The Lake Gun by James Fenimore Cooper
page 15 of 22 (68%)
page 15 of 22 (68%)
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American, who, after a run of six months in Europe,
returns home with the patriotic declaration in his mouth, that his native land is preferable to all other lands. Fuller soon understood the case, when both reverted to their common object in coming thither. The young Seneca thereupon resumed his explanation. {the young Indian = almost certainly based on Abraham La Fort or De-hat-ka-tons (1799-1848), an Oneida Indian who attended Geneva College in the late 1820s, but who later abandoned Christianity and returned to his traditional way of life} "These laws of the Great Spirit," continued the Seneca, "were not difficult to obey so long as the warrior was of a humble mind, and believed himself inferior to the Manitou, who had fashioned him with His hands, and placed him between the Seneca and the Cayuga, to hunt the deer and trap the beaver. But See-wise was one of those who practiced arts that you pale-faces condemn, while you submit to them. He was a demagogue among the red men, and set up the tribe in opposition to the Manitou." {See-wise = intended to represent William Henry Seward's surname} "How," exclaimed Fuller, "did the dwellers in the forest suffer by such practices?" "Men are every where the same, let the color, or the tribe, |
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