pride, retarding their improvement, and, in many instances, paving the way to their destruction, That the progress of many of the American settlements had constantly driven the Indians back with almost the total sacrifice of the land, which they have been compelled to abandon. "They have claims," says he, on the magnanimity, and, I may add, on the justice of the nation, which we must all feel. We should become their real benefactors; we should perform the office of their Great Father, the endearing title which they emphatically give to the chief magistrate of our Union. Their sovereignty over vast territories should cease, in lieu of which the right of soil should be secured to each individual and his posterity in competent portions; and, for the territory thus ceded by each tribe, some reasonable equivalent should be granted, to be vested in permanent funds for the support of the civil government over them, and for the education of their children; for their instruction in the arts of husbandry, and to provide sustenance for them until they can provide it for themselves. My earnest hope is, that Congress will digest some plan, founded on these principles, with such improvements as their wisdom may suggest, and carry it into effect as soon as it may be practicable."

Shortly before this period, the government of

the United States had appointed the Reverend Dr. Morse to make a visit of observation and inspection among various Indian tribes, and to report to the President upon their circumstances and condition. Dr. Morse was at that time acting in some degree in a similar situation under commissions from the Scottish Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, and from the Northern Missionary Society of the State of New York. His attention was now particularly directed to ascertain, as distinctly as possible, the actual state of the Indians in a moral, religious, and political view; the nature and climate of the countries occupied by them; and the customs, manners, and institutions of the native inhabitants.

His Report was laid before Congress in the spring of 1822, and was published in America in the course of the same year, with all its numerous accompanying documents. Dr. Morse states, that a great deal has been already done, and is now continuing to be effected, in several parts of the Union, for the benefit of the Indians and he recommends various measures as connected with their future civilization and improvement. The details contained in the Report are much too voluminous to be particularly remarked upon here: some parts of the work have already been adverted to, and a few others shall be afterwards

;

noticed. Among other suggestions, Dr. Morse recommended the formation of a society on a very extended scale-a plan which appears to have been since adopted under the name of the "American Society for promoting the Civilization and general Improvement of the Indian Tribes within the United States."

CHAPTER XII.

RITE OF BAPTISM PROMISCUOUSLY ADMINISTERED TO THE INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA BY THE EARLY FRENCH MISSIONARIES

QUESTION RESPECTING

IT SUBMITTED TO THE DOCTORS OF THE SORBONNE SENTIMENTS OF NATURAL RELIGION ENTERTAINED BY THE INDIANS - OBSTRUCTION THEIR CONVERSION, ARISING FROM THE RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES AND DISPUTES AMONG THE

EUROPEANS.

ΤΟ

In remarking upon the labours of the early Jesuit missionaries in the interior of North America, Charlevoix observes: "The fruits which they gathered in the first season were inconsiderablefive or six baptisms of grown persons- but they consoled themselves with the happiness of having secured the eternal salvation of a great many children, who received the rites of baptism immediately before their death."* The accounts from the early Recollet missions are similar. Père le Caron, of that order, states, in 1624, "We continue to send to heaven a great number of infants, and some dying adults whose hearts God seems to touch at their end, and whom we baptize without

Charlevoix, Hist. de la Nouvelle France, liv. 5.

difficulty: but as to the others, there is little success. This sacrament, however, was afterwards frequently extended to the savages, of all ages and descriptions; the Roman Catholic missionaries appearing to have been more anxious about the number than the selection of those whom they baptized. What Dr. Robertson, in his History of America, remarks on the subject of baptizing the Indians of Mexico, applies, in a considerable degree, to the more northern countries of that continent: "In the course of a few years after the reduction of the Mexican empire, the sacrament of baptism was administered to more than four millions. Proselytes, adopted with such inconsiderate haste, and who were neither instructed in the nature of the tenets to which it was supposed they had given their assent, nor taught the absurdities of those which they were required to relinquish,retained their veneration for their ancient superstitions in full force, or mingled an attachment to its doctrines and rites with that slender knowledge of Christianity which they had acquired." †

Père Dablon, in one of the annual Reports transmitted by the Jesuit missions in Canada, observes, "Thus we may say that the torch of the faith now lights up the four quarters of this New

* Premier Etablissement de la Foy dans la Nouvelle France, vol. i. chap. 8. Paris, 1691.

+ Robertson's Hist. of America, book 8.