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CUSTOMS AND INDIVIDUAL TRAITS OF CHARACTER.

The more you read, and the better you understand Indian history, the more
you will be impressed with the injustice which has been done the
Iroquois, not only in dispossessing them of their inheritance, but in the
estimation which has been made of their character. They have been
represented, as seen in the transition state, the most unfavorable
possible for judging correctly. In the chapter of National Traits of
Character, I have in two or three instances quoted Washington Irving and
might again allow his opinions to relieve my own from the charge of
partiality. He says, in speaking of this same subject, that "the current
opinion of Indian character is too apt to be formed from the miserable
hordes which infest the frontiers, and hang on the shirts of settlements.
These are too commonly composed of degenerate beings, corrupted and
enfeebled by the voice of society, without being benefited by its
civilization."

"The proud independence which formed the main pillar of motive virtue has
been spoken down, and the whole moral fabric lies in ruins. The spirits
are humiliated and debased by a sense of inferiority, and their native
courage cowed and daunted by the superior knowledge and power of their
enlightened neighbors. Society has advanced upon them like one of a those
withering airs that will sometimes breed desolation over a whole region
of fertility. It has enervated their strength, multiplied their diseases,