another who manifested his hatred to that religion by libels on its sacred character; and another, who once was heard to preach Jesus and him crucified, was left, at last, to reproach his cross as "a central gallows," and an ignominious scaffold. Oh, if it be true,' he will say, that that cross bore an atoning sacrifice, and God manifest in the flesh was there reconciling the world unto himself, and it was then, and is now, and shall be to all eternity, the theme of wonder and praise to angels and principalities and powers, what a remembrance will wait through everlasting ages on his name who pointed at it as a scaffold, and poured upon it his scorn.'-May it appear in the judgement that he fled at last to that cross as his only hope, and that he did not go into eternity till the blood shed for the remission of sins was applied to his soul, and his peace was made with God through the atonement of his Son!

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW FOR JAN. 1830. ARTICLE III.

OPPRESSION has drenched the annals of our race in tears and blood. Communities have in general respected the rights of each other, no further than they have been compelled by fear or interest. The might of the strongest has been the title of sovereignty, and the limit of power the boundary of dominion.

While we make these remarks, we would not forget that, during the last fifty years, the spirit of the Gospel has been exerting a redeeming influence upon the public sentiment of Christendom. Hence it is that so much has been accomplished for the abolition of the slave trade, aud even of slavery itself. Hence the "poetry of war" has lost much of its enchantment, and the civic wreath has begun to rival the laurels of the hero. Hence the desolating march of imperial ambition, like that of Napoleon; foreign interferences, like those of France and Austria, in suppressing the revolutions in Spain and Naples; and wanton partitions of defenceless territory, like those which have dismembered the land of the ill-fated Kosciusko; have been regarded by so many thousands in Christendom with indignation and abhorrence. Hence, we add, the practical operation of the policy of Great Britain in regard to the people of Hindostan, has been so often and so severely condemned; and hence also it is, that we ourselves, the Christians of the United States, have been so often the theme of reproach and invective, in consequence of our treatment of the Aborigines of our country.

Of the causes of the rapid disappearance of these sons of the forest, we cannot now speak with particularity. Thousands have perished by the sword of the whites, and thousands more by their

own tomahawks, in their desperate wars with each other. But while the sword and the tomahawk have slain their thousands, the 'red dragon' of intemperance has slain bis ten thousands.

For the general course of measures relative to the Indians, previous to the revolution, the kings and cabinets of Great Britain are chiefly responsible. Since that period, our governments have professed to consult the best good of the tribes within our borders, and no inconsiderable effort has been made by some of our chief magistrates, to induce them to adopt the arts and usages of civilization. But our extensive purchases of their lands have had a most disastrous influence upon their character and condition. "When the white man puts down his foot, he never takes it up again. It grows fast and spreads wide." After relinquishing the best portions of their hunting-grounds, many tribes have been compelled to retire into some new wilderness, or to change at once all their modes of life, and attempt to derive subsistence from the cultivation of a pittance of their original territory. Those who have emigrated, have usually been despised by the tribes in their neighborhood, and have been obliged to submit to intolerable privation and insult. Of those who have endeavored to till the ground, the most have utterly failed of success, from want of a suitable preparatory discipline.

By the sale of their lands, they have also been brought into more immediate contact with the unprincipled portion of the whites. Their morals have thus been most dreadfully corrupted. The presents and annuities, which, have been distributed so freely among them, by the U. S. Agents, have allured into their midst a swarm of traders, more rapacious than the locusts of Egypt. We allude now more especially to the Northern and North Western tribes. In addition to the traders with their sponging extortion, there have been the white hunters who, by the payment of a small premium, have been enabled to bear away immense stores of peltry. When the Indian, therefore, has looked around him, and sur veyed the cheerless wretchedness of his condition, is it strange that he should so often resort to the inebriating poison, to relieve the anguish of a wounded and mangled heart? The demoralizing and debasing effects of the use of ardent spirits among some of the Indian tribes, it is impossible to exaggerate. A single ancedote, for which we are indebted to the N. A. Review, speaks volumes on this point. "Father," said an aged Potawatomie Chief, after having been urged to remain sober, and make a good bargain for his people, "Father, we care not for the money, nor the land, nor the goods. We want the whiskey. Give us the whiskey. Give us the whiskey."

We entertain no doubt, that a vast amount of the degeneracy and destruction of the sons of the forest has been occasioned by

the surrender of their most valuable domains to their white neighbors. Of this melancholy fact, our present Chief Magistrate seems to be fully aware. "It has long been the policy of government," says his late Message to Congress," to introduce among them the arts of civilization, in the hope of gradually reclaiming them from a wandering life. This policy, however, has been coupled with another wholly incompatible with its success. Professing a desire to civilize and settle them, we have at the same time lost no opportunity to purchase their lands and thrust them further into the wilderness. Thus, though lavish in its expenditures upon the subject, Government has constantly defeated its own policy." Little should we have anticipated such sentiments, as a preamble to the annunciation of a plan to remove all the Indians of the South, to the boundless and barren prairies beyond the Mississippi! To compel the Indians to emigrate from their accustomed abodes, or to obtain subsistence by agricultural industry, without previous education, is a measure which has no countenance from the dictates of philanthropy, or the precepts of religion. They must be gradually propitiated by the influence of salutary example; not driven by the stern mandates of inexorable necessity. This fact is exemplified in the great success which has attended the labors of "education families;"-that is, families, in which are to be found mechanics and agriculturists, as well as literary and religious teachers.

