Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/196

176 acres of “stately fields of corn” which were destroyed by the whites. In the frequent and destructive onsets made by the French, with Huron allies, against the Iroquois or New York Indians and their beautiful fields, marvellously large garners of corn were burned, in fruitless attempts to starve the natives, who had supplies for two years in store. The party under General Sullivan, in his Indian expedition in 1779, saw with surprise the evidences of thrift among the Iroquois, and noted not only vast quantities of maize and vegetables, but old apple-orchards, the stock of which must have been obtained from the French or Dutch. In the campaigns of Generals Harmer and St. Clair beyond the Ohio, after the close of the Revolutionary war, we read of the destruction of vast fields of corn in the river bottoms, belonging to the Miamis.

The early French missionaries describe the more thrifty of the natives with whom they first became acquainted, — the Abenakis, around the Penobscot and in northern New Hampshire, — as industrious and prosperous. They had fixed palisaded villages and substantial bark-cabins. Their ornaments were rings, necklaces, bracelets, and belts skilfully wrought with shells and stones. They had fertile and well-tilled fields of maize and other vegetables, planted in June and harvested in August. Further west the wild game was in abundance, different kinds of it alternating in different seasons. Enormous flocks of fowl made their spring and autumn migrations, offering a rich variety. It would appear, that, according as the natural crops or products of various parts of the country admitted of preservation by any artificial process within the skill of the Indian, they were stored for use. The maize was the most substantial and the easiest for culture and preservation, through heat and cold. A quart of the kernels roasted and pounded, to be as needed mixed in water, with or without being boiled, committed by the Indian to his pouch, would serve him for a long journey. It was usual for the squaws to dry large