The Care and Labour of providing for Artificial and
Fashionable Wants, the sight of so many rich wallowing in
Superfluous plenty, whereby so many are kept poor and
distressed for Want, the Insolence of Office . . . and
restraints of Custom, all contrive to disgust them [Indians]
with what we call civil Society.
Benjamin Franklin, marginalia in Matthew
When the news that the war with France had been won
reached Philadelphia, church bells and ceremonial cannon
called the people into the streets for the customary
celebration. The city, now the second largest in the British
Empire with 20,000 people, was entering its golden age as
the commercial and political center of the Atlantic
Seaboard. Now, history seemed to promise it a role as gem
of an entire continent, or at least that small part of it
settled by Europeans and their descendants.
Benjamin
Franklin, fifty-seven years old and four decades a
Philadelphian, was by 1763 unquestionably the city's first
citizen. Because of his diplomacy with the Iroquois, which
helped procure the victory his compatriots now celebrated,
Franklin had gone to London to represent the colony at the
Royal Court. His wit and wisdom, his talent for diplomacy
and municipal organization, his business talents and his
scientific achievements -- all had earned for Franklin a
reputation on both sides of the Atlantic. He was at the
peak of an enormously diverse and productive professional
life.
Not
long after the last bell chime of celebration had died
away, however, was there new trouble on the frontier, and
new problems for Franklin, who never lost the empathy for
the Indians he had acquired first by publishing treaty
accounts, then by taking part in treaty councils. Following
the eviction of the French, the Iroquois and their allies
had lost their leverage as a balance of power. The British
now had them surrounded, at least in theory. Hundreds, then
thousands, of immigrants, most of them Scotch-Irish, were
moving through the passes of the Appalachians, into the
Ohio country, taking what seemed to them the just spoils
of war. This wasn't, however, French territory. Even by
the Crown's law, it still belonged to the Iroquois and
their allies. As the illegal migration continued, the
covenant chain rusted badly.
British
officials, who always kept a hawk's eye on the
expense accounts of their Indian agents, cut gift gifting
drastically, even for items (such as lead) on which many
Indians had grown dependent. Rumors ran through the
Indian country that the Great Father across the water was
going to kill all the beaver, starve the Indians, and make
slaves of them. The younger warriors of many nations
became restless, ready to address the problem, even if it
cost them their lives. Canassatego, Hendrick, and Weiser,
three among many who had maintained the alliance, were
dead. In the Grand Council at Onondaga, the sachems
argued and the confederacy quivered. In the West,
Pontiac fashioned his own alliance and went to war
against the squatters.
When
the news reached the Pennsylvania frontier that
Indians were laying a track of blood through the Ohio
Valley, a hunger for revenge arose among the new
settlers. They organized vigilante groups and declared
virtual secession from the Quaker capital. There the
assembly, without an army, was doing all it could in a
nonviolent way, to restrain the pellmell rush across the
mountains until land could be acquired by treaty. Without
loyalty to or even knowledge of the old understandings,
the new settlers would neither wait for diplomacy nor be
bound by decrees.
On
December 14, 1763, fifty-seven vigilantes from Paxton
and Donegal, two frontier towns, rode into Conestoga Manor,
an Indian settlement, and killed six of twenty Indians
living there. Two weeks later, more than 200 "Paxton Men"
(as they were now called) invaded Lancaster, where the
remaining fourteen Conestoga Indians had been placed in a
workhouse for their own protection. Smashing in the
workhouse door as the outnumbered local militia looked on,
the Paxton Men killed the rest of the Conestoga band,
leaving the bodies in a heap within sight of the places
where the Anglo-Iroquois alliance had been cemented less
than two decades before.
The
day before that massacre, Governor William Penn had
relayed to the Pennsylvania assembly reports that the
Paxton Men's next target would be Philadelphia itself,
where they planned to slaughter 140 Indians at Province
Island. The governor, citing "attacks on government,"
asked General Gage to delegate British troops to his
Colonial command. Penn also wrote hastily to William
Johnson, begging him to break the news of the massacres
to the Grand Council at Onondaga "by the properest
method."
