traders were eventually induced to pass their lifetime in the Ojibway country. They soon forgot the money-making mania which first brought them into the country, and gradually imbibing the generous and hospitable qualities of the Indians, lived only to enjoy the present. They laid up no treasure for the future, and as a general fact, which redounds to the honor of this class of fur traders, they died poor. The money which has been made by the fur trade has been made with the sweat of their brows, but it has flowed into the coffers of such men as John Jacob Aster.
It is a fact worthy of notice, that the Anglo-Saxon race have mingled their blood with the Ojibways to a much greater extent than with any other tribe of the red race.
It reflects honor on this tribe, as it tends greatly to prove the common saying, that they are far ahead of other tribes in their social qualities, and general intelligence and morality. Of French and American extraction, the Ojibways number about five thousand persons of mixed blood, who are scattered throughout Canada, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the British possessions. Many of the Ojibway mixed bloods are men of good education and high standing within their respective communities.
The American Board of Foreign Missions early established a mission school on the island of Mackinaw, to which most of the Ojibway traders sent their half-breed children. The school was sustained on the manual labor system, and great good was disseminated from it, which spread over the whole northwest country. Many of our most prominent half-breeds, now engaged as missionaries, or in mercantile pursuits, and women who figure in the best of civilized society, received their education at the Mackinaw mission. After its dissolution, such of the traders as were pecuniarily able, usually sent their children to receive an education in some of the Eastern States.
