BLA CK-BIRD-^ INDIAN CHR ON LOGY UNTR UST WOR TH Y. 361 



The waste of labor and money required for this determination has been 

 great, but necessary. Nothing but a mad enthusiasm could ever have accom- 

 plished it. For this reason mining excitements, while they turn back an army of 

 disappointed men into the plow-field, store, and workshop, from whence they 

 came, to recount their hardships and losses to their friends, are a permanent 

 advantage and should be encouraged. Colorado at the present time has about 

 2,000 miles of railroad and has expended millions in building wagon-roads and 

 tramways to accommodate its business. With a climate that is a balm for all of 

 life's sorrows, and a people generous and enjoying that true nobility of manhood 

 which only a resolute experience can develop, the centennial State stands the 

 peer of all others in its attractions. 



HISTORY. 



BLACK-BIRD— INDIAN CHRONOLOGY UNTRUSTWORTHY. 



ANSWER TO MR. FULTON, BY OSCAR W. COLLETT. 



In the September number of the Review, Mr. A. R. Fulton, of Des Moines, 

 Iowa, undertakes to correct a chronological statement, or inference rather, of 

 Mr. Collett's, as to the year of Black-Bird, the Maha chief's, death, "from the 

 record left by so reliable an authority as Lewis and Clarke ; " but instead of let- 

 ting his "reliable authority" speak for himself, Mr. Fulton puts in a gloss of his 

 own, which the text does not warrant. Lewis and Clarke had no previous knowl- 

 edge of Black-Bird, or his nation, and their information on the subject was de- 

 rived in the following manner : On arriving at the Omaha village they pro- 

 pounded questions in English, which some one put into French for the interpre- 

 ter, Bolon or Dorion, who in turn rendered them into the tongue of the natives 5 

 their answers were made into French, the French into English, and this is what 

 was noted down. Thus the "so reliable an authority," about which the point is 

 made, means just this and no more, that Lewis and Clarke honestly report the 

 information, as they understood it, obtained in the round-about manner described. 

 The testimony is not their testimony, but the statements of Indians. 



One of the purposes of Mr. Collet's paper was to cite a recent illustration of 

 a well known fact; namely, that Indian computation of time — years, months even 

 — cannot be trusted; and this of itself should have put Mr. Fulton on his guard 

 to read his authority carefully and distinguish between facts reported on personal 

 knowledge, and chronological statements derived from the aborigines. Had 

 he done so, he would scarcely have felt so strongly as to say: "The account 

 which Lewis and Clarke obtained in regard to the -great chief Black-Bird, is cer- 

 tainly quite conclusive as to the time and manner of his death and burial." 



