HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT. 305 



his Travels in the Central Portions of the Mississippi Valley. 

 " Society " was much interested in Mrs. Schoolcraft, the 

 " Northern Pocahontas," a lady of aristocratic Irish descent 

 on one side, and tracing her ancestors on the other side to the 

 royal house of the Chippewas, who was withal, having been 

 educated abroad, highly accomplished and refined in her man- 

 ners. She was the daughter of Mr. John Johnston, of Sault 

 Ste. Marie, who had married the daughter of Wabojeeg, a 

 distinguished Chippewa chieftain. In 1825 Mr. Schoolcraft 

 attended a convocation of the Indian tribes at Prairie du 

 Chien, where a treaty was signed, through which it was hoped 

 internal disputes between the tribes might be settled by fixing 

 the boundaries to their respective territories. In the next year 

 he attended a similar gathering of the Chippewa tribes at Fond 

 du Lac, where the principles of the treaty of Prairie du Chien 

 were reaffirmed, and a new treaty was made, under which the 

 Indians acknowledged the sovereign authority of the United 

 States ; ceded the right to explore and take away the native 

 copper and copper ores, and to work the mines and minerals 

 in the country ; and provision was made for the education of 

 the Indians and their advancement in the arts. The system 

 of Indian boundaries established by these treaties was com- 

 pleted by the treaty of Butte des Morts, August, 1827. The 

 three treaties embodied a new course and policy for keeping 

 the tribes in peace, and were founded " on the most enlarged 

 consideration of the aboriginal right of fee simple to the 

 soil." In 1827 he was elected a member of the Legislative 

 Council of the newly organized Territory of Michigan an 

 office which was not solicited, and was not declined. As a 

 member of this body during four sessions, he directed his at- 

 tention to the incorporation of a historical society ; to the 

 preparation of a system of township names derived from the 

 aboriginal languages ; and to some efforts for bettering the 

 condition of the natives. 



A proposition was made to Mr. Schoolcraft in 1828 to go 

 as one of the scientific corps of an exploring expedition which 

 the Government contemplated sending to the south seas, 

 under the direction of the Secretary of the Navy. In his 

 reflections on the prospects of this expedition and the acqui- 

 sitions to knowledge that might be expected to accrue from it, 

 he regarded the experiments of Dr. Maskelyn, denoting a 