Franklin
responded to the massacres with the most
enraged piece of penmanship ever to come off his press
-- A Narrative of the Late Massacres in Lancaster
County of a Number of Indians, Friends of this Province,
by Persons Unknown. The essay, published in late
January 1764, displayed a degree of entirely humorless
anger that Franklin rarely used in his writings:
Franklin began his essay by noting that the Conestogas,
a dying remnant of the Iroquois confederacy, had been
surrounded by frontier settlements, and had dwindled to
twenty people, "viz. 7 Men, 5 Women and 8 Children,
Boys and Girls, living in Friendship with their White
Neighbors, who love them for their peaceable inoffensive
Behavior."
Listing
most of the victims by name, Franklin wrote that
many had adopted the names of "such English persons as
they particularly esteem." He provided capsule
biographies to show just how inoffensive the Indians had
been: "Betty, a harmless old woman and her son, Peter,
a likely young Lad."
As
Franklin reconstructed the story, the Paxton Men had
gathered in the night, surrounding the village at
Conestoga Manor, then riding into it at daybreak, "firing
upon, stabbing and hatcheting to death" the three men,
two women, and one young boy they found. The other
fourteen Indians were visiting white neighbors at the
time, some to sell brooms and baskets they had made,
others to socialize. After killing the six Indians, the
vigilantes "scalped and otherwise horribly mangled," them,
then burned the village to the ground before riding off
in several directions to foil detection.
Two
weeks later, when the scene was repeated at the
Lancaster workhouse, the Indians, according to Franklin's
account, "fell to their Knees, protesting their Love of
the English . . . and in this Posture they all received
the Hatchet. Men, Women, little Children -- were every
one inhumanely murdered -- in cold Blood!" While some
Indians might be "rum debauched and trader corrupted,"
wrote Franklin, the victims of this massacre were
innocent of any crime against the English.
At
considerable length, Franklin went on to reflect on
the qualities of savagery and civility, using the
massacres to illustrate his point: that no race had a
monopoly on virtue. To Franklin, the Paxton Men had
behaved like "Christian White Savages." He cried out to
a just God to punish those who carried the Bible in one
hand and the hatchet in the other: "O ye unhappy
Perpetrators of this Horrid Wickedness!"
On
February 4, a few days after Franklin's broadside hit
the streets, the assembly heard more reports that
several hundred vigilantes were assembling at Lancaster
to march on Philadelphia, and Province Island, to
slaughter the Indians encamped there. Governor Penn,
recalling Franklin's talent at raising a volunteer
militia, hurried to the sage's three-story brick house
on Market Street at midnight. Breathlessly climbing the
stairs, a retinue of aides in tow, he humbly asked
Franklin's help in organizing an armed force to meet the
assault from the frontier. To Franklin, the moment was
delicious, for eight years before Penn had been
instrumental in getting British authorities to order the
abolition of Franklin's volunteer militia.
During
two days of frenzied activity, Franklin's house
became the military headquarters of the province. An
impromptu militia of Quakers was raised and armed, and
Franklin traveled westward to the frontier with a
delegation to face down the frontier insurgents. As
Franklin later explained in a letter to Lord Kames,
the Scottish philosopher:
While
his timely mobilization may have saved the 140
Indians' lives, the sage's actions drained his political
capital among whites, especially on the frontier.
Such
actions "made myself many enemies among the
populace," Franklin wrote. What Franklin called "the
whole weight of the proprietary interest" joined against
him to "get me out of the Assembly, which was
accordingly effected in the last
election. . . ." Franklin was sent off to England during
early November 1764, "being accompanied to the Ship, 16
miles, by a Cavalcade of three Hundred of my friends, who
filled our sails with their good Wishes." A month later,
Franklin began work as Pennsylvania's agent to the Crown.
