Читать книгу A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner. U.S. Interpreter at the Saut de Ste. Marie онлайн

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The sketch which the following narrative exhibits of the evils and miseries of savage life, is probably free from exaggeration or distortion. Few will read it without some sentiments of compassion for a race so destitute, so debased, and hopeless; gladly would we believe it may have a tendency to call the attention of an enlightened and benevolent community to the wants of those who are sitting in darkness. In vain do we attempt to deceive ourselves, or others, into the belief that in whatever “relates to their moral condition and prospects, the Indians have been gainers by their intercourse with Europeans.”ssss1 Who can believe that the introduction of ardent spirits among them, “has added no new item to the catalogue of their crimes, nor substracted one from the list of their cardinal virtues?” Few, comparatively, have the opportunity, fewer have the inclination, to visit and observe the Indians in their remote haunts, or even on our immediate frontiers; all who have done so must be convinced that wherever, and for whatever purpose, the Indian and the white man come in contact, the former, in all that relates to his moral condition, is sure to become severely and irretrievably a sufferer. Every unbiased inquirer who will avail himself of the abundant means of information before the public will be convinced that during more than two hundred years, in despite of all the benevolent exertions of individuals, of humane associations, and of governments, the direct tendency of the intercourse between the two races has been the uniform and rapid depression and deterioration of the Indians.