“To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth”
-Jeff Copper, 1920-2006, Founder of Gunsite Training Center
When last in London, I remember to have heard some coffeehouse politicians, chagrined at the devastations they made on our back settlements, say, that it would be an easy matter to root out the savages by clearing the ground. I answer, that the task may seem easy to them, but the execution of such a scheme on such a track of land would be so difficult, that I doubt whether there are people enough in Great Britain and Ireland to accomplish it in a hundred years' time, were they to meet with no opposition; but where there is such a subtle enemy to deal with, I am afraid we should make but little progress in reducing the Indians, even allowing the country to be all cleared, as there are hills and other fastnesses to which the Indians can retire, and where they would greatly have the better of every attempt to dislodge them. The only way I would advise is, to keep friends with the Indians, and endeavour to prevail on them to settle in the same manner as the planters do, which they will be more easily brought to, if the French are excluded from Canada. For, notwithstanding their wandering way of life, I have the greatest reason to believe they have no dislike to an easy life. And as they will have no temptations to murder, as they had when stirred up by the subjects of his Most Christian Majesty, they will soon become useful members of society.
When first the English arrived in the American colonies, they found the woods inhabited by a race of people uncultivated in their manners, but not quite devoid of humanity. They were strangers to literature, ignorant of the liberal arts, and destitute of almost every conveniency of life.
But if they were unpractised in the arts of more civilized nations, they were also free from their vices. They seemed perfect in two parts of the ancient Persian education, namely, shooting with the bow, and speaking truth. In their dealings, they commonly exchange one commodity for another. Strangers themselves to fraud, they had an entire confidence in others. According to their abilities they were generous and hospitable. Happy, thrice happy had they been, if, still preserving their native innocence and simplicity, they had only been instructed in the knowledge of God, and the doctrines of Christianity! Had they been taught some of the more useful parts of life, and to lay aside what was wild and savage in their manners!
They received the English upon their first arrival with open arms, treated them kindly, and shewed an earnest desire that they should settle and live with them. They freely parted with some of their lands to their new-come brethren, and cheerfully entered into a league of friendship with them. As the English were in immediate want of the assistance of the Indians, they, on their part, endeavoured to make their coming agreeable.
Thus they lived for some years in the mutual exchange of friendly offices. Their houses were open to each other, they treated one another as brothers. But by their different way of living, the English soon acquired property, while the Indians continued in their former indigence; hence the former found they could easily live without the latter, and therefore became less anxious about preserving their friendship. This gave a check to that mutual hospitality that had hitherto subsisted between them; and this, together with the decrease of game for hunting, arising from the increase of the English settlements, induced the Indians to remove farther back into the woods.
From this time the natives began to be treated as a people of whom an advantage might be taken. As the trade with them was free and open, men of loose and abandoned characters engaged in it, and practised every fraud. Before the coming of the white people the Indians never tasted spirituous liquors, and, like most barbarians, having once tasted, became immoderately fond thereof, and had no longer any government of themselves. The traders availed themselves of this weakness; instead of carrying our clothes to cover the naked savages, they carried them rum, and thereby debauched their manners, weakened their constitutions, introduced disorders unknown to them before, and in short corrupted and ruined them.
The Indians, finding the ill effects of this trade, began to complain. Wherefore laws were made, prohibiting any from going to trade with them without a licence from the Governor, and it was also made lawful for the Indians to stave the casks, and spill what rum was brought among them—but this was to little purpose: the Indians had too little command of themselves to do their duty, and were easily prevailed upon not to execute this law: and the design of the former was totally evaded, by men of some character taking out licences to trade, and then employing under them persons of no honour or principle, generally servants and convicts transported hither from Britain and Ireland, whom they sent with goods into the Indian country to trade on their account. These getting beyond the reach of the law, executed unheard-of villanies upon the poor natives, committing crimes which modesty forbids to name, and behaving in a manner too shocking to be related.
At every treaty which the Indians held with the English they complained of the abuses they suffered from the traders, and trade as then carried on. They requested that the traders might be recalled, but all to no purpose. They begged in the strongest terms that no rum might be suffered to come among them: but were only told they were at liberty to spill all rum brought into their country. At this time little or no pains was taken to civilize or instruct them in the Christian religion, till at length the conduct of traders, professing themselves of that religion, gave the Indians an almost invincible prejudice against it. Besides, as these traders travelled among distant nations of the Indians, and were in some sort the representatives of the English nation, from them the Indians formed a very unfavourable opinion of our whole nation, and easily believed every misrepresentation made of us by our enemies [the French].