The
rest of the decade was a time of instability on the
frontier. Franklin was in frequent correspondence with
his son, William Franklin, and with William Johnson, who
kept the elder Franklin posted on problems they
encountered with squatters. Johnson wrote to Franklin
July 10, 1766: "I daily dread a Rupture with the Indians
occasioned by the Licentious Conduct of the frontier
Inhabitants who continue to Rob and Murder
them." William wrote to his father three days
later: "There have been lately several Murders of
Indians in the different Provinces. Those committed in
this Province will be duly enquired into, and the
Murderers executed, as soon as found guilty. They are
all apprehended and secured in Gaol."
For
the rest of his life, shuttling between America,
England, and France on various diplomatic assignments,
Franklin continued to develop his philosophy with
abundant references to the Indian societies he had
observed so closely during his days as envoy to the Six
Nations. Franklin's combination of indigenous American
thought and European heritage earned him the title
among his contemporaries as America's first
philosopher. In Europe, he was sometimes called "the
philosopher as savage."[1]
"Franklin
could not help but admire the proud, simple
life of America's native inhabitants," wrote Conner in
Poor Richard's Politicks (1965). "There was a
noble quality in the stories . . . which he told of
their hospitality and tolerance, of their oratory and
pride." Franklin, said Conner, saw in Indians' conduct
"a living symbol of simplicity and 'happy
mediocrity . . .' exemplifying essential aspects of the
Virtuous Order." Depiction of this "healthful,
primitive morality could be instructive for
transplanted Englishmen, still doting on 'foreign
Geegaws'; 'happiness,' Franklin wrote, 'is more
generally and equally diffused among savages than in
our civilized societies.'"
"Happy
mediocrity" meant striking a compromise between
the overcivilization of Europe, with its distinctions
between rich and poor and consequent corruption, and the
egalitarian, democratic societies of the Indians that
formed a counterpoint to European monarchy. The Virtuous
Order would combine both, borrowing from Europe arts,
sciences, and mechanical skills, taking from the Indians
aspects of the natural society that Franklin and others
believed to be a window on the pasts of other cultures,
including those from which the colonists had come. There
is in the writings of Franklin, as well as those of
Jefferson, a sense of using the Indian example to
recapture natural rights that Europeans had lost under
monarchy. The European experience was not to be
reconstructed on American soil. Instead, Franklin (as
well as Jefferson) sought to erect an amalgam, a
combination of indigenous American Indian practices and
the cultural heritage that the new Americans had
carried from Europe. In discussing the new culture,
Franklin and others drew from experience with native
Americans, which was more extensive than that of the
European natural rights philosophers. The American
Indians' theory and practice affected Franklin's
observations on the need for appreciation of diverse
cultures and religions, public opinion as the basis for
a polity, the nature of liberty and happiness, and the
social role of property. American Indians also appear
frequently in some of Franklin's scientific
writings. At a time much less specialized than the
twentieth century, Franklin and his associates (such
as Colden and Jefferson) did not think it odd to cross
from philosophy to natural science to practical politics.
Franklin's
sense of cultural relativism often led him to
see events from an Indian perspective, as when he advocated
Colonial union and regulation of the Indian trade at the
behest of the Iroquois. His relativism was expressed
clearly in the opening lines of an essay, "Remarks
Concerning the Savages of North America," which may have
been written as early as the 1750s (following Franklin's
first extensive personal contact with Indians) but was not
published until 1784.
In
this essay, Franklin also observed that "education"
must be measured against cultural practices and needs:
Franklin illustrated this point by recounting an exchange
between the commissioners of Virginia and the Iroquois at
the 1744 Lancaster treaty council. The account of the
treaty, written by Conrad Weiser, reported that the
Virginia commissioners asked the Iroquois to send a few
of their young men to a college in Williamsburg (probably
William and Mary) where "they would be well provided for,
and instructed in the Learning of the White People." The
Iroquois took the matter under advisement for a day (to
be polite, Franklin indicated) and answered the Virginia
commissioners July 4, the same day that Canassatego
advised the colonists to form a union. Canassatego
answered for the Iroquois a few minutes after his
advice regarding the union:
Franklin's essay was taken almost exactly from the 1744
treaty account published by his Philadelphia press during
that year; in the essay, Franklin related that Canassatego
told the commissioners that his people had had experience
with such proposals before. "Several of our young people
were formerly brought up at the Colleges of the Northern
Provinces," the sachem said. "They were instructed in all
your Sciences, but when they came back to us, they were
bad Runners, ignorant of every means of living in the
Woods, unable to bear either cold or hunger. . . ." The
young men educated in Euro-American schools were "good for
nothing," Canassatego asserted. In Franklin's account,
Canassatego not only turned down the commissioner's offer
with polite firmness, but made a counter-offer
himself: "If the Gentlemen of Virginia will send us a
Dozen of their Sons, we will take great care of their
Education, instruct them in all we know, and make Men of
them."
