My dear sir:--I feel impelled to place your name before these sheets,from a natural impulse. It is many years since I accompanied you to theGenesee country, which was, at that time, a favorite theatre ofenterprise, and called the "Garden of the West." This step, eventually,led me to make deeper and more adventurous inroads into the Americanwilderness.
If I am not mistaken, you will peruse these brief memoranda of myexploratory journeys and residence in the wide area of the west, andamong barbarous tribes, in a spirit of appreciation, and with a livelysense of that providential care, in human affairs, that equally shieldsthe traveler amidst the vicissitudes of the forest, and the citizen athis fireside.
Very sincerely yours,
HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT.
Ten years ago I returned from the area of the Mississippi Valley to NewYork, my native State, after many years' residence and exploratorytravels of that quarter of the Union. Having become extensively known,personally, and as an author, and my name having been associated withseveral distinguished actors in our western history, the wish has oftenbeen expressed to see some record of the events as they occurred. Inyielding to this wish, it must not be supposed that the writer is aboutto submit an autobiography of himself; nor yet a methodical record ofhis times--tasks which, were he ever so well qualified for, he does notat all aspire to, and which, indeed, he has not now the leisure, if hehad the desire, to undertake.
Still, his position on the frontiers, and especially in connection withthe management of the Indian tribes, is believed to have been one ofmarked interest, and to have involved him in events and passages oftenof thrilling and general moment. And the recital of these, in the simpleand unimposing forms of a diary, even in the instances where they may bethought to fail in awakening deep sympathy, or creating high excitement,will be found, he thinks, to possess a living moral undertone. In theperpetual conflict between civilized and barbaric life, during thesettlement of the West, the recital will often recall incidents of toiland peril, and frequently show the open or concealed murderer, with hisuplifted knife, or deadly gun. As a record of opinion, it will not betoo much to say, that the author's approvals are ever on the side ofvirtue, honor, and right; that misconception is sometimes prevented byit, and truth always vindicated. If he has sometimes met bad men; if hehas experienced detraction, or injustice; if even persons of goodgeneral repute have sometimes persecuted him, it is only surprising, ongeneral grounds, that the evils of this kind have not been greater ormore frequent; but it is conceived that the record of such injusticewould neither render mankind wiser nor the author happier. The "crooked"cannot be made "straight," and he who attempts it will often find thathis inordinate toils only vex his own soul. He who does the ill insociety is alone responsible for it, and if he chances not to be rebukedfor it on this imperfect theatre of human action, yet he cannot flatterhimself at all that he shall pass through a future state "scot free."The author view