But safe above each coral grave, They knelt them on the desert sand, They looked upon the high blue air, The warrior's red right arm was bared, The dark chiefs yelled alarm, and swore And his hewn bones should bleach their shores, But lo! the warrior's eye grew dim, His arm was left alone; The still, black wilds which sheltered him No longer were his own! Time fled, and on the hallowed ground His highest pine lies low, And cities swell where forests frowned Oh! stay not to recount the tale, The firmest cheek might well grow pale, The God of heaven, who prospers us, And shield us from the red man's curse, Come, then, great shades of glorious men, O bravest of the brave! We call you from each mouldering tomb, And each blue wave below, To bless the world ye snatched from doom, Two hundred years ago! Then to your harps; yet louder! higher! Shout for those godlike men of old, Who, daring storm and foe, On this blest soil their anthem rolled, PERIOD III.-FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS. 1690-1763. NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. CHARLES SPRAGUE. OT many generations ago, where you now sit encircled with NOT all that exalts and embellishes civilized life, the rank thistle nodded in the wind and the wild fox dug his hole unscared. Here lived and loved another race of beings. Beneath the same sun that rolls over your head the Indian hunter pursued the panting deer; gazing on the same moon that smiles for you, the Indian lover wooed his dusky mate. Here the wigwam blaze beamed on the tender and helpless, and the council-fire glared on the wise and daring. Now, they dipped their noble limbs in your sedgy lakes, and now they paddled the light canoe along your rocky shores. Here they warred; the echoing whoop, the bloody grapple, the defying death-song, all were here; and when the tiger-strife was over, here curled the smoke of peace. Here, too, they worshipped; and from many a dark bosom went up a fervent prayer to the Great Spirit. He had not written His laws for them on tables of stone, but He had traced them on the tables of their hearts. The poor child of nature knew not the God of revelation, but the God of the universe he acknowledged in everything around. He beheld Him in the star that sank in beauty behind his lonely dwelling; in the sacred orb that flamed on him from His mid-day throne; in the flower that snapped in the morning breeze; in the lofty pine that defied a thousand whirlwinds; in the timid warbler that never left its native grove; in the fearless eagle, whose untired pinion was wet in clouds;' in the worm that crawled at his feet; and in his own matchless form, glowing with a spark of that light, to whose mysterious source he bent in humble though blind adoration. And all this has passed away. Across the ocean came a pilgrim bark, bearing the seeds of life and death. The former were sown for you; the latter sprang up in the path of the simple native. Two hundred years have changed the character of a great continent, and blotted forever from its face a whole peculiar people. Art has usurped the bowers of nature, and the anointed children of education have been too powerful for the tribes of the ignorant. Here and there a stricken few remain; but how unlike their bold, untamable progenitors. The Indian of falcon glance and lion bearing, the theme of the touching ballad, the hero of the pathetic tale, is gone, and his degraded offspring crawls upon the soil where he walked in majesty, to remind us how miserable is man when the foot of the conqueror is on his neck. As a race, they have withered from the land. Their arrows are broken, their springs are dried up, their cabins are in the dust. Their council-fire has long since gone out on the shore, and their war-cry is fast fading to the untrodden west. Slowly and sadly they climb the distant mountains, and read their doom in the setting sun. They are shrinking before the mighty tide which is pressing them away; they must soon hear the roar of the last wave which will settle over them forever. Ages hence, the inquisitive white man, as he stands by some growing city, will ponder on the structure of their disturbed remains, and wonder to what manner of persons they belonged. They will live only in the songs and chronicles of their exterminators. Let these be faithful to their rude virtues as men, and pay due tribute to their unhappy fate as a people. Τ' THE INDIANS. JOSEPH STORY. HERE is in the fate of these unfortunate beings much to awaken our sympathy, and much to disturb the sobriety of our judgment; much which may be urged to excuse their own atrocities; much in their characters which betrays us into an involuntary admiration. What can be more melancholy than their history? By law of their nature, they seemed destined to a slow but sure extinction. Everywhere at the approach of the white man they fade away. We hear the rustling of their footsteps, like that of the withered leaves of autumn, and they are gone forever. They pass mournfully by us, and they return no more. Two centuries ago the smoke of their wigwams and the fires of their councils rose in every valley from Hudson's Bay to the farthest Florida, from the ocean to the Mississippi and the lakes. The shouts of victory and the war-dance rang through the mountains and the glades. The thick arrows and the deadly tomahawk whistled through the forests; and the hunter's trace and dark encampment startled the wild beasts in their lairs. The warriors stood forth in their glory. The young listened to the songs of other days. The mothers played with their infants, and gazed on the scene with warm hopes of the future. The aged sat down; but they wept not. They should soon be at rest in fairer regions, where the Great Spirit dwelt in a home prepared for the brave, beyond the western skies. Braver men never lived; truer men never drew the bow. They had courage and fortitude, and sagacity and perseverance beyond most of the human race. They shrank from no dangers, and they feared no hardships. If they had the vices of savage life they had the virtues also. They were true to their country, their friends, and their homes. If they forgave not injury, neither did they forget kindness. If their vengeance was terrible, their fidelity and generosity were unconquerable also. Their love, like their hate, stopped not on this side of the grave. |