Franklin's
"Remarks Concerning the Savages" shows an
appreciation of the Indian councils, which he had written
were superior in some ways to the British
Parliament. "Having frequent Occasion to hold public
Councils, they have acquired great Order and Decency in
conducting them. . . . The women . . . are the Records of
the Council . . . who take exact notice of what passes
and imprint it in their Memories, to communicate it to
their Children." Franklin also showed appreciation of the
sharpness of memory fostered by reliance on oral
communication: "They preserve traditions of Stipulations
in Treaties 100 Years back; which, when we compare with
our writings, we always find exact." When a speaker at an
Indian council (the reference was probably to the Iroquois)
had completed his remarks, he was given a few minutes to
recollect his thoughts, and to add anything that might have
been forgotten. "To interrupt another, even in common
Conversation, is reckon'd highly indecent. How different
this is to the conduct of a polite British House of Commons,
where scarce a day passes without some Confusion, that
makes the Speaker hoarse in calling to Order." Indian
customs in conversation were reflected in Poor Richard
for 1753, the year of Franklin's first diplomatic
assignment, to negotiate the Carlisle Treaty: "A pair of
good Ears will drain dry a Thousand Tongues." Franklin
also compared this Indian custom favorably with "the Mode
of Conversation of many polite Companies of Europe, where,
if you do not deliver your Sentence with great Rapidity,
you are cut off in the middle of it by the impatient
Loquacity of those you converse with, and never suffer'd
to finish it!" Some white missionaries had been confused
by Indians who listened to their sermons patiently, and
then refused to believe them, Franklin wrote.
To
Franklin, the order and decorum of Indian councils
were important to them because their government relied on
public opinion: "All their Government is by Counsel of
the Sages; there is no Force, there are no Prisons, no
officers to compel Obedience, or inflict
Punishment." Indian leaders study oratory, and the best
speaker had the most influence, Franklin observed. In
words that would be echoed by Jefferson, Franklin used
the Indian model as an exemplar of government with a
minimum of governance. This sort of democracy was
governed not by fiat, but by public opinion and
consensus-creating custom:
Franklin
also compared the Indians' offers of free lodging
and food for visitors to the customs of Euro-Americans. The
Iroquois kept guest houses for travelers. This custom was
contrasted by Franklin with Indians' treatment in white
towns. He recounted a conversation between Conrad Weiser
and Canassatego, who were close friends. In that
conversation, Canassatego said to Weiser:
Franklin
was also given to affecting Indian speech
patterns in some of his writings, another indication that
his respect for diverse cultures enhanced his
understanding of the Indians with whom he often
associated. In 1787, he described the American political
system in distinctly Iroquoian terms to an unnamed Indian
correspondent:
Franklin was also fond of calling on the Great Spirit when
he could do so in appreciative company.
Religious
self-righteousness and pomposity was a favorite
target of Franklin's pen, and he often used Indians to
illustrate the religious relativism that was basic to his own
Deistic faith. Deism, a religion that more than any other
was prototypical of the Enlightenment frame of mind,
emphasized naturalism, natural man, and rational inquiry,
all of which finely complemented Franklin's interests in
Indian cultures. Like Colden before him and Jefferson after
him, Franklin often used his Deist beliefs to stress the
universality of moral sense among peoples, and to break
down ethnocentricity. Many of the people who were closest
to the Indians during this period were Deists; calling on
the Great Spirit was not at all out of character for them.
