came about that it was the women of the Indians
who were the most bloodthirsty and cruel of their race. It was they who
heaped the foulest insults upon a captive enemy, who most delighted in
the most terrible torture of that foe, who were best pleased if his
agony extorted from him the tribute of a groan.

This indulgence in the most depraved instincts of the animal nature of
course reacted. The women of the Amerinds lost all the distinctively
feminine characteristics that they had ever possessed, and with them
even their slight influence upon the men of their race. These saw in
their women the evidences of a lower nature than their own, instead of
one higher, and so they calmly and justly relegated those who were
developing toward animalism to the level of an animal. The rule was not
invariable; but it was general. There still remained a few "mothers in
Israel," women who by force of character maintained some influence in
their tribes; but, as a rule, the squaw was a mere beast of burden, a
mere "breeder of sinners." The facility in adaptation to conditions
which has always been one of woman's prominent traits had proved fatal
to the status and nature of the Amerind woman.

There were some notable exceptions. In the long Seminole war the Indians
were led by a remarkable man named Osceola. He was a half-breed, the son
of an Indian woman by a white named Powell; but Osceola, though reared
amid the environment of Caucasian civilization, never acknowledged any
relationship to the whites. The Seminoles preserved the gentile system,
in which the child followed the fortunes of its mother, and Osceola
acknowledged none but Indian racial laws. Of his mother but little is
known; but it is certain that she was a woman of stern and decided
character, that she accepted the benefits of white civilization without
admitting any gratitude therefor, and that she instilled into her great
son the principles which had come down to her from her ancestors. She
possessed great influence with her race, as much for her powers of
intellect as for her education--for she was excellently taught--and
culture; and it is probable that her influence was paramount in the
selection of her son as one of the chiefs of his nation. After his rise
to fame, we hear no more of her; but that she was a power in her day and
way cannot be doubted.

This was at a comparatively late date, and the instance is the last that
we find of an Indian woman exerting decided