CHAPTER VII

PIONEERS AND EARLY SETTLERS (Pages 41-57)

PAGE 41

MARION AND CLINTON COUNTIES.

ABORIGINES

The darkness that envelopes the early history of every country and community is partially dispelled by the ever-vanishing light of tradition.

Memory, the faithful servant of history, loves to treasure up in her mysterious storehouse the recollections of the heroic struggles, the severe privations, and the final triumphs incident to the first settlers of a country. Especially is this true respecting the brave, adventurous men, who scarcely three-quarters of a century ago, when westward the star of empire took its course, constituted the vanguard of civilization in the valley of the Mississippi, and commenced to subdue the vast wildernesses of this western land. Slowly rose the rude cabins then, where now stand the busy bustling cities and the palatial homes of millions of human beings, presenting a grand theater of human activity, whereon the world gazes in wonder and admiration. The rapid transformation of this wild waste into a cluster of magnificent states, teeming with high civilization and masterly enterprise, is unparalleled in the annals of nations, and furnishes a lofty theme for the pen of history, and fresh theories for the science of political economy. Here, from time immemorial, had been the undisputed hunting-grounds of the savage, and the undisturbed retreats of the wild beasts of by-gone ages. Here too, prior to the Indian, had roamed a race of human beings of whom little is known, and of whose rise and fall still less probably will ever be discovered. Whence they came, or whither they went, no one can tell, and whether even they were the true aborigines of North America is equally uncertain.

The artificial mounds of earth that are found scattered here and there from the extreme north to the far South, and from ocean to ocean, mark the sepulcher of this buried race. The numerous stone implements, as spear-heads, stone axes, water-pots, finely carved pipes, images of various kinds and curious design, found everywhere in great abundance are the only relics of their handiwork left by this people to indicate their primitive existence.

So far as is known, they had no system of written language by which they could have records of their thoughts and deeds for modern scholarship to decipher, and thereby determine their position in the great family of nations. Whatever else may be said of these so-called mound-builders, evidence is not entirely wanting that they were a peaceable people, domestic in their habits and, as there relics prove, not altogether unskilled in various kinds of arts and manufactures.

The bones of this extinct race now lie mouldering in thousands of unnoticed graves, scattered throughout the Mississippi Valley, where centuries ago hundreds of their rude villages were situated, and millions of this "lost race" of America" dwelt, happy in their ignorance of the swift destruction that awaited them, leaving their race and rank as subjects of vague speculation in these brighter days of human development. No Homeric bard swept with a magic touch the heart-strings of this mysterious nation, surrounding ti with a halo of poetic fancy, and immortalizing its heroes in the Lethean fount of epic verse. The were at best a nation of rude artists, physically unable to cope with the hardy, warlike savages who succeeded them in the possession of the country, and before whom they wholly disappeared as if swept away by some deadly pestilence, bequeathing to posterity nothing except the vague title of the "Lost race of America."

Whence came the red, or copper-colored, race to which COLUMBUS unwittingly affixed to them the name of Indians, and what destiny they were designed to fulfill, and are also mooted questions which it is not the province of this chapter to discuss. Here they were found occupying the country when the white pioneers made their advent amid the wilds of the west. The mission of the Indians seems to have been to roam the plains and forests, hunt the bear and bison, and oppose with fiendish savagery the outward march of civilization.

Endowed by nature with wonderful physical strength and endurance, and possessing the cruel and cunning instincts of wild beasts, the Indians were indeed the terror of the early pale-faced adventurers who sought to transform these western plains and prairies into NEXT PAGE -->