Journey to the Indian Country

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

It had been arranged that I should remain on my circuit till the middle of May, and then take the coach for St. Louis, and thence ascend the Missouri river to Fort Leavenworth; from that place I should visit the Indian Manual-Labor School in the Shawnee tribe, in order to become acquainted with their plans of operation, and best methods of imparting instruction to children who did not yet understand our language. My instructions directed me to travel by land from the Shawnee tribe, through the Indian country, to Fort Coffee, a distance of three hundred miles.

As my duty would be to teach, it was supposed that my services in the mission would not be required till the time of the Opening of the Academy. My arrangements were made accordingly. I was almost ready to set out upon that tedious, romantic, and somewhat perilous journey, when a letter was received from Mr. Goode, which wholly changed the plan. He wished me to come directly to Fort Coffee, as my services were required immediately. His arrangement was made to leave on the twentieth of June, to go for his family. He would travel the route which had been designated for me; and it was arranged that I should take his place, and superintend the repairs and improvements at Fort Coffee during his absence.

Having taken leave of the kind friends of Mooresville circuit, and made a short visit to my parents and friends, Mrs. Benson and myself set out on the eighth day of June upon our journey to the Indian country. We reached the Ohio river at the Falls, and went on board a steamer at Louisville on the thirteenth day of the month. As there was no boat bound for the Arkansas river, we were forced to take one destined for New Orleans. The Ohio was in a flooded condition, caused by the late and unusually heavy rains. There were immense quantities of driftwood, which rendered it perilous at night, owing to the darkness caused by the dense fogs which prevailed.

On board we were introduced to the Rev. J. D. M., a local preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who resided, at Jackson, Mississippi. He had been to Cincinnati to place his two daughters in the Female Collegiate Institute. Mr. M. seemed to be an intelligent and earnest Christian; antislavery and conservative in his principles.

On the morning of the 17th our steamboat landed on the east bank of the river to take on board a lot of negroes, who were shipped for a cotton farm on Red river, Texas. As we should be delayed an hour while the chattels were taken aboard and stowed away, I went ashore to make observations. I had never before had a view of a cotton plantation, extensive and well-worked. The land was remarkably level, with a rich, deep alluvial soil. The river served as a fence on one side of the farm. The cotton was growing beautifully, and not a weed was to be seen. Every thing gave indication of energy, intelligence, and thrift.

The family residence was about two hundred yards from the river. It was an elegant mansion, of the style which prevails in the south. It was almost square, with flat roof, concealed by balustrades. The balconies seemed to encircle it; while its long veran­das were embowered with roses, jasmins, and honeysuckles. The ornamental shrubs and plants were of the greatest variety and most luxuriant growth. The shades were apparently cool, delicious, and inviting, being made by the China-tree, the catalpa, and others which are only found in the south.

About midway between the "house" and the river, a little to the south, stood the “quarters," or cabins, which were occupied by the servants. There was a cluster of them, numbering perhaps thirty, of uniform size and appearance. They were frames, about twelve or fourteen feet square, with steep board roofs. They were white, neat, and comfortable on the outside; and if we had judged from what we saw in the externals of the "quarters," we might have been led to regard slavery as a beautiful, humane, and merciful institution.

But we were only gazing upon “ whited sepulchers;" we saw the other side; "within they were full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." On that morning cords were to be severed--ties were to be sundered--families were to be divided--separations were to be made, which contemplated no reunions till master and slave, parent and child, husband and wife, all should stand before the dread tribunal. A band of negroes--a part of the family--were to be sent a thousand miles away, to plow, hoe, gather, and pick cotton for another master.

The overseer soon had them assembled on the bank of the river, where adieus were hastily spoken, farewell tears were shed, and last embraces given. There were about sixty destined to go to Red river. They were men, women, and children, of all descriptions and ages, from the hoary-headed and decrepit old man down to the infant which clung to the mother's breast. They were stowed away in the lower portions of the boat among the cotton bales, flour bar­rels, and hen-coops. They were measurably indifferent, stupid, and stoical; and although they were almost in a nude state, and indecently exposed, yet they were apparently as incapable of the sense of shame as so many cattle would have been under similar circumstances. Those negroes were in the care of a very genteel (?) young man, who sported a gold watch and any number of costly rings upon his fingers, and who, no doubt, could trace his lineal descent from one of "the first families."

