THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 543 



vast frontier, there have been some instances in which their efforts have been crowned 

 with signal success (even with the counteracting obstacles that have stood in their 

 way), of which instances I have made some mention in former epistles. 



I have always been, and still am, an advocate for missionary efforts amongst these 

 people, but I never have had much faith in the success of any unless they could be 

 made amongst the tribes in their primitive state, where, if the strong arm of the Gov- 

 ernment could be extended out to protect them, I believe that with the example of 

 good and pious men, teaching them at the same time agriculture and the useful arts, 

 much could be done with these interesting and talented people, for the successful im- 

 provement of their moral and physical condition. 



INDIAN dTLLIZATTON— HOW TO BE ACCOMPUSHED. 



I have ever thought, and still think, that the Indian's mind is a beautiful blank, 

 on which anything might be written, if the right mode were taken to do it. 



Could the enlightened and virtuous society of the East have been brought in con- 

 tact with him as his first neighbors, and his eyes been first opened to improvements 

 and habits worthy of his imitation, and could religion have been taught him without 

 the interference of the counteracting vices by which he is surrounded, the best efforts 

 of the world would not have been thrown away upon him, nor posterity been left to 

 say in future ages, when he and his race shall have been swept from the face of the 

 earth, that he was destined by Heaven to be unconverted and uncivilized. 



The Indian's calamity is surely far this side of his origin ; his misfortune has been 

 in his education. Ever since our first acquaintance with these people on the Atlantic 

 shores, have we regularly advanced upon them, and far ahead of good and moral so- 

 ciety have their first teachers traveled (and are yet traveling) with vices and iniqui- 

 ties so horrible as to blind their eyes forever to the light and loveliness of virtue, when 

 she is presented to them. 



It is in the bewildering maze of this moving atmosphere that he, in his native sim 

 plicity, finds himself lost amidst the ingenuity and sophistry of his new acquaintance. 

 He stands amazed at the arts and improvements of civilized life ; his proud spirit, 

 which before was founded on his ignorance, droops, and he sinks down discouraged 

 into melancholy and despair, and at that moment grasps the bottle (which is ever 

 ready) to soothe his anguished feelings to the grave. It is in this deplorable condi- 

 tion that the civilized world, in their approach, have ever found him, and here in his 

 inevitable misery, that the chaiity of the world has been lavished upon him, and reli- 

 gion has exhausted its best efforts almost in vain. 



Notwithstanding this destructive ordeal, through which all the border tribes have 

 had to pass, and of whom I have spoken but in general terms, there are striking and 

 noble exceptions, on the frontiers, of individuals, and, in some instances, of the re- 

 maining remnants of tribes who have followed the advice and example of their Chris- 

 tian teachers, who have entirely discarded their habits of dissipation, and successfully 

 outlived the dismal wreck of their tribe ; having embraced, and are now preaching, 

 the Christian religion, and proving by the brightest example that they are well wor- 

 thy of the sincere and well-api^lied friendship of the enlightened world, rather than 

 their enmity and persecution. 



INDIAN NATURE. 



By nature they are decent and modest, unassuming and inoffensive, and all history 

 (which I could quote to the end of a volume) proves them to have been found friendly 

 and hospitable on the first approach of white people to their villages on all parts of 

 the American continent, and, from what I have seen (which I offer as proof, rather 

 than what I have read), I am willing and proud to add, for the ages who are only to 

 read of these people, my testimony to that which was given by the immortal Colum- 

 bus, who wrote back to his royal master and mistress, from his first position on the 



