Item 003

PICTURES OF INDIAN LIFE

May 1, 1858, pages 280-281 (Illustrated Article)

We have much pleasure in presenting our readers with the accompanying beautiful pictures of Indian Life, by Felix O. C. Darley, Esq. Of all the artists who have made Indian life their study Mr. Darley has been, without doubt, the most successful. Old Indian traders have been heard to declare that the young artist must have spent most of his life in the Indian country, so admirably has he caught its "couleur locale" and peculiar characteristics.

The first of the pictures may be viewed as an illustration of a terrible tragedy which took place in 1832, in Illinois. In the words of a correspondent:

"In the year 1828, while the Kickapoo Indians were moving West from Illinois, a party of them camped on Spoon River, and spent some time in hunting.

"In the midst of this season of enjoyment—the last they would have before leaving the grounds forever—some white men, with no fear of God or man before their eyes, seized one of the young Indians and gave him a thrashing with a hickory sprout. Had they shot him the deed might have been forgiven, but the indignity of a flogging was more than they could bear, and the spirit of revenge rankled and festered in their red bosoms. Years wore away, and long leagues lay between them and their foes, but the memory of the offense was kept alive with the fires of revenge.

"It came at last, the time of vengeance. In May of 1832 the young Indian heard that the Sack and Fox Indians, under Black Hawk, were about to make war upon the whites. Rousing himself to the spirit of the hour, he called on his tribe to revenge his wrong, and to wipe out their disgrace in white man’s blood. Nineteen redskins, brave and cruel, offered themselves to the work of vengeance. He went to Black Hawk and proffered the band of twenty warriors, with four of the Potawatomie tribe who joined them; and being gladly accepted by the great chieftain, they waited for the hour of expiation to arrive.

"This little band, with less of the daring, but not less of the blood-thirstiness, of their fathers, were sent to watch the country from the head-waters of Indian Creek, south and west, to Spoon River, the scene of the deed they were now sworn to revenge. A hundred miles they marched, through a country inhabited by three thousand whites, till they came to the head of Indian Creek, in Lasalle County, Illinois, where they found three families dwelling in fancied security, and dreaming not that these infernal wretches were prowling at their doors. These were the families of Mr. Davis, Mr. Petticu, and Mr. Hall, and the three men together, near the house of one of them, when the Indians fired upon them, killed them all, and, rushing upon their defenseless homes, murdered sixteen of the inmates in cold blood! Their work was complete, and their errand done. Two beautiful young women were spared the fate of their parents and friends. Together with some choice cattle, they were seized and carried in triumph to the camp of Black Hawk. Here they were treated with respect, and detained as prisoners to be given as wives to the young Indian whose beating had now been so gloriously revenged. Happily for them they were saved from this doom, to them more dreadful than death itself, by the exertions of the noble Colonel Dodge, of Wisconsin.

"I was a trader among the Indians at the time, and know these facts to be true. They have never been published; but so strikingly do they illustrate the Indian character, they deserve to be recorded.

"Yours truly, W."

The other two pictures represent the "War-Trail" and the "Buffalo Hunt." We consider the former one of Mr. Darley’s happiest delineations of Indian character. The prostrate figure of the man who is listening on the earth for the foot-fall of the enemy—the eager gaze of his followers—their crouching attitude—tell a tale of some fearful tragedy. The "Buffalo Hunt" is also a striking and effective scene, and will no doubt fire the blood of our sportsman readers.

These pictures will do no injury to the high reputation which Mr. Darley has won by his former illustrations of Indian life.

May 1, 1858, pages 280-281 (Illustrated Article)

This site is brought to you by…