At four o'clock, Saturday, the nineteenth of the Month, we arrived at Napoleon, which is situated on the west bank of the Mississippi, at the mouth of the Arkansas.

Here we were doomed to stop, and wait, how long no one knew, for a boat to ascend the river, and carry us to our destination. At all events we escaped traveling on the Sabbath; to that extent we were thankful. Suspense is always horrible, but it was more with us--­it amounted almost to agony--situated as we were on the border of a "dismal swamp" on the Mississippi, late in the month of June. The little village was built up on the brink of the river, the banks of which were so low that it required but a moderate swell of its volume to send navigable currents around and also through the center of the town. In the rear of Napoleon there were low marsh lands, extending back for a score of miles, that were not inhabited. In that dense jungle of timber and brushwood there might have been wild beasts without number, of the most ravenous and formidable character for aught we could know, for it was impenetrable. Of one part we were painfully cognizant; it generated musketoes by the million not the diminutive and insignificant species known further north, but genuine gallinippers of vigorous and huge proportions. By waging a ceaseless warfare against them we succeeded in preserving life, but were alarmingly reduced by our daily loss of blood. Depletion by venesection is secundum artem in the allopathic school of medicine, but in that particular case it was manifestly empirical. We were daily relieved of several ounces of blood. At first we were puzzled to determine how it would be possible for us to take food, as our hands were employed every moment in battling with the enemy. But our landlord had suspended a number of paste­boards with paper pendants, at convenient distances from each other over the dinner table. These paste­board rattlers were attached to each other by wires; and a little negro lad stood at each end of the table with a cord in his hand, the end of which was attached to the musketo machine, and by learning each other's motion, they would pull back and forth, keeping the papers rattling just before our faces.

By that contrivance we were enabled to eat with considerable comfort, as there were not more than a score of gallinippers permitted to prey upon any one of us at a time.

But having finished our meals we resumed the fight in good earnest, from which we had not a moment's respite till we were inside the netting which was to be our cage for the night. Even then we had but little refreshment, for the weather was so intensely warm that we could scarcely rest or sleep till the dawn of the morning.

There were a number of persons, like ourselves, detained, waiting for a boat to ascend the Arkansas. One fine old gentleman, from Nashville, especially excited our sympathy. He was quite corpulent and a little lame, and consequently not sufficiently active to carry on the war to advantage. He had been at Napoleon four days at the period of our arrival, " waging the unequal strife," and his courage and strength were well-nigh exhausted. Pine Bluffs was his destination, where he owned a cotton plantation, stocked with negroes, and worked by a Yankee overseer. The old gentleman was carrying some improved stock to his firm; farm; had a few fine pigs, a pair of young dogs, supposed to be blood-hounds, and a well-developed negro "boy" about forty years of age. He kept his dogs and boy chained securely in the wood shed.

The second day of our detention was the Sabbath, and a consultation was held in the morning, as to whether or not there should be preaching. But, upon examination, the little school-house in the outskirts of the village was found to be inaccessible; for a strong current of water, which flowed through the center of the town, could not be crossed. In the afternoon we had an invitation from the proprietor of the other ho­tel to have preaching in his bar-room. In a few minutes the congregation was assembled, occupying the room and front porch. There it was my privilege to publish the glad tidings of salvation for the first time west of the father of waters. The congregation numbered about fifty souls, a fourth of whom were travelers, waiting the arrival of boats to carry them forward to their several points of destination.

On Monday at diner we found the corpulent old gentleman greatly depressed in spirits--his strength was rapidly falling him. He had fought the musketoes vigorously and heroically, but proved unequal to the conflict. "I have been here," said he, "six days fighting these bloodthirsty gallinippers, night and day, without intermission--I can't stand it any longer--­they will certainly kill me. Now, if a Cumberland river boat should come today I shall return home directly." In less than an hour a Nashville

Source: Life Among the Choctaw Indians

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