64 WILLIAM BARTRAM 



esting to contrast him with his father in their respective atti- 

 tudes toward the Indians. John Bartram had come to the con- 

 clusion that " The most probable and only method to establish 

 a lasting peace with the barbarous Indians is to bang them 

 soundly, and to make them sensible that we are men whom 

 they for many years despised as women." ^^ William Bartram 

 tells us that he was " induced, while traveling, ... to associ- 

 ate " with the Indians, that " I might judge for myself whether 

 they were deserving of the severe censure, which prevailed 

 against them among the white people." ^® 



If he finally became a special pleader for the Indian, it was 

 not because he did not observe anything to condemn in their 

 nature, manners or customs, but because he observed that they 

 were unjustly treated. He relates an incident in which the 

 Indians of Georgia were almost cheated out of more land than 

 they had been obliged to cede to the whites when the surveyor's 

 compass refused to point right and the Indian chiefs insisted 

 that they knew better than the compass.^^ He relates another 

 incident, of Indian depradations against white traders in East 

 Florida. " It appeared," he adds, " upon a strict investigation 

 of facts, that the affair had taken its rise from the licentious 

 conduct of a few vagrant young hunters of the Siminole nation, 

 who, imagining themselves to have been ill treated, in their 

 dealings with the traders (which by the bye was likely enough 

 to be true) took this violent method of doing themselves 

 justice."^" He mentions a Mr. Galahan, a trader in the 

 Cherokee country who was " esteemed and beloved by the 

 Indians for his humanity, probity and equitable dealings with 

 them, which," he adds, " to be just and candid I am obliged 

 to observe (and blush for my countrymen at the recital) is 

 somewhat of a prodigy, as it is a fact, I am afraid too true, that 

 the white traders in their commerce with the Indians, give great 

 and frequent occasions of complaint of their dishonesty and 

 violence." ^^ He narrates a tragi-comic story of a trader who 

 appealed to him for help against the Indians of his trading 

 post. " It appeared," says Bartram, " that this son of Adonis, 



"' Middleton, "' John Bartram, Botanist," Scientific Monthly, XXI, 203. 

 "^ Travels, xxxiii. ==" Ibid., 40. ^^ Ibid., 79. " Ibid., 353. 



