Title: The Red Man's Rebuke
Author: Pokagon, Simon
Language: English
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    Copyright 1893
    BY
    SIMON POKAGON.

    Address all Orders to
    C. H. ENGLE, PUBLISHER,
    Hartford, Mich.



[Illustration: CHIEF SIMON POKAGON, HARTFORD, MICH.]



    To the memory of
    William Penn, Roger Williams,
    the late lamented
    Helen Hunt Jackson,
    and many others now in Heaven,
    Who conceived that Noble spirit of Justice
    Which recognizes the Brotherhood of the
    Red Man, and to all others now living
    Defenders of our race,
    I most gratefully dedicate this tribute of the forest.

    CHIEF POKAGON.



By The Author


My object in publishing the “Red Man’s Rebuke” on the bark of the
white birch tree, is out of loyalty to my own people, and gratitude to
the Great Spirit, who in his wisdom provided for our use for untold
generations, this most remarkable tree with manifold bark used by us
instead of paper, being of greater value to us as it could not be injured
by sun or water.

Out of the bark of this wonderful tree were made hats, caps, and dishes
for domestic use, while our maidens tied with it the knot that sealed
their marriage vow; wigwams were made of it, as well as large canoes that
outrode the violent storms on lake and sea; it was also used for light
and fuel at our war councils and spirit dances. Originally the shore of
our northern lakes and streams were fringed with it and evergreen, and
the white charmingly contrasted with the green mirrored from the water
was indeed beautiful, but like the red man this tree is vanishing from
our forests.

    “Alas for us; our day is o’er
    Our fires are out from shore to shore;
    No more for us the wild deer bounds—
    The plow is on our hunting grounds.
    The pale man’s ax rings through our woods,
    The pale man’s sail skims o’er floods;
    Our pleasant springs are dry.
    Our children—look by power oppressed,
    Beyond the mountains of the west—
    Our children go—to die.”



[Illustration: CHICAGO IN MY GRANDFATHER’S DAYS.—BY CHIEF POKAGON.]



THE RED MAN’S REBUKE.

BY SIMON POKAGON

_Pottawattamie Chief._


    “Shall not one line lament our forest race,
    For you struck out from wild creation’s face?
    Freedom—the selfsame freedom you adore,
    Bade us defend our violated shore.”

In behalf of my people, the American Indians, I hereby declare to you,
the pale-faced race that has usurped our lands and homes, that we have no
spirit to celebrate with you the Great Columbian Fair now being held in
this Chicago city, the wonder of the world.

No; sooner would we hold high joy-day over the graves of our departed
fathers, than to celebrate our own funeral, the discovery of America. And
while you who are strangers, and you who live here, bring the offerings
of the handiwork of your own lands, and your hearts in admiration
rejoice over the beauty and grandeur of this young republic, and you say,
“Behold the wonders wrought by our children in this foreign land,” do not
forget that this success has been at the sacrifice of _our_ homes and a
once happy race.

Where these great Columbian show-buildings stretch skyward, and where
stands this “Queen City of the West,” _once_ stood the red man’s
wigwam; here met their old men, young men, and maidens; here blazed
their council-fires. But now the eagle’s eye can find no trace of them.
Here was the center of their wide-spread hunting-grounds; stretching
far eastward, and to the great salt Gulf southward, and to the lofty
Rocky Mountain chain westward; and all about and beyond the Great Lakes
northward roamed vast herds of buffalo that no man could number, while
moose, deer, and elk were found from ocean to ocean; pigeons, ducks, and
geese in near bow-shot moved in great clouds through the air, while fish
swarmed our streams, lakes, and seas close to shore. All were provided
by the Great Spirit for our use; we destroyed none except for food and
dress; had plenty and were contented and happy.

But alas! the pale-faces came by chance to our shores, many times very
needy and hungry. We nursed and fed them,—fed the ravens that were soon
to pluck out our eyes, and the eyes of our children; for no sooner had
the news reached the Old World that a new continent had been found,
peopled with another race of men, than, locust-like, they swarmed on
all our coasts; and, like the carrion crows in spring, that in circles
wheel and clamor long and loud, and will not cease until they find and
feast upon the dead, so these strangers from the East long circuits made,
and turkey-like they gobbled in our ears, “Give us gold, give us gold;”
“Where find you gold? Where find you gold?”

