This was what the
speculators did not wish. Therefore they hated the missionaries. He
acknowledged that the Christian party among the Indians did as I said; but
that was not the way for an Indian to do. Hunting, war and manly pursuits,
were best fitted to them. But, said I, your reservation of land is too
little for that purpose. It is surrounded by the white people, like a
small island by the sea; the deer, the buffalo and bear, have all gone.
This won't do. If you intend to live so much longer, you will have to go
to the great western wilderness, where there is plenty of game, and no
white men to trouble you. But he said, we wish to keep our lands and to be
buried by our fathers. I know it, and therefore I say that the
missionaries are your best friends; for if you follow the ways they teach,
you can still hold your lands, though you cannot have hunting grounds, and
therefore you must either do like white men, or remove from your lands,
very soon. Your plan of keeping the Indians distinct from the white people
is begun too late. If you would do it and have large grounds, and would
let the missionaries teach you Christianity, far from the bad habits and
big farms of the white people, it would then be well: it would keep your
people from being corrupted, and swallowed up by our people who grow so
fast around you, and many of whom are very bad. But it is too late to do
it here, and you must choose between keeping the missionaries, and being
like white men, and going to a far country: as it is, I continued, Red
Jacket is doing more than any body else to break up and drive away his
people.
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