shortly to purchase the whole of this country; and that the Indian tribes are willing to treat, and to withdraw themselves to the other side of the Missouri river, to the steppland of Nebraska and the Rocky Mountains. These Indian tribes have already become so degraded by their intercourse with the whites, that they value money and brandy higher than their native soil, and are ready, like Esau, to sell their birthright for a mess of pottage. But that cruel race which scalps children and old people, and which degrades women to beasts of burthen, may as well move off into the wilderness, and leave room for a nobler race. There is in reality only a higher justice in it.
October 26th.—I went yesterday with my kind entertainers into the Indian territory, by Fort Snelling, a fortress built by the Americans here, and where military are stationed, both infantry and cavalry, to keep the Indians in check. The Indians are terribly afraid of the Americans, whom they call “the Long Knives,” and now the white settlers are no longer in danger. The Indian tribes, spite of the American intervention, continue their bloody and cruel hostilities among themselves. Not long since a number of Sioux warriors surprised a Chippewa village while the men were away on their hunting, and killed and scalped sixteen persons, principally women and children. Governor Ramsay ordered the ringleaders of this attack to be seized and taken to prison. They went with a proud step and the demeanour of martyrs for some noble cause.
I was extremely curious to see the inside of one of those tepees or wigwams, the smoke and fires of which I had so often seen already; and as we chanced to see, soon after entering the Indian territory, four very respectable Indian huts, I hastened to visit them. Governor Ramsay, and an interpreter whose house was just by, accompanied me. I directed my steps to the largest wigwam; to the opening of which two lean dogs
