Our humble community along the Santee had suffered the worst privations
of their times and people. But, beyond the necessity of hard labor,
they had little to deplore, at the outset, in their new condition.
They had been schooled sufficiently by misfortune to have acquired humility.
They observed, accordingly, in their new relations, a policy equally
prudent and sagacious. More flexible in their habits than the English,
they conciliated the latter by deference; and, soothing the unruly passions
of the Indians -- the Santee and Sewee tribes, who were still
in considerable numbers in their immediate neighborhood --
they won them to alliance by kindness and forbearance. From the latter,
indeed, they learned their best lessons for the cultivation of the soil.
That, upon which they found themselves, lay in the unbroken forest.
The high lands which they first undertook to clear, as less stubborn,
were most sterile; and, by a very natural mistake, our Frenchmen
adopted the modes and objects of European culture; the grains,
the fruits and the vegetables, as well as the implements,
to which they had been accustomed. The Indians came to their succor,
taught them the cultivation of maize, and assisted them in the preparation
of their lands; in return for lessons thought equally valuable by the savages,
to whom they taught, along with gentler habits and morals,
a better taste for music and the dance! To subdue the forest, of itself,
to European hands, implied labors not unlike those of Hercules.
But the refugees, though a gentle race, were men of soul and strength,
capable of great sacrifices, and protracted self-denial.
Accommodating themselves with a patient courage to the necessities
before them, they cheerfully undertook and accomplished their tasks.
We have more than one lively picture among the early chroniclers
of the distress and hardship which they were compelled to encounter
at the first. But, in this particular, there was nothing peculiar