In 1849 I met with a very interesting specimen of the Delaware tribe whose name was Black Beaver. He had for ten years been in the employ of the American Fur Company, and during this time had visited nearly every point of interest within the limits of our unsettled territory. He had set his traps and spread his blanket upon the head waters of the Missouri and Columbia; and his wanderings had led him south to the Colorado and Gila, and thence to the shores of the Pacific in Southern California. His life had been that of a veritable cosmopolite, filled with scenes of intense and startling interest, bold and reckless adventure. He was with me two seasons in the capacity of guide, and I always found him perfectly reliable, brave, and competent. His reputation as a resolute, determined, and fearless warrior did not admit of question, yet I have never seen a man who wore his laurels with less vanity.
When I first made his acquaintance I was puzzled to know what to think of him. He would often, in speaking of the Prairie Indians, say to me,
“Captain, if you have a fight, you mustn’t count much on me, for I’ze a big coward. When the fight begins I ‘spect you’ll see me run under the cannon; Injun mighty ‘fraid of big gun.”
I expressed my surprise that he should, if what he told me was true, have gained such a reputation as a warrior; whereupon he informed me that many years previous, when he was a young man, and before he had ever been in battle, he, with about twenty white men and four Delawares, were at one of the Fur Company’s trading-posts upon the Upper Missouri, engaged in trapping beaver. While there, the stockade fort was attacked by a numerous band of Blackfeet Indians, who fought bravely, and seemed determined to annihilate the little band that defended it.
After the investment had been completed, and there appeared no probability of the attacking party’s abandoning their purpose, “One d—d fool Delaware” (as Black Beaver expressed it) proposed to his countrymen to make a sortie, and thereby endeavor to effect an impression upon the Blackfeet. This, Beaver said, was the last thing he would ever have thought of suggesting, and it startled him prodigiously, causing him to tremble so much that it was with difficulty he could stand.
He had, however, started from home with the fixed purpose of becoming a distinguished brave, and made a great effort to stifle his emotion. He assumed an air of determination, saying that was the very idea he was just about to propose; and, slapping his comrades upon the back, started toward the gate, telling them to follow. As soon as the gate was passed, he says, he took particular care to keep in the rear of the others, so that, in the event of a retreat, he would be able to reach the stockade first.
They had not proceeded far before a perfect shower of arrows came falling around them on all sides, but, fortunately, without doing them harm. Not fancying this hot reception, those in front proposed an immediate retreat, to which he most gladly acceded, and at once set off at his utmost speed, expecting to reach the fort first. But he soon discovered that his comrades were more fleet, and were rapidly passing and leaving him behind. Suddenly he stopped and called out to them, “Come back here, you cowards, you squaws; what for you run away and leave brave man to fight alone?” This taunting appeal to their courage turned them back, and, with their united efforts, they succeeded in beating off the enemy immediately around them, securing their entrance into the fort.
Beaver says when the gate was closed the captain in charge of the establishment grasped him warmly by the hand, saying, “Black Beaver, you are a brave man; you have done this day what no other man in the fort would have the courage to do, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
In relating the circumstance to me he laughed most heartily, thinking it a very good joke, and said after that he was regarded as a brave warrior.
The truth is, my friend Beaver was one of those few heroes who never sounded his own trumpet; yet no one that knows him ever presumed to question his courage.
At another time, while Black Beaver remained upon the head waters of the Missouri, he was left in charge of a “caché” consisting of a quantity of goods buried to prevent their being stolen by the Indians. During the time he was engaged upon this duty he amused himself by hunting in the vicinity, only visiting his charge once a day. As he was making one of these periodical visits, and had arrived upon the summit of a hill overlooking the locality, he suddenly discovered a large number of hostile Blackfeet occupying it, and he supposed they had appropriated all the goods. As soon as they espied him, they beckoned for him to come down and have a friendly chat with them.
Knowing that their purpose was to beguile him into their power, he replied that he did not feel in a talking humor just at that time, and started off in another direction, whereupon they hallooed after him, making use of the most insulting language and gestures, and asking him if he considered himself a man thus to run away from his friends, and intimating that, in their opinion, he was an old woman, who had better go home and take care of the children.
Beaver says this roused his indignation to such a pitch that he stopped, turned around, and replied, “Maybe so; s’pose three or four of you Injuns come up here alone, I’ll show you if I’ze old womans.” They did not, however, accept the challenge, and Beaver rode off.
Although the Delawares generally seem quite happy in their social relations, yet they are not altogether exempt from some of those minor discords which occasionally creep in and mar the domestic harmony of their more civilized pale-faced brethren.
