192 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



the grace of the Christian's God, can shield you from the temptations which, when 

 triumphant, sink us below the level of the beasts that perish. 



Brothers ! The plain and simple truth is this : All this sympathy and friendship, 

 and all the aid and protection our governments can give you, must be as ineffectual to 

 save you as is a zephyr to uproot a sturdy oak, if you do not rouse yourselves to a 

 sense of your own worth as men and your dignity as Iroquois, and resolve to protect 

 yourselves. True friendship must say to you, " Awake ! Arise ! or be forever fallen ! " 



Brothers ! Ask yourselves whether you retain your ancestral reverence for woman, 

 a reverence without which you cannot rise. Your territory is very small, your num- 

 bers inconsiderable. What hope can there be of doing great actions and winning fame 

 on so contracted a theater ? Can any one of you, however gifted by nature, stay in and 

 devote himself to his little country and win glory in art or arms or expanded useful- 

 ness ? If ambitious, must he not, like Donehogawa, your chief sachem, leave you and 

 his petty country in order to do such deeds as gave him high honor and high distinc- 

 tion ? That honor and distinction which make him a man of mark in the United 

 States tends to prove that the Senecas are not degenerate nor wanting in native 

 power. 



Brothers ! May I not truly conclude that your lack of ambition and despondency 

 spring wholly from your position as a people cooped up and confined in an alien and 

 powerful nation of widely different institutions, and the sense that upon that nation 

 you are dependent ; that you lie in the hollow of its hand ; that it can close it and 

 crush you in an instant, while you cannot have the least effect upon it or its fortunes. 

 The high spirit of the men whose remains you have this day placed safely in old mother 

 earth would have revolted at such a state of things. They would have sought escape 

 from it; and the only escape from it that I can perceive is citizenship. Your lineage 

 is illustrious, and if, as I believe, you have inherited its intellect and courage, you 

 will arouse yourselves, cast despondency aside, and repel the wolves that threaten 

 your existence; you will seek advancement in knowledge, cherish purity of morals 

 and belief, and so prove yourselves worthy of and win American citizenship. Your 

 country will then be bounded by the great oceans and nearly cover a continent. You 

 will have an almost limitless field for the exercise of intellect and the exhibition of 

 science, and have fit and abundant fields for the display of your hereditary eloquence. 

 Can you doubt that Hiawatha, or Ototarho, or Joseph Brant, or Red Jacket, or Lo- 

 gan, or Cornplanter, or Farmer's Brother would have played a grand part in such a 

 field ? There is not a living thing, from the lordly buffalo to the smallest fly — not a 

 beast, a bird, a fish, a reptile, an insect, or a v»<brm that does not show forethought and 

 take pains to secure the safety and the comfort of its offspring ; yea, some of the most 

 timid draw courage from love and die in their defense. You are invoked, not merely 

 to take care of your own interests, but also to secure happiness and honor to your 

 children and your children's children forever. In attaining the dignity of American 

 citizenship youneednotmake any substantial sacrifice. You may, and, I think, ought, 

 to retain your organization as Senecas and hold fast to your lauds, and be true to the 

 old League of the Iroquois, at least as a band of social union. I read, indeed, that the 

 confederation is broken, and that the league has perished. If that be true, still there is 

 every reason that the remnants of the Six Nations should be reunited by the strong bond 

 of their ancient common glory and a sense of the closeness of their brotherhood, and , 

 remain Aquanuschioni forever. lam glad to find that the Onondagas and the Mohawks 

 keep the compact made when the league was formed. Atotarho, the representative 

 of the old emperor of the Five Nations, wears not the grim visage and bears not the 

 matted crown of threatening snakes that Cusick gave him, but brings with him peace 

 to all and brotherly enjoyment ; Hiawatha, too, honors this assembly with his pres- 

 ence, and perpetuates also the honored name of David Thomas. 



And now, brothers of the Iroquois, I must express a wish which lies close to my 

 heart, I wish that every unpublished and recoverable fact of your grand and event- 

 ful history should be recovered and given to the world. You have no truer fnend than 