According
to Alfred O. Aldridge (Benjamin Franklin and
Nature's God, 1967), Deism involved belief in the
superiority of "natural religion" as opposed to "the hollow
formalism of Christianity." Deism formed an ideal
complement to the natural rights philosophy that was so
important in Enlightenment thought. According to Aldridge,
Franklin's early Articles of Belief (1728) showed
that, early in his life, many of his religious beliefs
resembled those of several American Indians. At that time,
Franklin even accepted polytheism. Although he later
acknowledged monotheism, Franklin never lost his critical
eye toward conventional Christianity. Aldridge found in
Franklin's "Remarks Concerning the Savages of North
America" an abundant satire of religious proselytizing
and economic imperialism.
In
his "Remarks Concerning the Savages . . ." Franklin
described a Swedish minister who lectured a group of
Susquehanah Indians on the story of the creation,
including "the Fall of our first parents from eating an
Apple, the coming of Christ to repair the Mischief, his
Miracles and Suffering &c." The Indians replied that it
was, indeed, bad to eat apples, when they could have been
made into cider. They then repaid the missionary's
storytelling favor by telling him their own creation
story. The missionary was aghast at this comparison of
Christianity with what he regarded as heathenism and,
according to Franklin, replied: "What I delivered to you
are Sacred Truths, but what you tell me is mere Fable,
Fiction and Falsehood." The Indians, in turn, told the
missionary that he was lacking in manners:
In
the same essay, Franklin commented on the use of
religion as a cover for economic exploitation. Again he
used Canassatego, in conversations related to Franklin by
Weiser. According to Franklin, Canassatego asked
Weiser: "Conrad, you have lived long among the white
People, and know something of their Customs. I have
sometimes been to Albany and noticed that once in Seven
Days they shut up their shops and assemble in the Great
House; tell me: what is it for?"
Weiser
was said by Franklin to have replied: "They meet
there to learn Good Things."
Canassatego
had no doubt that the town merchants were
hearing "good things" in the church, but he doubted that all
those good things were purely religious. He had recently
visited Albany to trade beaver pelts for blankets, knives,
powder, rum, and other things. He asked a merchant, Hans
Hanson, about trading, and Hanson told the sachem that he
couldn't talk business because it was time for the meeting
to hear good things in the great house. After the merchants
returned from the church, Canassatego found that all of
them had fixed the price of beaver at three shillings
sixpence a pound. "This made it clear to me, that my
suspicion was right; and that whatever they pretended of
meeting to learn Good Things, the real purpose was to
consult how to cheat Indians in the Price of Beaver," the
sachem said, according to Franklin's account.
In
Poor Richard for 1751, Franklin wrote: "To
Christians bad rude Indians we prefer/ 'Tis better not to
know than knowing err." Unlike Franklin, many English
Deists had never seen an Indian, but they, too, often
assumed that "the American natives would have a religion
akin to Deism -- one based on the commonly observed
phenomena of nature and dedicated to the worship of
Nature's God," Aldridge wrote. Franklin saw the
similarity of his own faith to that of Indians confirmed
through personal experience. Deists, like Franklin, who
sought to return "to the simplicity of nature" appeared
to see things worth emulating in Indian societies.
Franklin's
use of Canassatego, to twit conventional
Christianity, was not unique in his time. Satirists on
both sides of the Atlantic used the testaments of real
or fictitious Indians to deflate the righteousness of
clerics; did the Indians not have their own theories
of the earth's origin?
Canassatego
also figured importantly in an elaborate
hoax intended to ridicule conventional Christianity, which
appeared in the London Chronicle in June 1768. The
hoax involved a review of a nonexistent book, The
Captivity of William Henry. The fake review was not
signed, so it is not possible to prove that Franklin wrote
it. Whoever did concoct the hoax knew quite a bit about
Iroquois society and customs, which made Franklin an
obvious candidate. The style of the hoax fits Franklin,
but some rather obvious errors point away from Franklin's
authorship. For example, William Henry was purportedly
taken captive in 1755 when he met Canassatego, who, in
point of fact, had died in 1750. Regardless of its
authorship, the hoax illustrated the use that was made
of Indians as a counterpoint to conventional Christianity
at the time. Such publications tended to legitimatize
religious pluralism.
