Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind;
His soul, proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way;
Yet simple nature to his hope has given
Behind the cloud-topt hill an humbler heav’n;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac’d,
Some happier island in the wat’ry waste.
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To Be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel’s wing, no seraph’s fire;
But thinks admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Alexander Pope.
DESPITE the labors and researches of learned antiquarians and “owlish” scientists in their efforts to find the origin of the American Indian, the matter remains one of those profound secrets of the unrelenting past which will be forever hidden. The lineage of Lo is veiled in a mystery as stupendous as is the history of the wonderful country in which the discoverers from the old world found him. Roman history begins with the story of Romulus and Remus, that of Greece with the legends of the gods and the Argonauts, and the people of every ancient nation furnish some weird and romantic story of their beginning, but the first authentic chapter in the annals of the Indian practically begins with the coming of Christopher Columbus to the western world (Oct. 12, 1492). All which concerns the Red Man previous to that event rests on a foundation of uncertainty and conjecture.
When the illustrious navigator anchored his little vessels on one of the Bahama Islands, he believed that he had arrived in the East Indies, and the copper-colored people who came to greet him were called Indians. By that name the remnant of the once famous race is still known, whether they are Peruvians of the tropics or citizens of the State of Oklahoma. The news of the successful voyage of Columbus spread rapidly over Europe and many adventurers flocked to the new-found land. The Indian everywhere greeted the strangers from the East. In the country now embraced in the United States and Canada there were many distinct tribes, but with the exception of the Zuni and Pueblo tribes of New Mexico, and the Peruvians and Aztecs, who were more advanced in civilization, all depended chiefly on hunting and fishing for their sustenance; but tribal wars seem to have occupied most of their attention. Historians place the number of Indians in North America at the time of the discovery at about 400,000, but as census-taking at that period was not assisted by government bureaus, and as in many instances the explorers and early settlers were more interested in counting the dead than the live Indians, the statements as to their numbers can be accepted as only casual guesses. It is not the purpose of the present writer to attempt to delve into the hazy past of the Indians, nor to speculate on the probable social and intellectual status of their supposed predecessors, the Mound-Builders and the Cyclopean race. We leave this speculative field to ambitious scientists, neologic naturalists and fossil hunters, who may furnish the world with a wealth of wholesome thought, but, like the pursued hare, they make countless paths over an expansive field and ultimately return to the point where the chase began. The only thing we know for a certainty of the Red Man is that the European discoverers found him here in a land of plenteous beauty, a land in harmony with his nature where our purposeful Creator had placed him. He was found in tented villages, on mountain and plain, and he freely trod the shady sylvan avenues of Louisiana and quenched his thirst at the refreshing springs of our own Sabine parish, breathing that air of freedom which knows no conqueror save the mighty messenger of death. The noble fire of freedom which burned in the savage breast was apparently transmitted to his “pale-faced” successors, for America became the home of real freedom, where the despot dare not intrude.
It is probable that many of the disasters which befell the pathfinders were due to an improper understanding of the nature of the Indians. The Red Men were savages, but all that went to make up their characters was not dross. Within their bronzed breasts there often beat hearts as humane and generous as could be found among people accredited with a higher civilization. They had no written language, no knowledge other than that gleaned from silent nature, but they had unwritten laws which were really democratic in character. They had no kings, but the supreme authority of the various tribes was vested in a chief and councilmen, which positions were elective, and all were subject to “recall” from their places of authority at the will of the members of their tribe. The Indians were indeed cruel and revengeful, and the readers of history are appalled at the atrocities attributed to them, but as a whole we fail to see wherein they were more barbaric than the early European tribes or more revengeful than some of the more modern people who boast of a Christian civilization. In their conflicts with the white man they were more often on the defense than the aggressors. They greeted the white strangers with friendship and the pipe of peace, but when they saw their lands and hunting grounds being appropriated by the intruders, they resisted with the same vigor that the Americans today would put forth if a stronger nation should attempt to wrest their homes from them or menace their “pursuits of happiness.” “The Indian was moral in the highest degree and was never guilty of those weaker and meaner vices which stamped and destroyed the character of the ancient Roman and have left their deep impress upon modern France and the larger cities of our own civilization.” (Hopkins’ History of Canada) Never was a savage yet intellectual race placed in a country more harmonious with their natures than the American Indians. Their hunting expeditions were rewarded with abundant game, their cultivated lands in times of peace yielded corn, and some of the Southern tribes enjoyed fruits and vegetables. War was the cause of their worst woes, but it is a sad reflection that war has ever been the baneful heritage of the human race.
It is a fact worthy of note that some of the most intelligent tribes of North America lived in the South, among them being the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws and Seminoles, and their descendants are today citizens of Oklahoma and splendid examples of the response of their race to the edicts of civilization. Many men, in whose veins flows Indian blood, have attained distinction and held exalted public positions, and at least two have served in the United States Senate. With the exception of a few Western tribes that still retain some of their ancient customs, all are now “citizens and self-supporting.” The only evidence that the Indian once made his home in the forests of Sabine parish is the finding of flint arrow heads at various places, presumably his favorite hunting grounds. The race is rapidly losing its weird and spectacular individuality, and in a few more decades the real American will have passed away. But he will live in story and song, and the names of many towns and rivers will ever be silent reminders of this primitive American people.
The white man, with his stupendous and dazzling civilization, now occupies the Paradise of Lo.
Back to: Sabine Parish – Louisiana History & Genealogy Project
Back to: Louisiana History & Genealogy Project
Source
Belisle, John G., History of Sabine Parish, Louisiana, Many, La. : The Sabine banner press, 1912.