OF A

RESIDENCE OF THIRTY YEARS

WITH THE

INDIAN TRIBES

ON THE

AMERICAN FRONTIERS:

WITH BRIEF

NOTICES OF PASSING EVENTS, FACTS, AND OPINIONS,

A. D. 1812 TO A. D. 1842.

Lecked ay 1913

BY HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT.

STOR LIBRARY

VEW-YORK

PHILADELPHIA:

LIPPINCOTT, GRAMBO AND CO.,
SUCCESSORS To Grigg, ELLIOT AND CO.

1851.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by

HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT,

in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

PHILADELPHIA:

T. K. AND P. G. COLLINS, PRINTERS.

то

ALEXANDER B. JOHNSON, Esq.

OF UTICA.

MY DEAR SIR:-I feel impelled to place your name before these sheets, from a natural impulse. It is many years since I accompanied you to the Genesee country, which was, at that time, a favorite theatre of enterprise, and called the "Garden of the West." This step, eventually, led me to make deeper and more adventurous inroads into the American wilderness.

If I am not mistaken, you will peruse these brief memoranda of my exploratory journeys and residence in the wide area of the west, and among barbarous tribes, in a spirit of appreciation, and with a lively sense of that providential care, in human affairs, that equally shields the traveler amidst the vicissitudes of the forest, and the citizen at his fireside.

Very sincerely yours,

HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT.

PREFACE.

TEN years ago I returned from the area of the Mississippi Valley
to New York, my native State, after many years' residence and
exploratory travels of that quarter of the Union. Having become
extensively known, personally, and as an author, and my name
having been associated with several distinguished actors in our
western history, the wish has often been expressed to see some
record of the events as they occurred. In yielding to this wish,
it must not be supposed that the writer is about to submit an auto-
biography of himself; nor yet a methodical record of his times-
tasks which, were he ever so well qualified for, he does not at all
aspire to, and which, indeed, he has not now the leisure, if he had
the desire, to undertake.

Still, his position on the frontiers, and especially in connection
with the management of the Indian tribes, is believed to have been
one of marked interest, and to have involved him in events and
passages often of thrilling and general moment. And the recital
of these, in the simple and unimposing forms of a diary, even in
the instances where they may be thought to fail in awakening deep
sympathy, or creating high excitement, will be found, he thinks,
to possess a living moral undertone. In the perpetual conflict
between civilized and barbaric life, during the settlement of the
West, the recital will often recall incidents of toil and peril, and
frequently show the open or concealed murderer, with his uplifted
knife, or deadly gun. As a record of opinion, it will not be too
much to say, that the author's approvals are ever on the side of
virtue, honor, and right; that misconception is sometimes prevented
by it, and truth always vindicated. If he has sometimes met bad
men; if he has experienced detraction, or injustice; if even persons
of good general repute have sometimes persecuted him, it is only
surprising, on general grounds, that the evils of this kind have not