Randolph County, Missouri - Chapter 2: Indians, 1920

SOLITUDE OP THE WILDERNESS - CHARACTERISTICS - MODE OF LIVING - FORM OF GOVERNMENT - RELIGION - ENDURANCE TESTS - TORTURE OF CAPTIVES - A CRUEL ENEMY, BUT STEADFAST FRIEND - WHAT HE TAUGHT THE WHITE MAN - ALLIANCES WITH EUROPEAN NATIONS - INDIAN WARS.

One strange fact about the country was, that east of the Mississippi the whole vast area was well nigh a solitude. Where today fifty millions of white men live, there were then only two or three hundred thousand Indians. In going through the forests, the explorers would sometimes travel for days without meeting a human being. The truth is, th/at the Indians cannot be said to have occupied the land; they simply possessed it. To them it was mainly a hunting-ground to roam over or a battlefield to fight on.

Columbus called the natives Indians, but they called themselves eimply "Men," or "Real Men"; "Real Men" they certainly often proved themselves to be. The most numerous body of Indians in the east was the Algonquins; the ablest and most ferocious was the Iroquois. They were a tall, well-made race, with a color usually resembling that of old copper. Their hair was like a horse's mane, coarse, black and straight. Their eyes were small, black and deep set. They had high cheek bones and a prominent nose.

The women let their hair grow long. The men cut theirs off close to the head with the exception of a ridge or lock in the middle. That was left as a point of honor. It was called the "scalp-lock." Its object was to give an adversary - if he could get it - a fair grip in fight, and also to enable him to pull his enemy's scalp off as a trophy of the battle.

The Indians were savages, but seldom degraded savages. They lived by hunting, fishing and agriculture. Their farming, however, was of the rudest kind. For weapons they had bows and arrows, hatchets made of flint and heavy clubs.

The Indian believed in a strict division of duties. He did the hunting, the fighting, and the scalping; his wife did the work. She built the wigwam or hut of bark. She planted and hoed the corn and tobacco. She made deerskin clothes for the family. When they moved, she carried the furniture on her back. Her housekeeping was simple. She kindled a fire on the ground by rubbing two dry sticks rapidly together; then she roasted the meat on the coals, or boiled it in an earthen pot. There was always plenty of smoke and dirt; but no one complained. House-cleaning was unknown.

The most ingenious work of the Indians was seen in the moccasin, the snow-shoe, and the birch-bark canoe. The moccasin was a shoe made of buckskin, durable, soft, plain and noiseless. It was the best covering for a hunter's foot that human skill ever contrived. The snow-shoe was a light frame of wood, covered with a net work of strings of hide, and having such a broad surface that the wearer could walk on top of the snow in pursuit of game Without it the Indian might have starved in a severe winter, since only by its use could he run down the deer at that season.

The birch-bark canoe was light, strong, and easily propelled. It made the Indian master of every lake, river and stream. Wherever there were waterways he could travel quickly, silently and with little efl'ort. If he liked he could go in his own private conveyance from the source of the Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico or from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the Falls of Niagara.

Politically the Indian was free. Each tribe had a chief, but the chief had little real power. All important matters were settled by councils. Socially, the Indian had less liberty than the white man. He was bound by customs handed down from his forefathers. He could not marry outside his tjribe. He could not sit in whatever seat he chose at a council. He could not even paint his face any color he fancied; for a young man who had won no honors in battle would" no more have dared to decorate himself like a veteran warrior, than a private soldier in the United States

The Indian usually believed in a Great Spirit-all-powerful wise and good ; but he also believed in many inferior spirits, some good, and some evil.

Often he worshipped the evil spirits most. He reasoned in this way : The Great Spirit will not hurt me, even if I do not pray to him, for he is good ; but if I neglect the evil spirits, they may do me mischief.

Beyond this life the Indian looked for another. There the brave warrior who had taken many scalps would enter the happy hunting-grounds ; there demons would flog the coward to never-ending task.

It has sometimes been said that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian," but judged by his own standard of right and wrong, the red man was conscientious. He would not steal from his tribe, he would not lie to his friends, he did not become a drunkard till the white man taught him.

The Indian rarely expressed his feeling in words, but he frequently painted them on his face. You could tell by his color whether he meant peace or war, whether he had heard good news or bad. He sometimes laughed and shouted, he seldom if ever wept. From childhood he was taught to despise pain. A row of little Indian boys would sometimes put live coals under their naked arms, and then press them close to their bodies. The game was to see which one would first raise his arms and drop the coal. The one that held out longest became the leader. If an Indian lad had met with an accident and was mortally wounded, he scorned to complain; he sang his "death-song" and died like a veteran warrior.

Generally speaking, the Indians tortured their captives. They wanted to see how much agony they could bear without crying out. The surest way for a prisoner to save his life was to show that he was not afraid to lose it. The redman never failed to show his respect for courage. An instance is found in the case of General Stark of New Hanipshire. He was taken prisoner by the Indians in 1752, and condemned to run the gauntlet. Two long rows of stalwart young warriors were formed. Each man had a club or stick to strike Stark as he passed. But Stark was equal to the occasion. Just as he started on the terrible race for life he snatched a club out of the hands of the nearest Indian, and knocking down the astonished savages right and left, he escaped almost unhurt. The old men of the tribe, who stood near, roared with laughter to see the spruce young warriors sprawling in the dust. Instead of torturing Stark, they treated him as a hero.

The Indian was a treacherous and cruel enemy, but a steadfast friend. He thought at first that the white man was a celestial being who had come from heaven to visit him. IJe soon found out his mistake, and acted accordingly. The Indian could return good for good, but he knew nothing of returning good for evil ; on the contrary, he always paid bad treatment by bad treatment, and never forgot to add some interest. If he made a treaty, he kept it sacredly; it is said that in no instance can it be proved that he was first to break such an agrtement. Those of the early white settlers who made friends with the redman had no cause to regret it.

The Indian's school was the woods. Whatever the woods can teach that is useful - and they can teach much - that he learned. He knew the properties of every plant, and the habits of every animal. The natives taught the white man many of these' things, but the most useful of all the lessons the American barbarians gave the civilized Europeans was how to raise corn in the forest without first clearing the land.

They showed them how to kill the trees by burning or girding them. Then, when the leaves no longer grew, the sun would shine on the soil and ripen the com. There were times in the history of the early settlements of white men when that knowledge saved them from starvation, for often they had neither time nor strength to clear the soil for planting.

But the results of contact between the two races did not end here. The alliances formed between the Indians and the English on the one hand, or the Indians and French,' who were rivals and enemies of the English, on the other, had important historical results. The hostility of the Iroquois Nation, five tribes, of New York to the French in Canada, prevented the French from getting possession of the Hudson river, and so separating the English colonies of New England from those of Virginia and Pennsylvania. This was a decided advantage to the English settlers, who thus got a firm foothold on the Atlantic coast.

Finally, the Indian wars prevented the English from scattering over the country. These contests forced them to stand by each other, and thus trained them for union and for independence.