A Visit to the United States in 1841 Part 15

"'n.o.body but the driver, and he was black.'

"'Did thee direct him as he requested?' asked Mr. Tyson.

"'Yes.'

"'And they arrived accordingly?'

"'Yes.'

"'Did thee follow them?'

"'No sir, not immediately--but I went this morning, and inquired whether a hack with two boys and a black driver, had not arrived late last night, and they said there had.'

"'What o'clock last night was it when thee saw the carriage?'

"'About ten, sir.'

"'Was the hack close, or were the curtains down?'

"'The curtains were down, and that increased my suspicion.'

"Mr. Tyson had now heard enough to convince him that if there was any kidnapping in this case, the trader who stood before him had a much nearer connection with it than that of a mere spectator.

"He had said in the first place that he obtained his knowledge from a trader who had been partner with the party implicated. He then stated that he derived it from seeing the kidnapped persons in a hack. And though it was ten o'clock at night, (at a time, too, as Mr. Tyson knew, when there was no moon,) yet he could not only see that these two persons were in the hack, but that they were gagged. He could not have done this by the light of a candle or the moon, because 'the hack was tight, and the curtains were down.'

"Fearing lest the suspicions of the trader might be excited as to the sentiments of Mr. Tyson towards him, an end was put to the part of the dialogue which related to the kidnapping, by saying, 'Well, I am much obliged to thee for thy information; we'll see this ----, and settle the matter with him;' and then turned the tide of conversation into a different direction.

"The same day Mr. Tyson sent for the person who was first mentioned as the person communicating the knowledge of the transaction, and asked him as to the fact of such communication.

It was positively denied. He had 'not seen the informer for six weeks, except the last evening, when he brought a hack load of negroes to the tavern where he and his partner were lodgers.'

"'Were two boys among the number?'

"'Yes.'

"'Were they gagged?'

"'Yes.'

"The moment this man left his house, Mr. Tyson went in search of bailiffs and civil process. With these he proceeded to the place where the two boys were confined, and had them and all three of the traders taken into custody.

"It turned out afterwards, in the further prosecution of this investigation, (by what testimony we do not distinctly recollect,) that the informer who first came to Mr. Tyson had himself kidnapped the two boys. He sold them to the person upon whom he had endeavored, in the manner we have detailed, to affix the whole crime; who, refusing afterward to pay their price, and yet determined to retain them, exasperated the seller to such a degree that he resolved to sacrifice him; in attempting which he sacrificed himself, for he was afterward convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary.

"During the progress of any investigation originated by Mr.

Tyson in behalf of individual freedom, his anxiety about the final issue, though concealed from the world, burned with intensity. His days were restless, his nights were sleepless, and himself, except when in company, which he avoided at those times, lost in the abstractions of hope or of despondency.

"When he succeeded, his joy was strong, but invisible or inaudible, save to the Father of all mercies. To him he never failed 'to pour out his soul' in pious thanksgivings for that he made him a humble instrument in the restoration of a fellow being to light and liberty.

"When he failed, which was seldom, after he had seriously undertaken a case, his sorrow was equally great, and as inscrutable to human observation, excepting that of the unfortunate objects of his care, who saw him mingling tears of sympathy with theirs of suffering.

"Though Mr. Tyson seldom failed in those cases which he had commenced in legal form, yet very many persons were turned hopelessly away whose cases were too groundless for adjudication; and often those who knew they had no cause for hope,--condemned to be torn from their connections and sold, as if to death, never to be heard of more,--would call merely to obtain his sympathies, as if the universe had no other friend for them.

