loe 



THE ANCIENT MINERS OF LAKE SUPERIOR. 



[1852. 



Of works of attack there are no remains, so far as I am informed, 

 and but one instance where earth-walls appear to have been de- 

 molished in their day ; this occurs, in a shoi't line of embankment, 

 separating the great fortification, on the Little Miami, into two 

 parts. The double walls across the narrow part of the works, 

 inside, appear to have been thi'owu down, violently, as though a 

 party in the north portion of the fort had succeeded in breaking 

 into the southern portion, 



There is no proof that our Indians erected works of defence 

 until after the Fi'ench and Spaniards had taught thorn to do so, 

 by building stockades in their midst. Before this time, they had 

 no need of such defences, under their mode of warfare, against 

 each other. Of what value would picketed forts be to wandei'ing 

 tribes, who malie war with knives and arrows; by long journeys 

 and sudden surpi'ises ; who nev&r accumulate provisions or attack 

 in the open field ? Much less, woidd they build permanent 

 works with walls and trenches. 



There are cases where our North American Indians, after the 

 appearance of the whites, and the introduction of fire-arms, as a 

 matter of necessity, have fortified themselves against other tribes, 

 and the whites, who had musquetry as weapons of attack ; but 

 even this rude picketing which they have been forced to set up 

 is of very rare occurrence. They make war now, in general, as 

 they did 250 years ago, by surprise; striking a secret and terrible 

 blow, securing the scalps of the enemy and making a sudden 

 retreat. They have, and always have had, too little industry and 

 forethought to make permanent defences, preferring, like the wild 

 animals they resemble, to make strongholds of jungles and 

 swamps — provided by the great spirit — in preference to the 

 artificial works of their own hands. A people that does not 

 cultivate the soil, will not be likely to construct works to protect 

 them in the possession of it. 



Neither is there any satisfactory evidence, that another people 

 intervened between the mound builders and the Aboiigines, 

 occupying the country after the mounds were built, and before 

 the Indians took possession of it. 



If the Mexican history is true, according to which the Aztecs 

 anived in Central America about the year A. D. 600; or 1200 

 yeais ago, there has not been time enough, since their departure 

 from the bardcs of the Ohio, and Mississippi, for another people 

 to arise to occupy the same ground and to disappear. If their 

 was such a people, the present Indians would be more likely to 

 know something of them than their predecessors. 



In the year 1001, the Icelanders sailing westward to Green- 

 land, and coasting thence southward, visited the shores of New 

 England. They found upon the Atlantic coast a savage people, 

 who, from the description given, were the same as our Aborigines. 

 Only five hundred years after, when Sebiistian Cabot, and Anier- 

 iciis Vespucius navigated the same seas, the same tribes inhabitcxl 

 tlie New England coasts. 



About the same time Pamphileo Do N.ir\arre and Hernando 

 De Soto, (1528 and 1540,) traversed the interior of Fldiida, 

 Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Texas, and found there 

 tribes that remain to this day. 



The bones, and particulaily the skulls, that Mr. rrainerd and 

 myself exhumed last year in asandstone cavern, in ]Cly]'ia, Lorain 

 Co., Ohio, noticed in the proceedings of the Anieiiran Associa- 

 tion, at the Cincinnati meeting, are in all iirobahil!(y those of 

 Aboiigincs, and are fiom 1000 to 2000 yen's olil. 



All these fads go to show, that the present Indi.-m f;iniily has 

 OccvipicMl the iMUutry, W^'m which the mound linilij.'i^; rmigrali'd, 



more than 1000 years, and that they were their inunediate 

 successor's. 



It is not probable that they withdrew suddenlj', leaving a 

 beautiful and well cultivated country, which they owned and had 

 strongly fortified, in one night as the Israelites did Egypt. They 

 gradually changed their position for a still more fertile and genial 

 region, upon tlie Gnlf of Mexico, and the Pacific Ocean. In 

 time the Northern Indians, who lived upon wikl game and fish, 

 and not upon the products of the soil, finding the country south 

 of the great Lakes unoccupied, and growing up to be again a 

 forest, where game could exist, extended themselves over it. 



But, admitting that the Aborig-ines were the next occupants 

 after the mound builders, is there any substantial grounds for 

 atti-ibutlng to the Indians, the ancient workings of the copper 

 mines of Lake Superior ? 



If they did possess the skill to plan, and the industry to exe- 

 cute the immense rwk excavations which are obser\'ed there, it is 

 evident to all who know them in the present state, that they have 

 lost both their skill and their industry. 



Is it rational to suppose, that the same people living upon the 

 same spot, under the same influences, would have thus changed ? 



The working of such extensive mines would require, not only 

 the persevering labour of many hundred men, but the labour of 

 as many more employed somewhere in the cultivation of t"he 

 soil, or in some other mode, collecting provisions for those who 

 wrought in the mines. Is the North American Indian capable 

 of devising or carrying out any such prolonged and systematic 

 plan of oprerations? 



By what influence did he rise to that condition, so much above 

 his present one, that would not have operated to keep him there? 



In his history, from the landing of the Spaniards in 1528, to 

 this day, he has exhibited as a great family of the human race, 

 a most dogged indisposition to impro\ement, and even to change 

 of pursuits. 



He is fond of giving traditions, both fictitious and real, extend- 

 ing back in the history of his people many hundred yeare. 

 Would he have lost, or pretended to lose, the memorj- of such a 

 titct as the working of these mines ? 



There is an old Indian, of the Chippewa nation, who lives at 

 the mouth of the St. Louis River, at Fond-du-Lae, of Lake Supe- 

 rior, by the name of " Loons Foot," who ti'aces back his ancestors 

 by name, about 400 years, dunng which time they have been 

 like him, hereditary chiefs in his tribe. 



In September, 1849, I caused him to be questioned, by a 

 gentleman from Canada, who is his nephew, in relation to the 

 copper mines that have been worked of old, on Lake Superior. 

 Ho made a long storj', as Indians generally do, \\'ith many ges- 

 ticulations and embellishments, which was in substance as follows : 



"A long time ago the Indians were much bettor ofl' than they 

 are now. They had cojipor axes, aiTOW heads, and spears; and 

 also, stone axes. Until the French came here, (1641,^ and 

 blasted the rocks with powder; wo have no traditions of the 

 copper mines being worked, and don't know who did work them. 

 Our firenilliers used to build big canoes and cross the Lake over 

 to Isle luiy.il, where tlicy found more copper ihiui anywhere else. 

 TIk! slone hammers tliat are now found in the old diggings we 

 know nolliing about. 1'lie Indians were formorlv much more 



