The fusion of the two races in this neighborhood is remarkable; the mixed
breed running by gradual shades into the aboriginal on the one hand, and
into the white on the other; children with a tinge of the copper hue in
the families of white men, and children scarcely less fair sometimes seen
in the wigwams. Some of the half-caste ladies at the Falls of St. Mary,
who have been educated in the Atlantic states, are persons of graceful and
dignified manners and agreeable conversation.
I attended worship at the Fort, at the Sault, on Sunday. The services were
conducted by the chaplain, who is of the Methodist persuasion and a
missionary at the place, assisted by the Baptist missionary. I looked
about me for some evidence of the success of their labors, but among the
worshipers I saw not one male of Indian descent. Of the females, half a
dozen, perhaps, were of the half-caste; and as two of these walked away
from the church, I perceived that they wore a fringed clothing for the
ankles, as if they took a certain pride in this badge of their Indian
extraction.
In the afternoon we drove down the west bank of the river to attend
religious service at an Indian village, called the Little Rapids, about
two miles and a half from the Sault. Here the Methodists have built a
mission-house, maintain a missionary, and instruct a fragment of the
Chippewa tribe. We found the missionary, Mr. Speight, a Kentuckian, who
has wandered to this northern region, quite ill, and there was
consequently no service.
We walked through the village, which is prettily situated on a swift and
deep channel of the St. Mary, where the green waters rush between the
main-land and a wooded island. It stands on rich meadows of the river,
with a path running before it, parallel with the bank, along the velvet
sward, and backed at no great distance by the thick original forest,
which not far below closes upon the river on both sides. The inhabitants
at the doors and windows of their log-cabins had a demure and subdued
aspect; they were dressed in their clean Sunday clothes, and the peace and
quiet of the place formed a strong contrast to the debaucheries we had
witnessed at the village by the Falls. We fell in with an Indian, a quiet
little man, of very decent appearance, who answered our questions with
great civility. We asked to whom belonged the meadows lying back of the
cabins, on which we saw patches of rye, oats, and potatoes.
"Oh, they belong to the mission; the Indians work them."
"Are they good people, these Indians?"
"Oh yes, good people."
"Do they never drink too much whisky?"
"Well, I guess they drink too much whisky sometimes."
There was a single wigwam in the village, apparently a supplement to one
of the log-cabins. We looked in and saw two Indian looms, from which two
unfinished mats were depending. Mrs. Speight, the wife of the missionary,
told us that, a few days before, the village had been full of these
lodges; that the Indians delighted in them greatly, and always put them up
during the mosquito season; "for a mosquito," said the good lady, "will
never enter a wigwam;" and that lately, the mosquitoes having disappeared,
and the nights having grown cooler, they had taken down all but the one we
saw.
We passed a few minutes in the house of the missionary, to which Mrs.
Speight kindly invited us. She gave a rather favorable account of the
Indians under her husband's charge, but manifestly an honest one, and
without any wish to extenuate the defects of their character.
"There are many excellent persons among them," she said; "they are a kind,
simple, honest people, and some of them are eminently pious."
"Do they follow any regular industry?"
"Many of them are as regularly industrious as the whites, rising early and
continuing at their work in the fields all day. They are not so attentive
as we could wish to the education of their children. It is difficult to
make them send their children regularly to school; they think they confer
a favor in allowing us to instruct them, and if they happen to take a
little offense their children are kept at home. The great evil against
which we have to guard is the love of strong drink. When this is offered
to an Indian, it seems as if it was not in his nature to resist the
temptation. I have known whole congregations of Indians, good Indians,
ruined and brought to nothing by the opportunity of obtaining whisky as
often as they pleased."
We inquired whether the numbers of the people at the mission were
diminishing. She could not speak with much certainty as to this point,
having been only a year and a half at the mission, but she thought there
was a gradual decrease.
"The families of the Indians," she said, in answer to one of my
questions, "are small. In one family at the village are six children, and
it is the talk of all the Indians, far and near, as something
extraordinary. Generally the number is much smaller, and more than half
the children die in infancy. Their means would not allow them to rear many
children, even if the number of births was greater."
Such appears to be the destiny of the red race while in the presence of
the white - decay and gradual extinction, even under circumstances
apparently the most favorable to its preservation.
On Monday we left the Falls of St. Mary, in the steamer General Scott, on
our return to Mackinaw.