We gave for promises and “gewgaws” all the gold we had, and showed them
where to dig for more; to repay us, they robbed our homes of fathers,
mothers, sons, and daughters; some were forced across the sea for slaves
in Spain, while multitudes were dragged into the mines to dig for gold,
and held in slavery there until all who escaped not, died under the lash
of the cruel task-master. It finally passed into their history that, “the
red man of the West, unlike the black man of the East, will die before
he’ll be a slave.” Our hearts were crushed by such base ingratitude; and,
as the United States has now decreed, “No Chinaman shall land on our
shores,” so we then felt that no such barbarians as they, should land on
_ours_.

In those days that tried our fathers’ souls, tradition says: “A crippled,
grey-haired sire told his tribe that in the visions of the night he was
lifted high above the earth, and in great wonder beheld a vast spider-web
spread out over the land from the Atlantic Ocean toward the setting sun.
Its net-work was made of rods of iron; along its lines in all directions
rushed monstrous spiders, greater in strength, and larger far than any
beast of earth, clad in brass and iron, dragging after them long rows of
wigwams with families therein, out-stripping in their course the flight
of birds that fled before them. Hissing from their nostrils came forth
fire and smoke, striking terror to both fowl and beast. The red men hid
themselves in fear, or fled away, while the white men trained these
monsters for the war path, as warriors for battle.”

The old man who saw the vision claimed it meant that the Indian race
would surely pass away before the pale-faced strangers. He died a martyr
to his belief. Centuries have passed since that time, and we now behold
in the vision as in a mirror, the present net-work of railroads, and the
monstrous engines with their fire, smoke, and hissing steam, with cars
attached, as they go sweeping through the land.

The cyclone of civilization rolled westward; the forests of untold
centuries were swept away; streams dried up; lakes fell back from
their ancient bounds; and all our fathers once loved to gaze upon was
destroyed, defaced, or marred, except the sun, moon, and starry skies
above, which the Great Spirit in his wisdom hung beyond their reach.

Still on the storm-cloud rolled, while before its lightning and thunder
the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air withered like grass
before the flame—were shot for love of power to kill alone, and left
to spoil upon the plains. Their bleaching bones now scattered far and
near, in shame declare the wanton cruelty of pale-faced men. The storm
unsatisfied on land swept our lakes and streams, while before its clouds
of hooks, nets, and glistening spears the fish vanished from our waters
like the morning dew before the rising sun. Thus our inheritance was cut
off, and we were driven and scattered as sheep before the wolves.

Nor was this all. They brought among us fatal diseases our fathers knew
not of; our medicine-men tried in vain to check the deadly plague; but
they themselves died, and our people fell as fall the leaves before the
autumn’s blast. To be just, we must acknowledge there were some good
men with these strangers, who gave their lives for ours, and in great
kindness taught us the revealed will of the Great Spirit through his Son
Jesus, the mediator between God and man. But while we were being taught
to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, and strength, and our
neighbors as ourselves, and our children were taught to lisp, “Our Father
who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” bad men of the same race, whom
we thought of the same belief, shocked our faith in the revealed will
of the Father, as they came among us with bitter oaths upon their lips,
something we had never heard before, and cups of “fire-water” in their
hands, something we had never seen before. They pressed the sparkling
glasses to our lips and said, “Drink, and you will be happy.” We drank
thereof, we and our children, but alas! like the serpent that charms to
kill, the drink-habit coiled about the heart-strings of its victims,
shocking onto death, friendship, love, honor, manhood—all that makes
men good and noble; crushing out all ambition, and leaving naught but a
culprit vagabond in the place of a man.

Now as we have been taught to believe that our first parents ate of the
forbidden fruit, and fell, so we as fully believe this fire-water is
the hard-cider of the white man’s devil, made from the fruit of that
tree that brought death into the world, and all our woes. The arrow, the
scalping-knife, and the tomahawk used on the war-path were _merciful_
compared with it; _they_ were used in our defense, but the accursed
drink came like the serpent in the form of a dove. Many of our people
partook of it without mistrust, as children pluck the flowers and clutch
a scorpion in their grasp; only when they feel the sting, they let the
flowers fall. But Nature’s children had no such power; for when the
viper’s fangs they felt, they only hugged the reptile the more closely
to their breasts, while friends before them stood pleading with prayers
and tears that they would let the deadly serpent drop. But all in vain.
Although they promised so to do, yet with laughing grin and steps
uncertain like the fool, they still more frequently guzzled down this
hellish drug. Finally conscience ceased to give alarm, and, led by deep
despair to life’s last brink, and goaded by demons on every side, they
cursed themselves, they cursed their friends, they cursed their beggar
babes and wives, they cursed their God, and died.

