n Abraham La Fort or
De-hat-ka-tons (1799-1848), an Oneida Indian who attended Geneva
College in the late 1820s, but who later abandoned Christianity and
returned to his traditional way of life}

"These laws of the Great Spirit," continued the Seneca, "were not
difficult to obey so long as the warrior was of a humble mind, and
believed himself inferior to the Manitou, who had fashioned him with
His hands, and placed him between the Seneca and the Cayuga, to hunt
the deer and trap the beaver. But See-wise was one of those who
practiced arts that you pale-faces condemn, while you submit to them.
He was a demagogue among the red men, and set up the tribe in
opposition to the Manitou."

{See-wise = intended to represent William Henry Seward's surname}

"How," exclaimed Fuller, "did the dwellers in the forest suffer by such
practices?"

"Men are every where the same, let the color, or the tribe, or the
country be what it may. It was a law of our people, one which tradition
tells us came direct from the Great Spirit, that the fish should be
taken only in certain seasons, and for so many moons. Some thought this
law was for the health of the people; others, that it was to enable the
fish to multiply for the future. All believed it wise, because it came
from the Manitou, and had descended to the tribe through so many
generations: all but See-wise. He said that an Indian ought to fish
when and where he pleased; that a warrior was not a woman; that the
spear and the hook had been given to him to be used, like the bow and
arrow, and that none but cowardly Indians would scruple to take the
fish when they wished. Such opinions pleased the common Indians, who
love to believe themselves greater than they are. See-wise grew bolder
by success, until he dared to say in council, that the red men made the
world themselves, and for themselves, and that they could do with it
what they pleased. He saw no use in any night; it was inconvenient; an
Indian could sleep in the light as well as in the darkness; there was
to be eternal day; then the hunt could go on until the deer was killed,
or the bear treed. The young Indians liked such talk. They loved to be
told they were the equals of the Great Spirit. They declared that
See-wise should be their principal chief. See-wise opened his ears wide
to this talk, and the young men listened to his words as they listened
to the song of the mocking-bird. They liked each other, because they
praised ea