There finally appeared a large troop of Indians, old men,
women, children, belongings, all led by a European and steering toward the capital of our triangle. These Indians were
Chactas (or Tchactaws), following the Indian pronunciation. A propos of that, I will tell you that M. de
Chateaubriand has acted a little as did the monkey of La Fontaine; he hasn't taken the name of a harbor for a man, but
he has given a man the name of a powerful nation of Southern America. However that may be, you no doubt want to
know why these Indians had come and in what way they could be of service to us.
Patience, I beg of you; to-day, having time and paper, I don't
want to hurry. You shall know, then, that the Americans of the United States, who are reasonable and unprejudiced, and
great philanthropists to boot, have taken it into their heads, as did the Spaniards, that God had given them the new world
and its inhabitants in full ownership.
They have discovered, furthermore, that, it being proved
(listen well to this) that a square mile could nourish ten times as many civilized men as savages, reason indicated that
wherever civilized men could establish themselves, the savages would have to move away.
What a beautiful thing logic is. Consequently, whenever the
Indians begin to find themselves a little too close to their white brothers, the President of the United States sends them
a messenger, who represents to them that in their own best interest it would be well for them to retreat ever so little
toward the West. The lands where they have lived for centuries belong to them, indubitably; no one refuses them this
incontestable right; but these lands, after all, they are uncultivated wilderness, woods, swamps, a poor property truly.
On the other side of the Mississip[p]i, on the contrary, are
magnificent lands, where the game has never been disturbed by the sound of the pioneer's axe, where the
Europeans will never come. They are more than 100 leagues away. Add to this some presents of inestimable
price, waiting to reward their complaiance: hogsheads of brandy, necklaces of glass, earrings and mirrors: the whole
backed up by the insinuation that if they refuse, it may perhaps be necessary to use force.
What to do? The poor Indians take their old parents in their
arms; the women load their children on their backs; the nation finally sets out, carrying with it its most precious
possessions. It abandons for ever the soil on which, for a thousand years perhaps, its fathers have lived, to go establish
itself in a wilderness where the whites will not leave them ten years in peace.
Do you note the results of a high civilization? The spaniards,
like real brutes, throw their dogs on the Indians as if on ferocious beasts. They kill, burn, massacre, pillage the new
world like a town taken by assault, without pity as without discernment. But one can't destroy everything; fury has its
end. The remainder of the Indian populations ends by mingling with the conquerors, taking their customs, their religion;
in several provinces they are today reigning over their former conquerors.
The Americans of the United States, more humane, more
moderate, more respectful of right and legality, never bloody, are more profoundly destructive; and it is impossible to
doubt that before a hundred years [have passed] there will no longer be in North America, not just a single nation, but
a single man belonging to the most remarkable of the Indian races. ...
But I don't remember at all where I was in my story. We were
talking, I think, about the Chactas. The Chactas were a powerful nation living on the frontiers of the States of Alabama
and Georgia. After long negotiations they finally, this year, succeeded in persuading them to leave their country and
emigrate to the right bank of the Mississip[p]i. Six to seven thousand Indians have already crossed the great river; those
arriving in Memphis came there with the object of following their compatriots.
The agent of the American government, who was
accompanying them and was responsible for paying their passage, when he learned that a steamboat had just arrived,
ran to the bank. The price that he offered for carrying the Indians sixty leagues further down was the final touch that
made up the captain's unsettled mind; the signal for all aboard was given. The prow was turned south, and we gaily
mounted the ladder down which sadly came the poor passengers who, instead of going to Louisville, saw themselves
obliged to await the thaw at Memphis. Thus goes the world.
But we had not left yet: it was a question of embarking our
exiled tribe, its horses and its dogs. Here began a scene which, in truth, had something lamentable about it. The Indians
advanced mournfully toward the bank. First they had their horses go aboard; several of them, little accustomed to the
forms of civilized life, took fright and plunged into the Mississip[p]i, from which they could be pulled out only with
difficulty. Then came the men who, according to ordinary habits, carried only their arms; then the women carrying their
children attached to their backs or wrapped in the blankets they wore; they were, besides, burdened down with loads
containing their whole wealth.
Finally the old people were led on. Among them was a woman
110 years old. I have never seen a more appalling shape. She was naked save for a covering which left visible, at a
thousand places, the most emaciated figure imaginable. She was escorted by two or three generations of grandchildren.
To leave one's country at that age to seek one's fortune in a foreign land, what misery! Among the old people there was
a young girl who had broken her arm a week before; for want of care the arm had been frozen below the fracture. Yet
she had to follow the common journey.
When everything was on board the dogs approached the bank;
but they refused to enter the vessel and began howling frightfully. Their masters had to bring them on by force.
In the whole scene there was an air of ruin and destruction,
something which betrayed a final and irrevocable adieu; one couldn't watch without feeling one's heart wrung. The
Indians were tranquil, but sombre and taciturn. There was one who could speak English and of whom I asked why the
Chactas were leaving their country.
-To be free, he answered, - I could never get any other reason
out of him. We will set them down tomorrow in the solitudes of Arkansas. One must confess that it is a singular fate
that brought us to Memphis to watch the expulsion, one can say the dissolution, of one of the most celebrated and
ancient American peoples.
But that's enough about the savages. It's high time to come
back to civilized men. Yet one word still about the Mississip[pli which, in truth, hardly deserves attention. It's a great
river, yellow, rolling gently enough through the most profound solitudes, in the midst of forests which it inundates in
spring and fertilizes with its mud. You see not a single hill on the horizon but woods, more woods, and still more woods:
reeds, tropical creepers; a perfect silence; no trace of man; not even the smoke of an Indian encampment.
[written] Dec.
25, 1831 on board the Louisville
(Pierson, p. 593)
* Pierson added the following footnote (p. 598):
Beaumont counted between fifty and sixty Indians, all being carried on the open deck. His impression was that the old
squaw was even more aged than Tocqueville said.
"The old are spared no more than the others.," wrote
Beaumont. "I have just seen on the boat deck an aged woman more than 120 years old. She is almost naked and carries
on her only a miserable woollen covering scarcely protecting her shoulders from the cold. She seemed to me the perfect
image of old age (roctuste) and decrepitude. This unhappy woman is obviously at death's door, and she leaves the land
where she has dwelt for 120 years to go into another country to begin a new life.
"We shall arrive to-morrow sometime during the day at the
mouth of the White River where we shall set them down. They will be tossed on the bank as one tosses rabbits into a
warren that one wishes to populate."
