Life of Joseph Brant—Thayendanegea (Vol. I.)

Life of Joseph Brant—Thayendanegea (Vol. I.) - Including the Border Wars of the American Revolution and Sketches of the Indian Campaigns of Generals Harmar, St. Clair, and Wayne; And Other Matters Connected with the Indian Relations of the United States and Great Britain, from the Peace of 1783 to the Indian Peace of 1795

It is related by sop, that a forester once meeting with a lion, they traveled together for a time, and conversed amicably without much differing in opinion. At length a dispute happening to arise upon the question of superiority between their respective races, the former, in the absence of a better argument, pointed to a monument, on which was sculptured, in marble, the statue of a man striding over the body of a vanquished lion. "If this," said the lion, "is all you have to say, let us be the sculptors, and you will see the lion striding over the vanquished man." The moral of this fable should ever be borne in mind when contemplating the character of that brave and ill-used race of men, now melting away before the Anglo-Saxons like the snow beneath a vertical sunthe aboriginals of America. The Indians are no sculptors. No monuments of their own art commend to future ages the events of the past. No Indian pen traces the history of their tribes and nations, or records the deeds of their warriors and chiefstheir prowess and their wrongs. Their spoilers have been their historians; and although a reluctant assent has been awarded to some of the nobler traits of their nature, yet, without yielding a due allowance for the peculiarities of their situation, the Indian character has been presented with singular uniformity as being cold, cruel, morose, and revengeful; unrelieved by any of those varying traits and characteristics, those lights and shadows, which are admitted in respect to other people no less wild and uncivilized than they. Without pausing to reflect that, even when most cruel, they have been practising the trade of waralways dreadfulas much in conformity to their own usages and laws, as have their more civilized antagonists, the white historian has drawn them with the characteristics of demons. Forgetting that the second of the Hebrew monarchs did not scruple to saw his prisoners with saws, and harrow them with harrows of iron; forgetful, likewise, of the scenes at Smithfield, under the direction of our own British ancestors; the historians of the poor untutored Indians, almost with one accord, have denounced them as monsters sui generisof unparalleled and unapproachable barbarity; as though the summary tomahawk were worse than the iron tortures of the harrow, and the torch of the Mohawk hotter than the faggots of Queen Mary. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 52072
Author: Stone, William L. (William Leete)
Release Date: May 15, 2016
Format: eBook
Language: English