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Baltimore Yearly Meeting Indian Committee Minutes, 1795-1815

BYM_Page_053

Proceedings of a committee appointed by theyearly meeting of the respectable society ofFriends, with the Indian chiefs—conclud-ed from yesterday’s Gazette. SECOND CONFERENCE. One of the society of Friends opened theconference as follows: Brothers and Friends,WHEN the talk which we had lastevening at this place ended, I believe itwas generally understood that the subject-matter which had been spoken to was sa-tisfactory; but on considering further,some of us though that there were somethings of considerable importance, whichhad not been spoken upon—and thoughtthat it would be right to have another op-portunity. We are accordingly againassembled—and seeing that it has beenthe will of the Great Spirit and Father of us all, to permit us thus to come togetheragain, it is my desire that any thing wemay feel in our hearts that may be likely tohave a tendency to promote the good ofour red brethren, may be freely spoken. Another Friend next addressed them asfollows: Friends and Brothers,I may tell you, I have been made glad,that I have an opportunity of sitting oncemore with you; and as I have found thatthe more I am with you, the more thelove I have felt for you has increased, andthe stronger has been my desire for yourwelfare, and that this love has taken awayall fear of giving offence; I feel myselfauthorized, I think, as a brother, to usefreedom of speech with you, and in thefreedom which I feel, under the influenceof that love which I trust has been impress-ed upon my heart by the great and goodSpirit, who as he has made us all of oneblood so he requires of us that we should ove one another. I may tell you brothers,that, when I was in the Indian country,I had frequent opportunities of observingthe pernicious consequences of the use ofspirituous liquors, with which the Indianswere furnished by the traders, and as Ihave reason to believe, that you who arenow present are wise men, men who haveeyes in your heads, and are able to seethings as they really are, I have felt a de-sire in my heart to know your opinions,and what is your judgment concerningthis thing—the using spiritous liquorsto excess. Believing brothers, that ifyou have seen things in the same light inwhich I have seen them, that you wouldbe desirous that a stop might be put to theevils that arise from the use of so destruct-tive a liquor, I may tell you, brothers,who are now present, as well as the In-dians in general, that I have believed thereis not any thing that stands more in yourway to improvement than this; the toofrequent use of spiritous liquors: and Ihave thought that if you are of the samemind with us who are your Friends, andhave your good at heart, that it would beright for us to take the subject into ourserious consideration, to endeavor to dis-cover, whether there may not be some stepstaken, that would put a check upon thispernicious thing. Now, brothers, as a hint of this sort wasomitted when we were together last even-ing, some of us did not find our minds easy:we thought it ought to have come underconsideration, hoping that you who, as Ihave already said, have eyes in your heads,and can see for yourselves, have had thissubject under your consideration. We nowhope brothers that you will express your-selves freely to us on this subject, and letus know how it has appeared to you.After which, way perhaps will open forsome further observations from us. After a short pause the Little Turtle onhis seat expresses, I will now make somereply, if none of my brothers have further to say. He was desired to proceed—when rising onhis feet he said, My Brothers and Friends,I am happy to find that it has pleasedthe Great Spirit, that we should again thisevening meet in the same house in whichwe held our council yesterday. I am hap-py to find that it is the will of the Greatand Good Spirit, that we should discover,there was something yesterday not menti-oned, that was highly necessary for thewelfare of your red brethren. Friends and Brothers,I am glad to find that it has pleased theGreat Spirit to put a wish in your heartsto know our opinions on the subject youhave mentioned; a subject of the greatestmoment to us. What you have said re-lative to our being one flesh and one bloodis true. Your brothers the Indians believethat it is in this light the Great Spirit con-siders all mankind. Brothers and Friends,My brother chiefs that are now present,with myself, are happy to find, that youhave a good opinion of us. You say, thatyou apprehend we have eyes in our heads,and can clearly see for ourselves thosethings that are injurious to us; this, myfriends and brothers, is the case; we clear-ly see these things: my brother chiefs thatare now present with me, as well as myself,have long seen them; we have long lament-ed these great evils that have raged in ourcountry, and that have done your redbrethren so much harm; we have appliedfor redress, and endeavored to have themremoved from amongst us. When our forefathers met first on thisIsland, your red brethren then were numer-ous; but since the introduction amongstus of what you call spirituous liquors, andwhat we think may justly be called poison,our numbers are greatly diminished: Ithas destroyed a great part of our red bre-thren. My Brothers and Friends,I am glad to hear you observe, that free-dom of speech ought always to be madeuse of amongst brothers; this, brothers,really ought to be the case. I will now,therefore, take the liberty to mention, thatmost of the exciting evils amongst your redbrethren, have been caught from the whitepeople; not only that liquor that destroysus daily, but many diseases that our fore-fathers were ignorant of before they sayyou. My Brothers and Friends,I am glad, with my brother chiefs, thatare now present, to find that you are rea-dy to assist us in every thing that will addto our good: we hope that the GreatSpirit will aid you in all your good under-takings with respect to us. We plainlyperceive, brothers, that you see that veryevil that destroys your red brethren. Itis not an evil, brothers, of our own making;we have not placed it amongst us by the whitepeople; we look up to them to remove itout of our country: If they have thatfriendship for us which they tell us theyhave, they certainly will not let it conti-nue amongst us any longer. Our repeat-ed entreaties to those who bring this evilamongst us, we find, has not the desiredeffect. We tell them—Brothers, fetch ususeful things; bring goods that will clotheus, our women and our children, and notthis evil liquor that destroys our reason—that destroys our health—that destroysour lives: But all we can say on the sub-ject is of no service, nor gives relief toyour red brethren. My Brothers and Friends,I am glad that you have seen into thisbusiness as we do—I rejoice to find thatyou agree in opinion with us, and expressan anxiety to be, if possible, of service tous, to remove this great evil out of ourcountry—an evil that has had so muchroom in it—that has destroyed so manyof our lives that it causes our young mento say, We had better be at war withthe white people: this liquor that they in-troduce into our country is more to befeared than the gun and the tomahawk:there are more of us dead since the treaty