- end_line
- 6611
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 6549
- text
- from man, one step deeper into nature. Is it that he feels that whatever
man may be, man is not the universe? that glory, beauty, kindness, are
not all engrossed by him? that as the presence of man frights birds
away, so, many bird-like thoughts? Be that how it will, the backwoodsman
is not without some fineness to his nature. Hairy Orson as he looks, it
may be with him as with the Shetland seal--beneath the bristles lurks
the fur.
"'Though held in a sort a barbarian, the backwoodsman would seem to
America what Alexander was to Asia--captain in the vanguard of
conquering civilization. Whatever the nation's growing opulence or
power, does it not lackey his heels? Pathfinder, provider of security to
those who come after him, for himself he asks nothing but hardship.
Worthy to be compared with Moses in the Exodus, or the Emperor Julian in
Gaul, who on foot, and bare-browed, at the head of covered or mounted
legions, marched so through the elements, day after day. The tide of
emigration, let it roll as it will, never overwhelms the backwoodsman
into itself; he rides upon advance, as the Polynesian upon the comb of
the surf.
"'Thus, though he keep moving on through life, he maintains with respect
to nature much the same unaltered relation throughout; with her
creatures, too, including panthers and Indians. Hence, it is not
unlikely that, accurate as the theory of the Peace Congress may be with
respect to those two varieties of beings, among others, yet the
backwoodsman might be qualified to throw out some practical suggestions.
"'As the child born to a backwoodsman must in turn lead his father's
life--a life which, as related to humanity, is related mainly to
Indians--it is thought best not to mince matters, out of delicacy; but
to tell the boy pretty plainly what an Indian is, and what he must
expect from him. For however charitable it may be to view Indians as
members of the Society of Friends, yet to affirm them such to one
ignorant of Indians, whose lonely path lies a long way through their
lands, this, in the event, might prove not only injudicious but cruel.
At least something of this kind would seem the maxim upon which
backwoods' education is based. Accordingly, if in youth the backwoodsman
incline to knowledge, as is generally the case, he hears little from his
schoolmasters, the old chroniclers of the forest, but histories of
Indian lying, Indian theft, Indian double-dealing, Indian fraud and
perfidy, Indian want of conscience, Indian blood-thirstiness, Indian
diabolism--histories which, though of wild woods, are almost as full of
things unangelic as the Newgate Calendar or the Annals of Europe. In
these Indian narratives and traditions the lad is thoroughly grounded.
"As the twig is bent the tree's inclined." The instinct of antipathy
against an Indian grows in the backwoodsman with the sense of good and
bad, right and wrong. In one breath he learns that a brother is to be
loved, and an Indian to be hated.
"'Such are the facts,' the judge would say, 'upon which, if one seek to
moralize, he must do so with an eye to them. It is terrible that one
creature should so regard another, should make it conscience to abhor an
entire race. It is terrible; but is it surprising? Surprising, that one
should hate a race which he believes to be red from a cause akin to that
which makes some tribes of garden insects green? A race whose name is
upon the frontier a _memento mori_; painted to him in every evil light;
now a horse-thief like those in Moyamensing; now an assassin like a New
York rowdy; now a treaty-breaker like an Austrian; now a Palmer with
poisoned arrows; now a judicial murderer and Jeffries, after a fierce
farce of trial condemning his victim to bloody death; or a Jew with
hospitable speeches cozening some fainting stranger into ambuscade,
there to burk him, and account it a deed grateful to Manitou, his god.
- title
- Chunk 2