CHAPTER XIX. INDIAN SPIRITS AND THEIR BRETHREN WEST. "Better trust all, and be deceived, And weep that trust and that deceiving, FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE. WHEN alone in Nature's solitudes, Mr. Peebles frequently talks aloud with the spirits. One evening in California, stars as sentinels, he ascended a terrace of the Nevadas, and, standing there rapt in mystery, as an Apollo, addressed a vast concourse of spirits. His voice of persuasion echoed wildly through the rocky caverns and arches, leaping up into heaven, till it verily seemed that the entranced angels heard it, trembling. Several miners, passing the trail beneath, startled at the strange ideas, reported, as Aaron Nite afterwards said, that they "heard a crazy man on a mountain talking with the ghosts." In July, 1869, Mr. Peebles, Dean Clark, and ourself were the speakers at a mass meeting of three thousand persons held in Plymouth, Wis., -H. S. Benjamin, President, and E. W. McGraw, Secretary. Just as Mr. Peebles composed himself for a rest of brain, he was suddenly called on to speak. For a moment it roused a feeling of murmuring; he was about wave of inspiration swept over him. crowd, tears trickled down his cheeks. voices, which said so tenderly in sad music words, declining, when a gentle Hidden from the waiting He was listening to spirit “James, have we been so long with you, and yet you doubt our presence to aid you? See these hungry souls: rise, and speak; and he obeyed with a power. "Have we been so long with you?' rang in his ears for hours. During his visit at our rustic home on the forest shore of Elkhart Here Lake, Wis., near Glen Beulah, he made a speech to the Indian spirits who years agone inhabited that picturesque locality. we built a wigwam for literary work. He thus describes it: "Impressed from the heavenly 'hunting-grounds' of the Indians, Brother Barrett had been moved, ere we reached those regions, to fashion a quiet and beautiful retreat near the margin of these musical waters, by bending and twisting saplings, shrubs, and larger trees into a crowning cone-form, constituting a wigwam bower of prayer, a veritable temple of inspiration." One starry evening, prior to the mass meeting, the lake waves patting the wood-tangled banks, the leaves overhead keeping up a rustling tenor, several friends assembled in this wigwam; when, after a few moments of silence, he rose, and, facing the lake, gazing off into the peopled space, addressed the Indian spirits, reminded them of their sufferings, of the bloody resolution of the whites to exterminate their brethren in the West, and of his determination to defend their rights by the establishment of industrial systems of peace. How strange it seemed, that speech! and yet responsive to the soul. After the Plymouth meeting, Brother Clark was entranced by an Indian spirit who most cordially thanked the "pale-face" for his "big talk in wigwam." Such gratitude! Were there responses to these speeches? yea, in the deep silence of impression, too eloquent for human language. But how often did the Indian spirits talk to the "pale-face" through a medium, telling him all his words and deeds of love were known in the "hunting-lands," where they were making a "fine wigwam" for him, where a "pretty squaw was waiting till he come!" '' Being at a séance when Mr. Peebles was present, with Dr. Dunn for medium, we asked Powhattan about his earth and spirit life: "Me had one squaw," he said; "one pappoose, Kanawaubish, ‘pretty water:' you call my pappoose Poc-a-hon-tas! "Me Indian; me no speak like white man; me got nice wigwam, nice canoe, and bow and arrow; me hunt; me sleep under sky; me have for me bed the Big Spirit HuntingGround; me blanket is the blue heaven; me music is the breath of the Big Spirit, as he blows leaves of trees. In morning time, the Big Spirit look out from his windows [eyes], and the Indian kiss the dew from his forehead." In the winter of 1868, Mr. Peebles lectured in St. Louis and cities farther west, where his whole soul was stirred to intense action in defense of the Indians, whom the whites in all that region were determined to exterminate. It called down upon him the ire of officials and pseudo-Spiritualists. He had been years before vicepresident of the Universal Peace Society, and a most efficient worker. True to his instincts, he went forth on his love-errand. He wrote the following letter to his friend, A. H. Love, president of the society: "Passing down the main street of Leavenworth, I saw a recruiting office; and reaching Topeka, on board the train for Lawrence were four cars loaded with cavalry officers. I saw the whitened tents of the soldiery. The army was awaiting orders to march upon the Indians. Oh, how my heart ached and my soul bled! Constituting myself a peace commissioner, I immediately called upon Gov. Crawford and the State marshal, and protested, in kindness