I remember, upon one occasion, I had bivouacked for the night with Black Beaver, and he had been endeavoring to while away the long hours of the evening by relating to me some of the most thrilling incidents of his highly-adventurous and erratic life, when at length a hiatus in the conversation gave me an opportunity of asking him if he was a married man. He hesitated for some time; then looking up and giving his forefinger a twirl, to imitate the throwing of a lasso, replied, “One time me catch ‘um wife. I pay that woman, his modder, one hoss-one saddle-one bridle-two plug tobacco, and plenty goods. I take him home to my house-got plenty meat-plenty corn-plenty every thing. One time me go take walk, maybe so three, maybe so two hours. When I come home, that woman he say, ‘Black Beaver, what for you go way long time?’ I say, ‘I not go nowhere; I just take one littel walk.’ Then that woman he get heap mad, and say, ‘No, Black Beaver, you not take no littel walk. I know what for you go way; you go see nodder one woman.’ I say, ‘Maybe not.’ Then that woman she cry long time, and all e’time now she mad. You never seen ‘Merican woman that a-way?”
I sympathized most deeply with my friend in his distress, and told him for his consolation that, in my opinion, the women of his nation were not peculiar in this respect; that they were pretty much alike all over the world, and I was under the impression that there were well-authenticated instances even among white women where they had subjected themselves to the same causes of complaint so feelingly depicted by him. Whereupon he very earnestly asked, “What you do for cure him? Whip him?” I replied, “No; that, so far as my observation extended, I was under the impression that this was generally regarded by those who had suffered from its effects as one of those chronic and vexatious complaints which would not be benefitted by the treatment he suggested, even when administered in homeopathic doses, and I believed it was now admitted by all sensible men that it was better in all such cases to let nature take its course, trusting to a merciful Providence.”
At this reply his countenance assumed a dejected expression, but at length he brightened up again and triumphantly remarked, “I tell you, my friend, what I do; I ketch ‘um nodder one wife when I go home.”
Black Beaver had visited St. Louis and the small towns upon the Missouri frontier, and he prided himself not a little upon his acquaintance with the customs of the whites, and never seemed more happy than when an opportunity offered to display this knowledge in presence of his Indian companions. It so happened, upon one occasion, that I had a Comanche guide who bivouacked at the same fire with Beaver. On visiting them one evening according to my usual practice, I found them engaged in a very earnest and apparently not very amicable conversation. On inquiring the cause of this, Beaver answered,
“I’ve been telling this Comanche what I seen ‘mong the white folks.”
I said, “Well, Beaver, what did you tell him?”
“I tell him ’bout the steam-boats, and the railroads, and the heap o’ houses I seen in St. Louis.”
“Well, sir, what does he think of that?”
“He say I’ze d—d fool.”
“What else did you tell him about?”
“I tell him the world is round, but he keep all e’time say, Hush, you fool! do you s’pose I’ze child? Haven’t I got eyes? Can’t I see the prairie? You call him round? He say, too, maybe so I tell you something you not know before. One time my grandfather he make long journey that way (pointing to the west). When he get on big mountain he seen heap water on t’other side, jest so flat he can be, and he seen the sun go right straight down on t’other side. I then tell him all these rivers he seen, all e’time the water he run; s’pose the world flat the water he stand still. Maybe so he not b’lieve me?”
I told him it certainly looked very much like it. I then asked him to explain to the Comanche the magnetic telegraph. He looked at me earnestly, and said,
“What you call that magnetic telegraph?”
I said, “You have heard of New York and New Orleans?”
“Oh yes,” he replied.
“Very well; we have a wire connecting these two cities, which are about a thousand miles apart, and it would take a man thirty days to ride it upon a good horse. Now a man stands at one end of this wire in New York, and by touching it a few times he inquires of his friend in New Orleans what he had for breakfast. His friend in New Orleans touches the other end of the wire, and in ten minutes the answer comes back—ham and eggs. Tell him that, Beaver.”
His countenance assumed a most comical expression, but he made no remark until I again requested him to repeat what I had said to the Comanche, when he observed,
“No, captain, I not tell him that, for I don’t b’lieve that myself.”
Upon my assuring him that such was the fact, and that I had seen it myself, he said,
“Injun not very smart; sometimes he’s big fool, but he holler pretty loud; you hear him maybe half a mile; you say ‘Merican man he talk thousand miles. I ‘spect you try to fool me now, captain; maybe so you lie.”
The Indians living between the outer white settlements and the nomadic tribes of the Plains form intermediate social links in the chain of civilization.
The first of these occupy permanent habitations, but the others, although they cultivate the soil, are only resident while their crops are growing, going out into the prairies after harvest to spend the winter in hunting. Among the former may be mentioned the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, and of the latter are the Delawares, Shawnees, Kickapoos, etc., who are perfectly familiar with the use of the rifle, and, in my judgment, would make as formidable partisan warriors as can be found in the universe.