There are instances in history where the virtues and disinterested behaviour of one man has prejudiced whole nations of barbarians in favour of the people to whom he belonged: and is it then to be wondered at if the Indians conceived a rooted prejudice against us, when not one, but a whole set of men, namely, all of our nation that they had an opportunity of seeing or conversing with, were persons of a lose and abandoned behaviour, insincere and faithless, without religion, virtue, or morality ? No one will think I exaggerate these matters who has either known the traders themselves, or who has read the public treaties.
If to this be added, what I find in the late treaties that they have been wronged in some of their lands, what room will there be any longer to wonder that we have so little interest with them; that their conduct towards us is of late so much changed, that, instead of being a security and protection to us, as they have been hitherto during the several wars between us and the French, they are now turned against us and become our enemies, principally on account of the fraudulent dealings and immoral conduct of those heretofore employed in our trade with them, who have brought dishonour upon our religion, and disgrace on our nation? It nearly concerns us, if possible, to wipe off these reproaches, and to redeem our character, which can only be done by regulating the trade; and this the Indians, with whom the government, of Philadelphia lately treated, demanded and expected of us.
At present, a favourable opportunity presents for doing it effectually. All those who were engaged in this trade are, by the present troubles, removed from it; and it is to be hoped that the legislature will fall upon measures to prevent any such from ever being concerned in it again. This is only the foundation upon which we can expect a lasting peace with the natives, It is evident that a great deal depends upon the persons who are to be sent into the Indian country; from these alone the Indians will form a judgment of us, our religion, and manners. If these then, who are to be our representatives among the Indians he men of virtue and integrity, sober in their conversation, honest in their dealings, and whose practice corresponds with their profession, the judgment formed of us will be favourable; if, on the contrary, they be loose and profane persons, men of wicked lives and profligate morals, we must expect that among the Indians our religion will pass for a jest, and we in general for a people faithless and despicable.
I might here add some observations respecting the commodities proper to be carried among the Indians, in kind as well as quality, with a method of carrying on the trade, so as to preserve the native innocence of the Indians, and at the same time confirm them immoveable in our interest; but these things, as well as some remarks I have in a course of years made upon the Indians, I shall leave for the subject of some future history.
Notes
The observations about crooks claiming to be Christians and representing their faith poorly in the eyes of the Natives, whites cheating Indians and not honoring treaties, and the higher level of honor and generosity among Indians, and then the situation devolving into vicious warfare, is common throughout the New World experience, with Peter's opinions of comparative cultural traits echoing those of commentators from Bernal Diaz in the 1520s to Alexander Eastman in the 1920s. It seems that when a materialistic society meets a spiritualistic society war can be expected, with the materialists eventually winning, resulting in the world we presently occupy, a materialistic overlay of the supplanted spiritualistic world.
I've been following this series sort of from the beginning. I guess the excerpts are taken from his autobiography. And I'm sure you've done a lot of research elsewhere that jibes with his account. But Wikipedia claims that his story was a fabrication to some degree or other; I'm curious what your opinion is on that. (Have you ever read Papillon; some people say that is fabricated too.) Interesting period—I had an ancestor who fought in these wars—especially as we enter our own clash of civilization.
I am relating every word written by Peter. Peter lets the reader know when he is relating the accounts of others. He had sponsors from among the officers of the Oswego campaign, who he mentions by name. When we get to the end of the book you will see why there have been attempts to discredit this account.
His descriptions of the Indians he encounters are almost identical to those of frontiersmen like James Smith who was captured at the same time by the same tribesmen. The veracity of his accounts of native life are, to me, proven by his ignorance on certain matters, as to their totemic systems, etc. Imagine you being captured by people who speak English but barely, how would you have a modern anthropologist's knowledge of their religion after a few months in a cell?
One way of checking for veracity is looking for heroics, which we find little of with Peter, particularly of Peter doing anything heroic. Peter died a drunk, which, to the modern mind discredits his entire life. In my mind, it makes him more believable, like the men I know who survived savage wars and spent their later days intoxicated.
As far as the enslavement of Scottish children, his accounts are well documented and supported by court documents and a ruling of the period. In Peter's day there was no Create Space. 200 years ago I would still be unpublished. Peter had the patronage of someone, as evidenced by his patriotic tact, his naming of certain officers as good men, and of his accurate reporting of military matters he was not involved in. These patrons were probably a group of Scottish officers.
I have not read Papillon, but did see the Steve McQueen movie.
Thanks for following Stillbirth of A Nation, JR.