374 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



assaults of their enemies at home, and the introduction of agriculture (which would 

 supply them with the necessaries and luxuries of life, without the necessity of con- 

 tinually exposing their lives to their more numerous enemies on the plains, when 

 they are seeking in the chase the means of their subsistence) would save them from 

 the continual wastes of life to which, in their wars and the chase, they are continu- 

 ally exposed, and which are calculated soon to result iu their extinction. 



I deem it not folly nor idle to say that these people can be saved, nor officious to 

 suggest to some of the very many excellent aud pious men, who are almost throwing 

 away the best energies of their lives along the debased frontier, that if they would 

 introduce the ploughshare and their prayers amongst these people, who are so far 

 separated from the taints and contaminating vices of the frontier, they would soon 

 see their most ardent desires accomplished and be able to solve to the world the per- 

 plexing enigma by presenting a nation of savages civilized and Christianized (and, 

 consequently, saved), in the heart of the American wilderness. — George Catlin, 1832, 

 pages 177 to 184, vol. 1, Catlin's Eight Years. 



CORRECTNESS OF MR. CATLIN'S DESCRIPTIONS OF THE MANDAN'S 

 RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES. 



Mr. Catlin was an honest observer and truthful chronicler. He tried 

 to be correct at all times ; any reflections as to his honesty of purpose 

 or the correctness of his descriptions were met by him with emphatic 

 action, and set him at once to procuring additional corroborative testi- 

 mony. 



In the work entitled " The Indian Tribes of the United States," edited 

 by H..E. Schoolcraft, esq., and published by the United States, from 

 1851 to 1857, in six volumes, in the chapter on the " Mandaus and 

 UpsaokaTfamily," volume 3, page 247, Mr. Oatlin's work amongst the 

 Mandans is quietly ignored, but on page 254 is given a "Brief history 

 of the Mandan Indians," by Col. D. D. Mitchell, superintendent of 

 Indian affairs in Missouri and the Northwest, dated Washington, Jan- 

 uary 28, 1852, who says : 



" The scenes described by Catlin existed almost entirely iu the fertile 

 imagination of that gentleman." 



Mr. Catlin did not learn of this until informed of it by Baron A. 

 Humboldt in 185G. 



Mr. Schoolcraft in his works quietly ignored Mr. Catlin. The rivalry 

 amongst the early American Indian writers, was intense. Mr. Catlin 

 was sorely cut at the neglect of his work in the Government publication 

 which Mr. Schoolcraft compiled. 



Mr. Schoolcraft met Mr. Catlin in London in 1846, and made him a 

 proposition to use his paintings to illustrate a large work which he con- 

 templated editing for the Government. He carried a letter from Gen- 

 eral Lewis Cass (then a Senator from Michigan) to Mr. Catlin, advising 

 his agreeing to the scheme. Mr. Catlin promptly declined the proposi- 

 tion, stating that a bill was then pending in Congress for the purchase of 

 his collection. (This was lost in the Senate by one vote.) Mr. Schoolcraft 

 returned to the United States, was appointed to make the Indian publi- 

 cation, and procured the services of Capt. Seth Eastman, an officer of 



