Ichabod
Bartlett - Osceola
[From the Herald of Freedom of January
1839; Miscellaneous Writings, p.p 56-59]
A
truly radical statement on the nature of the white man and the genocide of the
American Indian.
Anti-Slavery
engagements prevented our earlier noticing to our readers the opening lecture
before the Concord Lyceum, by Ichabod Bartlett. It was on the very important
subject of our country's treatment of the aboriginal inhabitants of this land.
A subject, on which we would think it very difficult for any American to be
eloquent - but an American Indian. Our white men have acted a part towards
their red countrymen, which we should think would embarrass their flights of
fancy.
From the landing of
our fathers, up tot he last Indian ouster civilization and christianity (such
as they were) have been crowding upon the Indian, and hunting him as a beast
of. Every advantage has been taken of his unacquaintance with the roguery of
refined life. He has been
circumvented, overreached, cheated, and called meantime a savage, all the way
from the pilgrim-landing to the "father of waters," across which his
mournful canoe now bears the remants of his the mighty forest nations. He has been all the way and all the
time hunched by our republicanism, while that has been blustering about our
justice and magnanimity, and his perfidy - because his tomahawk did not always
outbear the patience of Job. We have thrust him over the Mississippi.
Civilization and christianity are buildings steamboats to follow on, and root
him from his wilderness there. And although he is promised a permanent home and
hunting ground, and smoke will scarce have curled above his new-built wig-wam,
before our enterprise will hunch him farther, till he disappears, or is driven
to turn his despairing canoe out on the shoreless Pacific. The church will see
that he has a scattered missionary after him, meanwhile, and the monthly
concert will be entertained with the geography of his wanderimngs . But not an
effort will be made (none has been) to reform the white man of that character
which makes it impossible for the Indian to live with him. The cheapest mode of
repentence for the American church with regard to the Indian and the Negro
seems to be to 'remove' one "by treaty" toward the illitable susnset,
and to "colonize' the other, (as fast as they become free) "with
their own consent." on the oblivious shores of Western Africa![i][1]
But to the lecture. The
orator spoke of "Osceola, or rather of his countrymen." He depicted,
with great power, and we presume historical accuracy, the wrongs of the Indians
- which is the history of the Indians, with the excepton of those, who chanced
to fall into the hands of the "fanatical" Quakers, Penn. With the
keen sarcasm and eloquent denuciation, which distinguish the lecturer in his
pleadings for his more fortunate clients than the "Indian chief," he
exposed the treachery, the baseness, the duplicity, the tyranny, the savage
cruelty, the more than savage - the republican and civilized - barbarity of
this country. He paid some merited compliments to the learned law-officers of
this great republic, for their official opinions, as counsel, advising this
mighty nation on the legal effect of some of their processes to
"extinguish Indian titles" to country and to home and hearthstone. We
wish these cabinet officers had been present. But their clients were, and it
may not well become parties to abuse their ingenious counsel.
We do not attempt a
complimentary notice to this lecture. We felt mortified and humbled through the
whole of its delivery, eloquent, powerful, graceful and forcible as it wass. We
felt that a few such finely drawn laments was all the relief the country
promised the wretched Indian. The generous and indignant orator would say, we
presume, i asked what could be done for the Indian, that nothing could be done;
that he must retire; that he could not be civilized; that he was irrecoverably
a savage, and that he must retire before, or be trodden beneath, the inevitable
westward movement of civilization. He would not say the white man must
recognize the brotherhood of the savage, and respect his human rights and
endure his aboriginal customs and habits of life here on the land. He would
treat him honorably, to be sure, and keep faith with him, and he respects and
admires the heroism, the unbowing independence, the savage and forest poetry of
his character. he spoke with enthusiasm of the bravery of the chiefs, and the
wild native eloquence of their orators.
He quoted largely from their half-civilized writers, even. But would he
say that the policy of William Penn should be observed towards them - the
principles of non-resisting, unarmed peace, of primitive christianity, which
would immediately abolish our Indian-phobia, and give them place in the American
human family? We think not.He does not hold to the immediate abolition of negro
slavery - that might national iniquity and shame, before which the wrongs of
the Indian dwell into insignificancy. We have trespassed on the Indian. We have
enslaved the Negro. We have defrauded the Indian. We have extinguished the
Negro. But we cannot pursue the theme here.
The lecture was
"denunciatory. The lecturer used "harsh language." he called the
white people "miscreants and caitiffs," and othe names of homely, old-fashioned
severity. He did not style them southern brethren, or northern brethren. He did
not call the Indians savages and Indian dogs, inferior race, that could not
live or rise among white men, that must be sent to their own appropriate
country, the woods." He did not palliate our conduct in the least, but
denounced it worse than ever Garrison did the conduct of slaveholders. We refer
the denouncers of abolitionists to this authority for calling things by their
right names. And we call upon the learned and eloquent lecturer, to demand of
his white countrymen justice and humanity for the remaining Indians - that they
invite and help and help them back in their native soil and their homes, and
that the national treasures be expended in reforming, in this behalf, the
wicked scorn and haughtiness of the white man, amid which the Indian can't live
in safety or peace - instead of spending it in miserable politics, or more
miserable preparations for civilized quarrelling with other nations by land or
sea. We call on him to advocate a national love of the Indian as a man, to
gather associations in his behalf, like ours for the more deeply-wronged and
insulted negro, and we call on him further to enlist in the cause of his
colored countrymen and brethren, sprung with himself from one stock, of one
kindred, of one brotherhood, of one destiny. We ask him in the name of
humanity, why he, an eloquent advocate, stands coldly and more than silently
by, while those of feebler powers are breasting the storm of a most savage and
brute public sentiment, which is crushing to the dust and mire the colored man
and his uncolored friends.
Nathaniel
Peabody Rogers