Narrative Journal of Travels Through the Northwestern Regions of the United States: Extending from Detroit Through the Great Chain of American Lakes to the Sources of the Mississippi River, Performed as a Member of the Expedition Under Governor Cass in the Year 1820

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E. & E. Hosford, 1821 - History - 419 pages
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (1793-1864) was an explorer, Indian agent, and early ethnologist of Native American culture who joined an expedition organized by Governor Cass of Michigan in 1819. Its purpose was to locate the Mississippi River's sources, to explore the Great Lakes region, and to describe its significant topographical features, natural history, and mineral wealth. Schoolcraft joined the expedition as a mineralogist, and this is the journal of his participation. He describes his preliminary journey from New York to Detroit, where the expedition embarks for Michilimackinac and presses on to Sault de Ste. Marie and Fond du Lac. Eventually the explorers locate Lake Itasca in Minnesota, where the Mississippi originates. Schoolcraft also highlights St. Peter's, Prairie du Chien, the lead mines at Dubuque, and Green Bay, and devotes a whole chapter to the Ontagenon River and its nearby copper mines. His journal blends narrative with historical, ethnographic and statistical information.

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Page 228 - Where slaves once more their native land behold, No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. To Be, contents his natural desire, He asks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire; But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Page 210 - In all her length far winding lay, With promontory, creek, and bay, And islands that, empurpled bright, Floated amid the livelier light ; And mountains, that like giants stand, To sentinel enchanted land.
Page 326 - Though much defaced by time, every angle was distinguishable, and appeared as regular and fashioned with as much military skill as if planned by Vauban himself. The ditch was not visible, but I thought on examining more curiously, that I could perceive there certainly had been one. From its situation also, I am convinced that it must have been designed for this purpose.
Page 351 - Thus every good his native wilds impart, Imprints the patriot passion on his heart; And e'en those ills, that round his mansion rise, Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies. Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms; And as a child, when scaring sounds molest, Clings close and closer to the mother's breast, So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar, But bind him to his native mountains more.
Page 57 - ... to be beneficial, she should be rewarded for it, she informed him, that at the council to be held with the Indians the following day, ' Pontiac and his chiefs intended to murder him ; and, after having massacred the garrison and inhabitants, to plunder the town. That, for this purpose, all the chiefs who were to be admitted into the...
Page 288 - The United States promise, on their part, to permit the Sioux to pass and repass, hunt, or make other use of the said districts as they have formerly done without any other exception than those specified in article first.
Page 115 - ... by the adversary. At such a moment, therefore, nothing could be less liable to excite premature alarm, than that the ball should be tossed over the pickets of the fort, nor that, having fallen there, it should be followed on the instant by all engaged in the game, as well the one party as the other, all eager, all struggling, all shouting, all in the unrestrained pursuit of a rude athletic exercise.
Page 59 - He then continued to tell them, that as he had given his word, at the time they desired an audience, that their persons should be safe, he would hold his promise inviolable, though they so little deserved it. However, he advised them to make the best of their way out of the fort, lest his young men, on being acquainted with their treacherous purposes, should cut every one of them to pieces.
Page 57 - ... pretence of trading, but privately armed in the same manner. Having gained from the woman every necessary particular relative to the plot, and also the means by which she acquired a knowledge of them, he dismissed her with injunctions of secrecy, and a promise of fulfilling on his part with punctuality the engagements he had entered into. " The intelligence the governor had just received gave him great uneasiness, and he immediately consulted the officer who was next him in command on the subject.
Page 57 - She told him, after much hesitation, that as he had always behaved with great goodness towards her, she was unwilling to take away the remainder of the skin, because he put so great a value upon it; and yet had not been able to prevail upon herself to tell him so. He then asked her, why she was more reluctant to do so now, than she had been when she made the former pair. With increased reluctance she answered, that she never should be able to bring them back.

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