You say of us that we are treacherous, vindictive, and cruel; in answer
to the charge, we declare to all the world with our hands uplifted before
high Heaven, that before the white man came upon us, we were kind,
outspoken, and forgiving. Our real character has been misunderstood
because we have resented the breaking of treaties made with the United
States, as we honestly understood them. The few of our children who
are permitted to attend your schools, in great pride tell us that they
read in your own histories, how William Penn, a Quaker, and a good man,
made treaties with nineteen tribes of Indians, and that neither he nor
they ever broke them; and further, that during seventy years, while
Pennsylvania was controlled by the Quakers, not a drop of blood was shed
nor a war-whoop sounded by our people. Your own historians, and our
traditions, show that for nearly two hundred years, different Eastern
powers were striving for the mastery in the new world, and that our
people were persuaded by the different factions to take the war-path,
being generally led by white men who had been discharged from prisons for
crimes committed in the Old World.

Read the following, left on record by Peter Martyr who visited our
forefathers in the day of Columbus.

    “It is certain that the land among these people is as common
    as the sun and water, and that ‘mine and thine,’ the seed of
    all misery, have no place with them. They are content with
    so little, that in so large a country they have rather a
    superfluity than a scarceness: so that they seem to live in
    the golden world without toil, living in open gardens not
    intrenched with dykes, not divided with hedges, nor divided
    with walls. They deal truly one with another, without laws,
    without books, without judges. They take him for an evil
    and mischievous man, who taketh pleasure in doing hurt to
    another, and albeit they delight not in superfluities, yet they
    make provision for the increase of such roots whereof they
    make bread, content with such simple diet whereof health is
    preserved and disease is avoided.”

Your own histories show that Columbus on his first visit to our shores,
in a message to the king and queen of Spain, paid our forefathers this
beautiful tribute:—

    “They are loving, uncovetous people: so docile in all things
    that I swear to your majesties there is not in the world
    a better race or more delightful country. They love their
    neighbors as themselves, and their talk is ever sweet and
    gentle, accompanied with smiles; and though they be naked, yet
    their manners are decorous and praiseworthy.”

But a few years passed away, and your historians left to be perused with
shame, the following facts:—

    “On the islands of the Atlantic Coast and in the populous
    empires of Mexico and Peru, the Spaniards, through pretense
    of friendship and religion, gained audience with chiefs and
    kings, their families and attendants. They were received
    with great kindness and courtesy but in return they most
    treacherously seized and bound in chains the unsuspecting
    natives; and as a ransom for their release, demanded large sums
    of gold which were soon given by their subjects. But instead of
    granting them freedom as promised, they were put to death in
    a most shocking manner. Their subjects were then hunted down
    like wild beasts, with bloodhounds, robbed and enslaved; while
    under pretext to convert them to Christianity, the rack, the
    scourge, and the fagot were used. Some were burned alive in
    their thickets and fastnesses for refusing to work the mines as
    slaves.”

Tradition says these acts of base ingratitude were communicated from
tribe to tribe throughout the continent, and that a universal wail as one
voice went up from all the tribes of the unbroken wilderness: “We must
beat back these strangers from our shores before they seize our lands and
homes, or slavery or death are ours.”

Reader, pause here, close your eyes, shut out from your heart all
prejudice against our race, and honestly consider the above records
penned by the pale-faced historians centuries ago; and tell us in the
name of eternal truth, and by all that is sacred and dear to mankind,
was there ever a people without the slightest reason of offense, more
treacherously imprisoned and scourged than we have been? And tell us,
have crime, despotism, violence, and slavery ever been dealt out in a
more wicked manner to crush out life and liberty; or was ever a people
more mortally offended than our forefathers were?

