Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/636

616 have been of no use to you any further than to maintain you. And is there not, now you have sold so much, enough left for all the purposes of living? What you say of the goods — that they are soon worn out — is applicable to everything; but you know very well that they cost a great deal of money, and the value of land is no more than it is worth in money.”

When the Governor said that magistrates had been sent to remove the trespassers on their lands, the chief interrupted him with the stinging censure, which has not lost its point or truth to this very year as applied to similar officials sent by our Government year by year for like purposes: “These persons who were sent did not do their duty. So far from removing the people, they made surveys for themselves, and they are in league with the trespassers. We desire more effectual methods may be used and honester persons employed.”

Quite a valuable present in goods — more than half in quantity to those of the stipulated payment — was given to the Indians. It was very evident that their orators managed their side of the case ably, and that they had their fair half of the argument. The Indians readily admitted that cultivation added to the value of lands for such uses as the white men had for them. But they were by no means disposed to allow that the only value of lands was that given to them by cultivation. Such cultivation spoiled lands for the Indians' uses. They preferred the growths which Nature raised upon them, — the wild fruits, the deer and game, and the uncleared forest, and the undammed stream. The contrast was fully in their view; they preferred Nature — their old mother, nurse, and companion — to Art.

Gachradadow, a chief of the Six Nations, in a Council at Lancaster, Pa., June, 1744, thus addressed the Governor of Virginia: —

“Brother Assaragoa! The World at the first was made on the other side of the Great Water different from what it is on this side,