"A man who lived with his master, in Anne Arundel county, came late one evening to Mr. Tyson, and begged that he would listen to his case. His master had promised him his freedom, provided he would raise and pay him the sum of five hundred dollars in six years; and he had earned half of the money, which he had given his master. The six years were not expired, yet he was about to be sold to Georgia. Mr. Tyson asked if 'there was any receipt for the money.' 'No.' 'Was there any witness who could prove its payment?' 'n.o.body but his master's wife.' 'Then,' said Mr. Tyson, 'the law is against thee, and thou must submit. I can do nothing for thee.' Never, said Mr. Tyson, when relating this story, shall I forget the desperate resolution which showed itself in the countenance and manner of this man when he said, with clenched fist, his eyes raised to Heaven, his whole frame bursting with the purpose of his soul, while a smile of triumph played around his lips, 'I will die before the Georgia man shall have me.' And then suddenly melting into a flood of tears, he said, 'I cannot live away from my wife and children.' After this poor fellow had left me, said Mr. Tyson, I said to a person present, 'That is no common man; he will do what he has resolved.'

"A short time afterwards, the remains of a colored person who had been drowned in the basin at Baltimore were discovered. The fact coming to the knowledge of Mr. Tyson, he went to see the body, and recognized in its features and from its dress, the remains of the unfortunate man who, a short time before, had breathed the dreadful resolution in his presence."

Such are a few of the memorials which this friend of the human race has left behind him. He was not less persevering, and scarcely less successful in his endeavors to obtain the mitigation of the slave laws in Maryland. Some of the most repulsive of these were repealed or altered, particularly those restricting manumissions. Thus the condition and the prospects of the whole body of slaves was improved, in addition to _more than two thousand_ delivered by his immediate instrumentality from illegal bondage. Hundreds of free and happy families have cause at this day to bless the memory of "Father Tyson."

He also deeply interested himself on behalf of the Indian tribes; and once in company with another individual, as a deputation from the Society of Friends in Baltimore, undertook a dangerous journey to visit several tribes 1000 miles distant, to the north-west of the Ohio. The main object of the mission was to induce the Indians to refrain from the use of ardent spirits--of whose destructive effects the chiefs were themselves fully sensible. The following affecting address was made to an a.s.sembly of "Friends" in Baltimore, by Little Turtle, a chief famous for courage, sagacity and eloquence:

"Brothers and Friends:--When our forefathers first met on this great Island, your red brethren were very numerous! But since the introduction among us of what you call spirituous liquors, and what we think may justly be called poison, our numbers are greatly diminished. It has destroyed a great part of your red brethren.

"My Brothers and Friends:--We plainly perceive, that you see the very evil which destroyed your red brethren; it is not an evil of our own making; we have not placed it among ourselves; it is an evil placed among us by the white people; we look to them to remove it out of our country. We tell them, 'Brethren, bring us useful things; bring goods that will clothe us, our women and our children; and not this evil liquor, that destroys our reason, that destroys our health, and destroys our lives.' But all we can say on this subject is of no service, nor gives relief to your red brethren.

"My Brother and Friends:--I rejoice to find that you agree in opinion with us, and express an anxiety to be, if possible, of service to us, in removing this great evil out of our country; an evil which has had so much room in it; and has destroyed so many of our lives, that it causes our young men to say, 'we had better be at war with the white people.' This liquor, which they introduce into our country, is more to be feared than the gun and the tomahawk. There are more of us dead, since the treaty of Greenville, than we lost by the six years war before. It is all owing to the introduction of this liquor amongst us.

"Brothers:--When our young men have been out hunting, and are returning home, loaded with skins and furs, on their way if it happens that they come along where some of this whiskey is deposited, the white man who sells it, tells them to take a little drink; some of them will say 'no, I do not want it;' they go on till they come to another house, where they find more of the same kind of drink; it is there offered again; they refuse; and again the third time. But finally, the fourth or fifth time, one accepts of it and takes a drink; and getting one, he wants another; and then a third, and a fourth, till his senses have left him. After his reason comes back to him again, when he gets up and finds where he is, he asks for his peltry. The answer is, 'You have drank them,' 'Where is my gun?' 'It is gone?' 'Where is my blanket?' 'It is gone.' 'Where is my s.h.i.+rt?' 'You have sold it for whiskey!!' Now, Brothers, figure to yourselves, the condition of this man. He has a family at home; a wife and children, who stand in need of the profits of his hunting. What must be their wants, when he himself is even without a s.h.i.+rt?"