Almighty Spirit of humanity, let thy arms of compassion embrace and
shield us from the charge of treachery, vindictiveness, and cruelty, and
save us from further oppression! And may the great chief of the United
States appoint no more broken-down or disappointed politicians as agents
to deal with us, but may he select good men that are tried and true, men
who fear not to do the right. This is our prayer. What would remain for
us if we were not allowed to pray? All else we acknowledge to be in the
hands of this great republic.

It is clear that for years after the discovery of this country, we stood
before the coming strangers, as a block of marble before the sculptor
ready to be shaped into a statue of grace and beauty; but in their greed
for gold, the block was hacked to pieces and destroyed. Child-like we
trusted in them with all our hearts; and as the young nestling while yet
blind, swallows each morsel given by the parent bird, so we drank in
all they said. They showed us the compass that guided them across the
trackless deep, and as its needle swung to and fro only resting to the
north, we looked upon it as a thing of life from the eternal world. We
could not understand the lightning and thunder of their guns, believing
they were weapons of the gods; nor could we fathom their wisdom in
knowing and telling us the exact time in which the sun or moon should be
darkened; hence we looked upon them as divine; we revered them—yes, we
trusted in them, as infants trust in the arms of their mothers.

But again and again was our confidence betrayed, until we were compelled
to know that greed for gold was all the balance-wheel they had. The
remnant of the beasts are now wild and keep beyond the arrow’s reach, the
fowls fly high in air, the fish hide themselves in deep waters. We have
been driven from the homes of our childhood and from the burial places of
our kindred and friends, and scattered far westward into desert places,
where multitudes have died from homesickness, cold, and hunger, and are
suffering and dying still for want of food and blankets.

As the hunted deer close chased all day long, when night comes on, weary
and tired, lies down to rest, mourning for companions of the morning
herd, all scattered, dead, and gone, so we through weary years have tried
to find some place to safely rest. But all in vain! Our throbbing hearts
unceasing say, “The hounds are howling on our tracks.” Our sad history
has been told by weeping parents to their children from generation to
generation; and as the fear of the fox in the duckling is hatched, so the
wrongs we have suffered are transmitted to our children, and they look
upon the white man with distrust as soon as they are born. Hence our
worst acts of cruelty should be viewed by all the world with Christian
charity, as being but the echo of bad treatment dealt out to us.

Therefore we pray our critics everywhere to be not like the thoughtless
boy who condemns the toiling bees wherever found, as vindictive and
cruel, because in robbing their homes he once received the poisoned darts
that nature gave for their defense. Our strongest defense against the
onward marching hordes, we fully realize is as useless as the struggles
of a lamb borne high in air, pierced to its heart, in the talons of the
eagle.

We never shall be happy here any more; we gaze into the faces of our
little ones, for smiles of infancy to please, and into the faces of our
young men and maidens, for joys of youth to cheer advancing age, but
alas! instead of smiles of joy we find but looks of sadness there. Then
we fully realize in the anguish of our souls that their young and tender
hearts, in keenest sympathy with ours, have drank in the sorrows we have
felt, and their sad faces reflect it back to us again. No rainbow of
promise spans the dark cloud of our afflictions; no cheering hopes are
painted on our midnight sky. We only stand with folded arms and watch and
wait to see the future deal with us no better than the past. No cheer
of sympathy is given us; but in answer to our complaints we are told
the triumphal march of the Eastern race westward is by the unalterable
decree of nature, termed by them “survival of the fittest.” And so we
stand as upon the sea-shore, chained hand and foot, while the incoming
tide of the great ocean of civilization rises slowly but surely to
overwhelm us.

But a few more generations and the last child of the forest will have
passed into the world beyond—into that kingdom where Tche-ban-yot-booz,
the Great Spirit, dwelleth, who loveth justice and mercy, and hateth
evil; who has declared the “fittest” in his kingdom shall be those alone
that hear and aid his children when they cry, and that love him and keep
his commandments. In that kingdom many of our people in faith believe he
will summon the pale-faced spirits to take position on his left, and the
red spirits upon his right, and that he will say, “Sons and daughters of
the forest, your prayers for deliverance from the iron heel of oppression
through centuries past are recorded in this book now open before me, made
from the bark of the white birch, a tree under which for generations
past you have mourned and wept. On its pages silently has been recorded
your sad history. It has touched my heart with pity and I will have
compassion.”

