Introduction

The following data is extracted from Life Among the Choctaw Indians.

Our American Indians are objects of interest to the, philanthropist and of sympathy to the Christian. If left in their heathen state, nothing can rescue them from utter extinction. Their once powerful tribes, noted for deeds of valor, are reduced to broken fragments, "scattered and peeled." Their cemeteries where their fathers sleep are, in some instances, the sites of flourishing villages. The plains where once they pursued the buffalo are cultivated fields. The valleys where they securely kindled their camp-fires, around which to narrate the incidents of the chase and enjoy the merry laugh, are thorough­fares of travel, operated by noisy locomotives, conveying millions of passengers on excursions of business or pleasure. Already the aboriginals of this western world have receded before the aggressions of the white race from the Atlantic Ocean to the west boundary of the United States. A similar movement has commenced on the Pacific coast, driving them eastward. Comparatively little territory remains to them free from the intrusion of white men. It requires no prophetic vision to foresee, that at no very distant period the last Indian council will adjourn in hopeless despair, perhaps in some dark ravine of the Rocky Mountains; each member retir­ing in silence to some sequestered cavern to sleep his long sleep, saying to himself, "Our council-fire is forever extinguished, and our name is blotted out of the record of nations!"


Now, it may be that this rapid disappearance be­fore a superior race is in the order of an overruling Providence. It is declared in the book from which there is no appeal, "For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those na­tions shall be utterly wasted." Isaiah lx, 12. Hea­thenism and Christian civilization can never flourish as cotemporaries on the same soil. The life of one is the death of the other. There is, however, a marked difference between the destruction of paganism and that of its subjects. Christ came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And whatever can be done to save the Indians from their delusion and wretchedness, should be accomplished. We owe them this kind office for depriving them of their country. If it be objected, "They have been guilty of much cruelty," the answer is, They have had great provo­cation. The course of our Government toward them has usually been parental. This is as it should be. It is magnanimous in the strong to favor the weak. The same can not be said of traders and hangerson. They follow the paymasters with their "fire-waters," to cheat the Indians out of their annuities, to intox­icate their young men, seduce their young women, benevolent purposes of the Government have, to a great extent, been defeated.


The only hope of the Indians, in my opinion, is in their conversion to Christ, not nominally by bribery and beads, but savingly by the simple Gospel, at­tended by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our Indian missions, though not as successful as we could desire, have not all proved failures. Thousands of savages have been soundly converted; that is, changed in heart and life, and made "new creatures in Christ." All such abandon the uncertain chase, and adopt the more reliable business of tilling the soil. This is the last resort promising success against the process of extinction. Some of the border tribes, embracing Christianity and agricultural pursuits, have experienced a favorable reaction, followed by an increase of population. These facts are illustrated in the pages of this new work, "Life Among the Choctaw Indians."


I am well acquainted with Rev. Henry C. Benson, the author of this book. He is a competent scholar and a consistent minister of the Gospel. Whatever he narrates from personal knowledge is reliable. Moreover, he has been a practical missionary, with favor­able opportunities of information, and furnishes facts and incidents more valuable than more theory. His observations are confined chiefly to the tribes on out Western border, of whom I had some personal knowledge previously. I learned much of the Creek Indi­ans during their transit to their new home west in 183G, and something of the Choctaws the same year. I visited the Cherokees at their old home in Georgia in. 1837, and subsequently at their present home west of Arkansas. I have also visited the Delaware, Wyandott, Shawnee, Pottawattomie, Quapaw, and Seneca nations; so that many references in this vol­ume to persons and localities were to me like meeting with old friends . I heartily commend it to the favorable consideration of the reader.

T. A. MORRIS.

CINCINNATI, JANUARY, 1860.

Source: Life Among the Choctaw Indians

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