--men,
women, and children, many of whom had scarcely the fragments of a
filthy blanket to hide their nakedness or screen them from the
cold--strolling and straggling about in squads of from two to a
half dozen each, begging for whiskey, or cold potatoes, or crusts
of bread. One old female, doubtless turned of threescore and ten,
half naked, was gathering up from the dirt and ashes about the
boiler of the steam boat, a few pieces of dried apples that had
been dropped and trodden under foot, which, with her toothless
gums, she attempted to masticate with all the eagerness of a
starving swine. Little children, from one to four years old, were
crawling about in a state of nudity, and almost of starvation,
while their own mothers and fathers, were staggering, and fighting,
and _swearing_. It is a fact, that while these poor creatures
cannot articulate a word of any thing else in English, the most
awfully profane expressions will drop from their lips in English,
as fluently as if it had been their vernacular tongue. When the
whites first settled in that neighborhood, the Indians raised corn
and other provisions enough, not only for their own use, but also
for the fur-traders and settlers.

Now they are altogether dependent for even the scanty subsistence
by which they are dragging out the remnant of a miserable life,
upon the whites. And what has been the cause of so great a change
in a few years in the circumstances and habits of a whole people!
The answer is plain to every one at all acquainted with Indian
history. It is the perfidy and avarice of the whites, and
WHISKEY, WHISKEY has been the all potent _agent_ by which
it has been effected. By selling and giving them whiskey till they
become drunk, they are soon filched of the little annuities
received from government; and then treated the rest of the year
like so many dogs.--As an illustration of the feeling towards them,
a merchant at Prairie du Chien expressed the very humane wish, that
there might soon be another Indian war to kill them all off.

INDEX.

A

Armstrong fort built, 96.

Atkinson, General, ordered to Rock Island, 140
directs Black Hawk to return to the west side of the Mississippi, 140
takes command of the Illinois militia, 141
proceeds to Dixon's Ferry, 141
at