Then turning to his left he will say, “Sons and daughters of the East,
all hear and give heed unto my words. While on Earth I did great and
marvelous things for you—I gave my only Son, who declared unto you my
will, and as you had freely received, to so freely give, and declare the
gospel unto all people. A few of you have kept the faith; and through
opposition and great tribulation have labored hard and honestly for the
redemption of mankind regardless of race or color. To all such I now
give divine power to fly on lightning wings throughout my universe. Now,
therefore, listen; and when the great drum beats, let all try their
powers to fly. Only those can rise who acted well their part on earth to
redeem and save the fallen.”

The drum will be sounded, and the innumerable multitude will appear like
some vast sea of wounded birds struggling to rise. We shall behold it,
and shall hear their fluttering as the rumbling of an earthquake, and to
our surprise shall see but a scattering few in triumph rise, and hear
their songs re-echo through the vault of heaven as they sing, “Glory to
the highest who hath redeemed and saved us.”

Then the Great Spirit will speak with a voice of thunder to the remaining
shame-faced multitude: “Hear ye: it is through great mercy that you have
been permitted to enter these happy hunting-grounds. Therefore I charge
you in presence of these red men that you are guilty of having tyrannized
over them in many and strange ways. I find you guilty of having made
wanton wholesale butchery of their game and fish, I find you guilty of
using tobacco, a poisonous weed made only to kill parasites on plants and
lice on man and beast. You found it with the red men, who used it only
in smoking the pipe of peace, to confirm their contracts, in place of a
seal. But you multiplied its use, not only in smoking, but in chewing,
snuffing, thus forming unhealthy, filthy habits, and by cigarettes, the
abomination of abominations, learned little children to hunger and thirst
after the father and mother of palsy and cancers.

“I find you guilty of tagging after the pay agents sent out by the
great chief of the United States, among the Indians, to pay off their
birth-right claims to home, and liberty, and native lands, and then
sneaking about their agencies by deceit and trickery, cheating and
robbing them of their money and goods, thus leaving them poor and naked.
I also find you guilty of following the trail of Christian missionaries
into the wilderness among the natives, and when they had set up my
altars, and the great work of redemption had just begun, and some in
faith believed, you then and there most wickedly set up the idol of
man-tchi-man-in-to (the devil), and there stuck out your sign, SAMPLE
ROOMS. You then dealt out to the sons of the forest a most damnable drug,
fitly termed on earth by Christian women, ‘a beverage of hell,’ which
destroyed both body and soul, taking therefore, all their money and
blankets, and scrupling not to take in pawn the Bibles given them by my
servants.

“Therefore know ye, this much-abused race shall enjoy the liberties of
these happy hunting-grounds, while I teach them my will, which you were
in duty bound to do while on earth. But instead, you blocked up the
highway that led to heaven, that the car of salvation might not pass
over. Had you done your duty, they as well as you would now be rejoicing
in glory with my saints with whom you, fluttering, tried this day in vain
to rise. But now I say unto you, Stand back! you shall not tread upon the
heels of my people, nor tyrannize over them any more. Neither shall you
with gatling-gun or otherwise disturb or break up their prayer-meetings
in camp any more. Neither shall you practice with weapons of lightning
and thunder any more. Neither shall you use tobacco in any shape, way,
or manner. Neither shall you touch, taste, handle, make, buy, or sell
anything that can intoxicate any more. And know ye, ye cannot buy out
the law or skulk by justice here; and if any attempt is made on your
part to break these commandments, I shall forthwith grant these red men
of America great power, and delegate them to cast you out of Paradise,
and hurl you headlong through its outer gates into the endless abyss
beneath—far beyond, where darkness meets with light, there to dwell, and
thus shut you out from my presence and the presence of angels and the
light of heaven forever and ever.”

[Illustration: “And as the young nestling while yet blind, swallows each
morsel given by the parent bird, so we drank in all they said.”]

[Illustration: “As the hunted deer close chased all day long, when night
comes on, weary and tired, lies down to rest.”]

[Illustration: “As the fear of the fox in the duckling is hatched, so the
wrongs we have suffered are transmitted to our children.”]



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