So eminently successful have been the experiments of these "families," established among the Indians residing in the Southern States, that not a few of our wisest citizens have been greatly animated by the prospect. They have cherished a strong hope, that the period was at hand, when a part at least of the debt which Americans owe to this much abused people, would be honorably cancelled. But a portentous storm has of late been gathering; and unless God avert the omen, the bolts of desolation seem to be inevitable. A CRISIS now exists, which demands the most serious attention of every patriot and Christian in America.

Within the chartered limits of North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi, are four tribes of Indians-the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws and Creeks-consisting of at least 60,000 souls. Of these tribes, the Cherokees have made by far the greatest advances in civilization and Christianity. According to a letter of one of their chiefs, it appears, that they began to introduce among them some of the simpler arts of manufacture, previous to the close of the last century. A Moravian school was established among them in 1801. This has been instrumental of much good to the natives. Various causes have since operated to encourage the philanthropic and pious of different Christian denominations, to establish education families' in different parts of

been produced in "Most families," Hicks—a very in

the Cherokee country. A decided change has the condition and character of the inhabitants. if we may credit the statement of Charles R. telligent and virtuous chief-" most families cultivate from ten, twenty, thirty, to forty acres of land, without the assistance of black people." This statement, which was made more than twelve years since, is confirmed by some statistics published in the Missionary Herald, relative to the progress of the Cherokees in civilization. By an enumeration in 1826, it was found, that they possessed 2,943 ploughs, 172 waggons, 2,500 sheep, 7,600 horses, 22,000 cattle, and 46,000 swine. When we remember, that the population cannot be estimated higher than 15,000 souls, we must be satisfied that a people, thus furnished, are not necessitated to scour the forests, in order to procure 66 game for subsistence," or "peltry for sale."

To show how generally the useful arts have been introduced among them, we would mention, that at the time of the above enumeration, they had 8 cotton machines, 762 looms, 2,488 spinning wheels, 10 saw-mills, 31 grist-mills, and 62 blacksmiths' shops. Should an enumeration be made at the present time, the result would show a very considerable increase in all these particulars.

Suffice it to say, that so great has been the change in the feelings and habits of the Cherokees, during the last thirty years, and more especially during the last twelve years, that they have been prepared for an entire revolution in their mode of government. Agreeably to the suggestion and advice of President Jefferson, they have, at length, with great unanimity, adopted a form of government, which, in its essential features, corresponds with our own. A printing press has been established, and a newspaper, edited by an intelligent native, who was educated in Connecticut, has now nearly reached the close of its second volume. The matter of this paper is published partly in English, and partly in Cherokee. Although it is not seven years, since the language was reduced to writing, by the wonderful invention of their syllabic alphabet, and not two years since it was printed, yet so rapid has been the progress of general education, that it is now read by a majority of the people. Very many not only read, but write the English language. For years past, native Cherokees, without any assistance, have transacted public business by written documents; and in a style of correctness and propriety, which might well shame some officers of the United States who have addressed communications to them. The President or principal Chief discharges the duties of his office, in a manner which would not disgrace a governor of one of our own states.

In addition to all this, we should do violence to our own feelings were we to fail of noticing, that several churches have been

gathered among this interesting people. Hundreds regularly assemble on the Sabbath, to listen to the ministers of God. And among those who participate in the celebration of the sacraments, are some of the most intelligent and influential citizens.

So notorious are these and similar facts, that we were utterly confounded, when we saw it stated by a writer in the last number of the North American Review, that he "doubts, whether there is on the face of the globe a more wretched race than the Cherokees." "The great body of the people are in a state of helpless and hopeless poverty. With the same improvidence and habitual indolence, which mark the northern Indians, they have less game for subsistence and less peltry for sale !"-But our confusion vanishes, when we consider the premises from which he drew his conclusions.

"Our personal intercourse with them, (the Indians) has been confined almost to the tribes in the Northwestern regions of the United States, to the Iroquois, the Wyandots, etc. Our general facts and deductions will be principally founded upon what we have seen and heard among these tribes. With the Southern Indians, the Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, we have not had the same opportunities of personal communication and observation. Of the Creeks and Cherokees, however, we have some knowledge; and so far as our personal intercourse with them has extended, they presented to us the same external appearance, and the same general traits of character, which elsewhere mark the race of red men."

"We have made the inquiry respecting the permanent advantage which any of these tribes have derived from attempts to civilize them, with a full knowledge of the favorable reports that have been circulated concerning the Cherokees. Limited as our intercourse with those Indians has been, we must necessarily draw our conclusions respecting thein from facts which have been stated to us, and from the general resemblance they bear to the other cognate branches of the great aboriginal stock. It is due to truth, that this admission should be made." pp. 70, 71.

We entirely coincide with the writer in the last remark. After what we have said respecting the Cherokees, we might leave his statements without further notice. But we would just request the readers of his article, to bear in mind, that his "general facts and deductions," throughout sixty pages, concerning the Cherokees and the other Southern tribes, are not "founded upon what he has seen and heard among" those tribes, but " are principally founded upon what he has seen and heard among the tribes in the Northwestern regions of the United States." These last, from causes which might be easily specified, are probably more debased and miserable, than any tribes in our whole territory. We make this remark on the authority of one, who has had as much opportunity of observation, in regard to their character and condition, as has fallen to the lot of this Reviewer.

Of the Creeks and Cherokees, the Reviewer has "some knowledge." To use a homely phrase, he "bas none to speak of," or we should certainly have been more fully informed of the fact. So far then as he wrote from observation, his sweep