THE INTERMINGLING OF RACES. 34 i 



which gave him his ill-omened influence was Prime Minister of 

 Manitoba. 



Is there not some reason to believe that the seemingly episodic phe- 

 nomenon which we have been contemplating is exceptional in degree 

 rather than in kind ; and that, much oftener than has been vulgarly- 

 supposed, in the advance westward of the American pioneer, he has 

 made the dusky belle of the wigwam the partner in his toils and the 

 mother of his children ? For several reasons, some of them obvious 

 enough, records of such unions are not easily obtainable. In census 

 returns, one origin only is given. A person may choose to be set 

 down as of European or Indian extraction, but he can not have pater- 

 nity and maternity both specified ; and, as to any remoter pedigree, 

 the inquirer is left entirely in the dark. It is only in those rare cases 

 where a half-breed has obtained prominence or notoriety, and comes to 

 have his biography written, that the student of ethnology is enabled 

 to add another to his repertory of instances. But, if the inquirer had 

 only leisure and means enough to visit the border-lands of promise, he 

 would be almost sure to glean facts that would surprise the incredu- 

 lous. Miss Theodora R. Jenness, in telling her experience of a brief 

 stay in the Indian Territory, makes frequent mention of mixed mar- 

 riages and of the offspring thence resulting. Of well-behaved whites 

 who wandered thither in search of fortune, she writes, " If a man goes 

 there unmarried, he is apt to find a help-meet in an Indian maiden, 

 there being many among the Cherokees and Choctaws who, for beauty 

 and intelligence, compare favorably with any ladies in the States." * 

 She describes the upshot of a law passed in one of the Indian councils 

 requiring all single white men to leave the colony, as " a lively skir- 

 mish after wives by bachelors and widowers whose business interests 

 required them to remain." That the ladies who were, like Barkis, 

 willing, were not unworthy of their suitors, Miss Jenness is quite as- 

 sured. The fair Choctaw, who explained the ruse to her, she charac- 

 terizes as " a sprightly lady, whose charming face and perfect grace 

 would render her an ornament in any society of Boston or New York." 

 In the distribution of cultivated lands among the Cherokees we find 

 fifteen hundred acres allotted to the full-bloods, three thousand to 

 those of mixed blood, and twelve thousand to the whites ; but from 

 these figures we can only conjecture the relative number of each cate- 

 gory. It is evident, however, that the half-breeds are an appreciable 

 element in the community. Among them allusion is made to the 

 grand-niece of a commodore and niece of a senator, to whom Miss 

 Jenness was introduced by " a blue-eyed Indian girl who taught lan- 

 guages, philosophy, and the higher mathematics," but had forgotten 

 the use of her mother-tongue. The names of Ross, Adair, and Bou- 

 dinot among the Cherokees, and of Mcintosh, Grayson, Porter, and 

 Stidham, among the Creeks, prepare us for the announcement that 

 * "Atlantic Monthly," April, 1879. 



