He told us of an Indian
settlement about twenty miles further up the St. Clair. Here dwell a
remnant of the Chippewa tribe, collected by the Canadian government, which
has built for them comfortable log-houses with chimneys, furnished them
with horses and neat cattle, and utensils of agriculture, erected a house
of worship, and given them a missionary. "The design of planting them
here," saidth esettler, "was to encourage them to cultivate the soil."
"And what has been the success of the plan?" I asked.
"It has met with no success at all," he answered. "The worst thing that
the government could do for these people is to give them every thing as it
has done, and leave them under no necessity to provide for themselves.
They chop over a little land, an acre or two to a family; their squaws
plant a little corn and a few beans, and this is the extent of their
agriculture. They pass their time in hunting and fishing, or in idleness.
They find deer and bears in the woods behind them, and fish in the St.
Clair before their doors, and they squander their yearly pensions. In one
respect they are just like white men, they will not work if they can live
without."
"What fish do they find in the St. Clair?"
"Various sorts.