The journey of Elisha Tyson and his companion, James Gillingham, occurred a few years subsequent to the interview at which the preceding speech was made. They met a council of the Indians at Fort Wayne, whom Elisha Tyson addressed to the following effect:

"He painted in glowing colors the dreadful effects of intemperance--both upon civilized and savage life--told them that they must resolve to abstain entirely from it. If they admitted it at all among them, it would soon conquer them, and reduce them to a condition worse than that of the brute creation. That not until they abandoned altogether the use of ardent spirits would they be fit subjects for civilization. If they were ready to do this he would then unfold to them the blessings of civilization--the superiority of such a condition over the one in which they then subsisted. He traced their history from the earliest period to the present time--shewed them how, as the white population had expanded itself, they had retreated into the western wilderness--that if they did not remain, but continued to retreat, in a few years they would have no territory upon this continent. In order, therefore, to their permanent establishment, he recommended to them the practice of agriculture, as a subst.i.tute for hunting. He advised them to mark out their lands, and ask advice of the agents established by the Society of Friends among them, with respect to their cultivation. They stood ready, not only with their advice, but with their a.s.sistance; they were furnished for their use with all the necessary implements of husbandry, with beasts of the plough also, and beasts of burden.

"They had come a great distance, endured much privation and fatigue in order to see them, and must endure a great deal more before they could again behold their wives and their children.

But they could bear it all with patience, nay with joy, if they could only have the satisfaction of seeing them adopt the disinterested advice which he had thus given them."

The following is one of the speeches made in reply, by White Loon, an influential chief:

"Brothers:--Ever since your great father Onas, (William Penn,) came upon this great island, the Quakers have been the friends of red men. They have proved themselves worthy of being the descendants of their great father. And now, when all the whites have forgotten that they owe any thing to us, the Quakers of Baltimore, though so far distant from us, have remembered the distressed condition of their red brethren, and interceded with the Great Spirit in our behalf.

"Brothers:--You have travelled very far to see us--you have climbed over mountains--you have swam over deep and rapid torrents--you have endured cold, and hunger, and fatigue, in order that you might have an opportunity of seeing your red brethren. For this, so long as life exists within us, we shall be very grateful.

"Brothers:--That wide region of country over which you have pa.s.sed, was once filled with red men. Then was there a plenty of deer and buffalo, and all kinds of game. But the white people came from beyond the great water; they landed in mult.i.tudes on our sh.o.r.es; they cut down our forests; they drove our warriors before them, and frightened the wild herds, so that they sought security in the deep shades of the west.

"Brothers:--These white men were not your grandfathers; for, as I said before, the sons of Onas were always the friends of red men.

"Brothers:--The whites are still advancing upon us. They have reached our territory, and have built their wigwams within our very hunting grounds. Our game is vanis.h.i.+ng away.

"Brothers:--Formerly our hunters pursued the wild deer, and the buffalo, and the bear; and when they killed them they ate their flesh for food, and used their skins as covering for themselves, their old men, their women, and their children. But now, they kill them that they may have plenty of skins and furs to sell to the white men. The consequence of this is, the game is destroyed wantonly, and faster than our necessities require.

"Brothers:--We would not mind all this, provided these skins and furs were exchanged for useful articles--for implements of husbandry, or clothes for our old men, our women, and our children. But they are too often bartered away for whiskey, that vile poison, which has sunk even Wapakee into the dust.

"Brothers:--We shall soon be under the necessity either of leaving our hunting grounds or of converting them into pastures and fields of corn. Under the kind a.s.sistance of our brothers, the Quakers, we have already proceeded a great way. You have witnessed, as you have pa.s.sed among us, the good effects of the kindness of our brothers. We are disposed to go on as we have begun, until our habits and manners, as well as the face of our country, shall be changed and look like those of the white people.

"Brothers:--Accept from us this belt of wampum and pipe of peace. And may the Great Sasteretsy, who conducted you here in safety, still go with you and restore you in peace and happiness to the arms of your women and children."