooper and LongfelIow, and other novelists
and poets, have drawn fanciful pictures of the
North American Indian. They have portrayed
him as the very soul of chivalry, the very qunt.,
essence of valor and noble daring, the nobest
of natures own noblemen, q perfect type of
manly beauty and human symmetry; the beau
ideal of graceful manners, attitudes, and evolu-
tons the Adonis of the mountains, forests and
plains, who roams at viii over the vast extent
of his own underground.
These ideal teachers of the public mind have
| taught the reading classes, the more refined of
society, to love and admire their Wild red breth
rem, and, to regret that. a race so noble, and
once so numerous and powerful, are now fast
passing away, dropping off from earth, and be-
ing gathered to the spiritland of their fathers.
Among the pictures of our aboriginal broth
ers, painted on the impressible canvas of imag
nation, and hung up in the halls of our ideality
are to be found pictures of Indian chiefs and
warriors, gay fellows, tall, and graceful athletic
| muscular, and 1.-THE of form, attired in pictur-
esque and CANDY costumes, with nodding plumes
waving from their fantastic head dress, mount
ed on spirited, prancing steeds, with large, flow
ing names and tails, and chasing down the buff
| falo elk, deer, or antelope. Some are running
atilt at full charge with glistening bladed lance
poised, and just about to strike death to the
game; others, with bow and culver, are send
ing arrows with mortal precision into the vital
parts of the victims of the chase, while others
are careering hither and thither, apparently for
the sole purpose of sporting with and teasing
the doomed animals they will make their meals
ofin due time. Pictures of sage, grave sachems,
gathered around the council fires, soberly smo-
king their tomahawk pipes and looking wise,
while one of their number towers up, straight as
an arrow, declaims in terms of glowing eloquenoe
against the wrongs aud oppression received at
| the hands of the palefaces, and with upturned
eyes and outstretched arms implores the Great
Spirit to aid the yong warriors in protecting
their hunting grounds, their wigwams, and their
| tender maidens. Pictures of fierce warriors,
| grimly painted, and equipped for the war.path,
yelling, shrieking, prancing. whirling, and ges-
ticulating through the horrid, exciting mazes Of
the war-dance. Pictures of the most quiet
phases of Indian life; groups of squaws hoe
| ing In the maize patches, or carrying food,
wood, and water, to the wigwamvilage; pref
ty, bright-eyed maidens, with long, flowing hair,
black and glossy as the ravens wing, and grace
fully floating in the breezes as they move about
| their daily avocations pounding maize 10 a
| large mortar with round stone; boiling hom-
mony in a quaint kettle, hung on tripod over
a small FIRE; broilng venison, or roasting a
turkey on queer spit over round heap of
| glowing Goals dressing skins, or working beads
into moccasins or other articles of Indian CO.'S
tune, or gaily gambolling over the greensward
with lesser children.
! All these pictures have been pleasantly con-
templated, and elected the warm admiration of
our enthusiastic natures. Many tear of ten
der sympathy has been shed in pity for the poor
Indian. Many an utopian plan has been form
ed for their civilization, their intellectual, so
cial, moral, and religious advancement. But,
alas the white man, with all his religion, learn
ing, and wisdom, has failed to know his red
brother, to learn his great wants, or how to ap-
ply efforts for his good.
The modern tourist, who journeys westward,
| and comes in contact with wandering tribes, or
rather with the remnants Of once hourishing
| and powerful tribes, now leading wandering
precarious, halfstarving life, humbled. dispirit-
tied, degenerated, do not find that grand, noble,
and romantic type of humanity which his pre-
conceived notions and ideas of the race had
| led him to anticipate. And he at once jumps
into the opposite extreme His high wrought
fancies and sanguine expectations, induced by
his ideal literature and poetry, have not been
realized, and he flies into passion. He feels
that be has been deceived, and, in plain Saxon
language, he says that Cooper, Longfelow, EN-
erson Bennett, Captain Mayne Reed, and the
whole host of Indian character delineators, have
lied. He accuses all men of letters, who have
written line about the aboriginal race, of falsi-
| flying Mature and ignoring truth for the sake of
| retaining or creating the beautiful. You re-
| member that ex.Judge Wilson, Provincial
lawyer of moderate abilities, who happened TO
make tour through Mexico, not long since,
made similar accusation against the. historian,
| Prescott, our Prescott, of whom the American
| people are Justly proud. Our modern tourist re-
| ceives new Impressions, new revelation, and
| conceives new opinions, which he is nothing
10th to bequeath society through its favorite
| media the press-(t to-day the moulder of pub
| lie opinion and the Trainer of the common
mind )-and he takes up the pen to run a-tilt
against popular theories, and upset the tables
of favorite fiction, or, rather, what he conceives
| to be entire fiction. Hence we are told, in the
newspapers, the magazines, and in some new
publications of to-day, that the American In
dams are loathsome and disgusting race of
human beings, clad in rags, and weltering in
iilth, starving most of their time, but given to
gluttOny when they prove successful Ia the
chase, in plumber, or in theft They are
scented as devoid Of every attrihr..s of b, .eIle
of being naturally .aasely savage and treanI
erous, giyss to murder, theft. and all the VICE.
that can cOntaminate human nature |: utterly
incapable of civilization, and entirely bevond
the sssth of Christian Influences. Army off.
GERS, high in Position, who ought to hold lust
views, and ~ whose Judgment the public nat.
Neally Sonhde, have even gone 10 far as to ex.
press the opinion, that the only way for Gov.
eminent to rid herseN Of Indian troubles and
lned,an ootAse7Nssps Is to exterminate the whole
race M Ae point Of the sabre and Of the bayo.
yet " butcher the people whom we have driven
rom their hunting groands, and built our cities,
churches, and colleges, our parks, farms, and |
rallIoas< over the graves Of their fathers.
9ns Aow uncharitahle the people of this day |
and generationi And has it come to this that |
our dovernment can spare no funds from her |
Treasury to assist in elevating the feeble rem.
nsnts OF wronged and down-trodden race in |
the scale of humanity Are all available funds
needed for the purpose of enriching favorites.
iatteuipg Government papsuckers, and corrupt |
Zig the ballot-hox 10 influence elections?
These are mere incidental questions which |
wiz naturally arise in the thinking mind, when