280 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



' withdraw into the cold regions of the North, and 

 4 never again show themselves below the sources of 

 ' the streams falling into the Mississippi and the Ohio 

 ' there should they languish and decay.'' Who would 

 expect to hear so unrighteous a judgment, put for- 

 ward so unashamed by a citizen of the states, only now 

 become free, regarding thousands of his fellow-men? 



That the Indians are not so entirely incapable of all 

 betterment is proved by the efforts, not fruitless, of the 

 Moravian Brethren on the Muskingum, and by those 

 of the French and Spanish missionaries in Canada and 

 in Florida. But without the influence of religion it 

 often happens that from other motives Indian families 

 here and there come to live in the neighborhood of 

 Europeans and to concern themselves less with hunt- 

 ing, which had been their custom from their unstable 

 and unsocial manner of life. 



Thus there are living now as citizens on Nantucket 

 the descendants of the Indians of those parts who, like 

 the \vhite islanders, support themselves by whale-fish- 

 ing. Divers families are scattered along the coast of 

 Massachusetts ; and but a short time since other 

 families were living on Long Island, quietly and harm- 

 less, by what they made from their corn-fields, by fish- 

 ing and by the sale of baskets. That was the case in 

 several other provinces besides, where for the fish and 

 clams they for a long time kept to the coasts and 

 streams, until the numbers of the European colonists 

 constantly increasing drove .them out and they were 

 obliged to withdraw to the interior. It is however true 

 that even where they were content to live quietly and 

 peaceably in European neighborhoods, they never 

 showed an inclination to adopt the customs, way of 