yet in great firmness, against this proposed movement to be conducted by Gen. Sheridan. I went on still west from Topeka, towards Colorado, conversing with Judge Humphrey, Col. Smith, and other army officers. It seemed as though God's angels aided me in thought and speech. These officers admitted the wisdom and beauty of my humanitarian position; but they were 'Utopian, and impracticable,' they said; ' and adapted to times a hundred years hence.' . "Perhaps I am too enthusiastic for the red man, our brother, God's child. Perhaps I am too enthusiastic for peace throughout the world. But my soul's sympathies are stirred; and now, while I pen these lines, my eyes are suffused with tears. "Can not there be something done to flank this Western war-movement? It must start in the East. The extreme West is red for blood. "I am sorely tried. The Commissioners, save Col. S. F. Tappan, seem inclined to take retrograde steps. It is impossible to get to the Indians now personally: they suspect every body. If there could be a delegation gotten up in some way, in connection with the 'Peace Commissioners,' having the sanction of Government, I think something might be done; but between now and spring, how many will be shot down by a barbarous soldiery! I sometimes feel like flying away from this Christian civilization, so false to justice and benevolence, and going off alone into their country, devoting my life to their good." About this time, reporting his Western experiences to "The Banner of Light," he tells the story in these stinging words: "Stopping at the Planters' Hotel, Leavenworth, Kan., a very intelligent gentleman, just from Denver City, informed us, that, in an adjacent village, the citizens a few weeks previous had 'burned Gen. Sherman in effigy,' because connected with the Indian Peace Commission. He further said, it was the general purpose of the people in that region to kill indiscriminately Indian men, women, and children; for, he added, it takes but a little time for 'pappooses to make warriors.” "In several Kansas cities recruiting offices were in full operation. Our train from Leavenworth to Lawrence had four cars filled with cavalry horses, for the coming war of extermination. Just to the north-east of Topeka, in full view, was the tented soldiery of the 19th Kansas, waiting the arrival of other companies for further orders. Inviting a gentleman to accompany us to the Indian country and the Western forts, he refused, because of the nightly depredations of the soldiers tenting near Topeka. 'Why,' said he, 'they are stealing every thing they can lay their hands on!' Strange, thought we, that Government should send out a thieving Christian soldiery to exterminate thieving Indians. It is the old Bible story and practice of the Israelites going into the lands of the Canaanites and Moabites to pillage and destroy. Our Christianity is galvanized Judaism; and our political policy, greedy for power and pelf, winks approval at the most horrid injustice. Whither are we drifting? "Gov. Crawford of Kansas recently issued a proclamation savoring little of the tender, loving, forgiving spirit of Jesus, — good for evil, love for hate, blessing for cursing. Here follows the closing paragraph: "Longer to forbear with these bloody fiends would be a crime against civilization, ard against the peace, security, and lives of all the people upon the frontier. The time has come when they must be met by an adequate force, not only to prevent the repetition cf these outrages, but to penetrate their haunts, break up their organizations, and either exterminate the tribes, or confine them upon reservations set apart for their occupancy. To this end the Major-General commanding this department has called upon the Executive for a regiment of cavalry from this State. "Mark the phrase, 'bloody fiends,' and the executive threat of 'extermination,' if they are not forced on to reservations! "A professed Spiritualist of Lawrence, in a tongue-battle with us touching the solution of the Indian question, exclaimed, 'I would to God that every one of those Indian Peace Commissioners [among which were Gens. Sherman, Harney, Augur, Terry, and others] was obliged to go out on the plains, and be scalped by the red-skins ! Are such sentiments in accordance with the genius of Spiritualism? Would it not be wisdom in Spiritualist lecturers to devote more time to educating and spiritualizing thousands of nominał Spiritualists, rather than encompassing sea and land to make new converts, who, when converted, often need re-converting every six months by a fresh batch of tests? Quality is often preferable to quantity.” The next winter, Mr. Peebles, lecturing in Washington, D.C., was invited to a position as volunteer in the "Congressional Indian Peace Commission," consisting of Gens. Harney, Sheridan, Sherman, Sanborn, Taylor, Col. Parker, and Col. S. F. Tappan, to visit the Indians, then