History of the Ojibway People, Second Edition

1 General Account of the Present Local Position and Numbers of the Ojibways, and Their Connection with Other Tribes

  General Account of the Present Local Position and Numbers of the Ojibways, and Their Connection with Other Tribes Before entering into the details of their past history,it is necessary that the writer should give a brief account of the present position and numbers of the Ojibways,and the connection existing between them and other tribes of the American Indians residing in their vicinity, within the limits of the United States,Canada,and the British possessions. Reliable and learned authors who have made the aboriginal race of America an object of deep study and research,have arrived at the conclusion , that the numerous tribes into which they are divided, belong not to the same primitive family or generic stock, but are to be ranged under several well-defined heads or types.The well-marked and total difference found existing between their several languages,has been the principal and guiding rule under which they have been ethnologically divided,one type or family from another. The principal and most numerous of these several primitive stocks, comprising a large group of still existing tribes, have been euphoniously named by Henry R. Schoolcraft, with the generic term of Algic, derived from the word Algonquin,a name given by the early French discoverers to a tribe of this family living on the St.Lawrence River,near Quebec,whose descendants are now residing, partially civilized, at the Lake of the Two Mountains,in Canada.
Judging from their oral traditions,and the specimens of their different languages which have been made public by various writers,travellers,and missionaries,nearly every tribe originally first discovered by the Europeans residing on the shores of the Atlantic,from the Gulf of St.Lawrence,south to the mouth of the James River in Virginia,and the different tribes occupying the vast area lying west and northwest of this eastern boundary to the banks of the Mississippi, from the mouth of the Ohio to Hudson Bay, 9 1. The name algoumequin was first applied by the French to the people they met on the shores of eastern Canada and may have been derived from the Maliseet elakomkwik, “they are our relatives” (Biggar ,:; Day ,). Schenck bk p i-xxiv 1-318_Layout 1 5/13/11 10:54 AM Page 9 belong to the Algic family.In this general area the Six Nations of New York, the Wyandots, and formerly the Winnebagoes, who, however, now reside west of the Mississippi,are the principal exceptions. The red men who first greeted our Pilgrim Fathers on the rock-bound coast of Plymouth,and who are so vitally connected with their early history, were Algics. The people who treated with the good William Penn for the site of the present great city of Philadelphia, and who named him “me guon,” meaning in the Ojibway language “a pen” or feather, were of the Algic stock. The tribes over whom Pow-hat-tan (signifying “a dream”) ruled as chief,and who are honored in the name of Po-ca-hon-tas (names so closely connected with that of Capt.John Smith,and the early Virginia colonists), belonged to this wide-spread family, whose former possessions are now covered with the towns and teeming cities of millions of happy freemen. But they—where are they? Almost forgotten even in name: whole tribes have become extinct, and passed away forever—none are left but a few remnants who are lingering out a miserable existence on our far western frontiers, pressed back—moved by the so-called humane policy of our great and enlightened government—where,far away from a Christian and conscientious community, they can be made the easier victims of the unprincipled money-getter, the whiskey dealer, and the licentious dregs of civilized white men who have ever been first on our frontiers,and who are ever busy demoralizing the simple Indian,hovering around them like buzzards and crows around the remains of a deer’s carcass,whom the wolves have chased,killed,gorged upon,and left. This is a strong picture, but it is nevertheless a true one. A vast responsibility rests on the American people,for if their attention is not soon turned forcibly toward the fate of his fast disappearing red brother,and the American statesmen do not soon make a vast change for the better in their present Indian policy,our nation will make itself liable,at some future day, to hear the voice of the Great Creator demanding “Cain,where is...