fighting with the whites in the Sioux and Rocky Mountain regions; for the purpose of organizing treaties, stopping the shedding of blood, and befriending them in their natural rights to a living on the American continent. He gathered up the testimony of Senators Doolittle, Foster, Nesbith, Sherman, Gen. Pope, and others, who averred, that, if the facts of the whites' rascality to the Indians" were published to the world, they would disgrace us in the eyes of all civilized nations." He quoted from the speeches of Indian chiefs, asking for justice; talked with W. P. Ross, chief of Cherokees, and other educated Indians, who demonstrate their capacity to be civilized; consulted John Beeson, the Indian's friend; and, with burning words, said, in an editorial of "The Banner of Light," "Our Saxon face is mantled with shame, and soul humbled in deepest humiliation, at the individual and associate crimes that blot the escutcheon of this great, wicked Christian country, called United States of America. Crimes red as blood, vindictive as death, and black as the cinders of Pluto's pit; crimes willful, determined, and continuous too, against the Indian tribes of the West, North-west, and South-west! Is justice, is philanthropy, dead? Is progress a dream? and sympathy a mere historic legend? Our heart aches; our tears flow. God, angels, American citizens of the better thought and life, tell us what we can, what we ought, to do to check this nation from further cheating, swindling, sacking, shooting, slaughtering, and murdering, through its officers, superintendents, and agents, the three hundred thousand remaining aborigines of this country? A government is responsible for the agents it employs and pays. In this country the people, with ballot in hand, are the government: accordingly you, readers, directly or indirectly, are responsible for the defrauding and murdering of those red men west of the Mississippi. "This Indian question is all the more grave at present from the consideration that the two waves of population between the Pacific and Atlantic coasts are soon to meet. Way-stations will dot Western mountains. A railroad will span the extremes, and a peaceable transit through these mountainous regions will be indispensable. The only way to secure such will be by the exercise of blended justice and kindness, — kindness and sympathy, not revenge; love, not hate; mercy, not vindictiveness; integrity, sincerity, and peace; deeds of purity and fraternity, rather than murderous acts of exter mination. "William Penn had no difficulty with the Indians. They knew - know their friends. The English government in Canada has never had an Indian war, nor has a life been lost, by an Indian massacre. They live in peaceful relations with their white neighbors. Tribes have centered into Indian villages, around which the grass is green, and orchards bud, bloom, and bear their fruitage. "Our Government must give those three hundred thousand Indians the protection of law; must give them a civil-rights bill; must treat them as men; must give them individual and permanent right in the soil; must grant them their annuities, and guard them against thieving agents, trafficking vagabonds, and a murderous soldiery: for they are God's children, and our brothers. This course pursued, and a continuous peace is secured with pur red brothers of the West, brothers originally noble in nature, firm in their friendships, and keen in their perceptions of the principles of natural justice. "Though treated as they have been by the whites, those that tread the shadowlands of eternity are returning good for evil by descending from their hunting-ground homes in the heavens, with balms of healing, and words of love and cheer. Hours, days, months, in the past, have we talked with Powhattan, through the organism of a medium friend, relative to the past, present, and future of the Indians upon this continent. 'Tis only justice to say, we have ever found this chief the very soul of simplicity, tenderness, truthfulness, and a genuine magnanimity. Blessings be upon Powhattan, Red Jacket, Tecumseh, Black Hawk, Thunder, Logan, Little Crow, Antelope, and all Indian spirits that are shedding their healing magnetisms and peace-influences upon the inhabitants of earth." In April, he started with these commissioners for the Far West, This is an extract from an editorial reporting his experiences: "In Dakota Territory, near the confluence of the north and south forks of the Platte, we were privileged to sit with the Commission in an Indian Council. It was a novel scene, and every movement deeply interesting. The first glance at the Brulle Chief 'Spotted Tail,' the sub-chiefs and warriors present, inclined us to silently exclaim, 'What splendidly-molded forms! How dignified their bearing! These are truly men of health and of muscle; men of very large perceptive faculties, and magnificent noses, |