As
they sought a middle ground between the corrupting
overcivilization of Europe and the simplicity of the state
of nature in which they believed that many Indians lived,
Franklin and other Deists paid abundant attention to the
political organization of the Indians, especially the
Iroquois, who were not only the best organized Indian polity
with which British Americans had contact, but who were
also allied with them. "Franklin had the conception of an
original, pre-political state of nature in which men were
absolutely free and equal -- a condition he thought
admirably illustrated among the American Indians," Eiselen
wrote in Franklin's Political Theories
(1928). Franklin himself wrote: "Their
wants . . . [are] supplied by the spontaneous
Productions of Nature" and that they did not at
all want to be "civilized."
This
state of nature was eagerly sought by many
eighteenth-century Euro-Americans. To understand how
many Europeans left their own cultures to live with
the Indians is to realize just how permeable the
frontier was. To those who remained behind, it was
often rumored that those who had gone over to the
Indians had been "captured." While some captives were
taken, more often the whites took up Indian life
without compulsion. As Franklin wrote to Peter
Collinson May 9, 1753:
While Indians did not seem to have much inclination to
exchange their culture for the Euro-American, many
Euro-Americans appeared more than willing to become
Indians at this time:
With so many white people willingly becoming associated
with Indian societies, it was not difficult for thoughts and
customs practiced behind the frontier to leak back into the
colonies.
Franklin's
interest in America's indigenous peoples was
not restricted to their social and political systems. Like
many European and American scientists of his time,
Franklin was interested in tracing the origins of these
"natural men" who figure so importantly in the thought of
the Enlightenment. Since they were believed to be living in
a state that approximated the origins of all peoples, Indians
made fascinating objects of scientific study. Franklin, an
anthropologist before the discipline had a name, engaged
in the collection of Indian grammars, an activity practiced
on both sides of the Atlantic during the eighteenth
century. By the end of the century, missionaries, natural
scientists, and others had produced dozens of grammars in
many Indian languages of varying length and accuracy, one
indication of the Enlightenment era's intense fascination
with the peoples of the New World. Thomas Jefferson,
George Washington, and others collected the grammars
and searched for words that might resemble concepts or
phrases in English, French, German, Welsh, Yiddish, or
other European languages. Many popular theories supposed
that various Indian tribes might have descended from the
Welsh, or the Jews, or the Celts, and linguistic ties were
believed to support those theories.
As
a scientist Franklin also vigorously opposed degeneracy
theories, an intellectual export from Europe. These
theories were developed to their highest form in France as
a reaction to the myth of the "Noble Savage," which
flourished in the same nation at the same time. According
to the theory of degeneracy, America's climate degraded
all life forms that existed there. Plants, animals,
Indians, and transplanted Europeans were all said to be
subject to this debilitating influence. Franklin thought
otherwise. In 1772, he replied to assertions by de Pauw
and Count de Buffon, writing to an unnamed French
friend: "Les Américains ne le cédent ni en
force, ni en courage, ni en d'esprit aux
Européens." Franklin had too much personal contact
to accept either the conception of the Noble Savage or the
degeneracy argument. Unlike the Europeans who argued over
land and people most of them had never seen, Franklin knew
both well, and this knowledge produced in his writings
about America and American Indians a pragmatism that many
Europeans lacked.
"The
savage," wrote de Buffon, "is feeble and has small
organs of generation. He has neither hair nor beard, and no
ardor whatever for his female." To de Buffon, Indians were
also "less sensitive, and yet more timid and cowardly . . .
[with] no activity of mind." If not forced to move in order to
survive, Indians "will rest stupidly . . . lying down for
several days." Indians, wrote de Buffon, "look upon their
wives . . . only as beasts of burden." The men, in de
Buffon's analysis, lacked sexual capacity: "Nature, by
refusing him the power of love, has treated him worse and
lowered him deeper than any animal."
To
Jefferson, de Buffon -- who had never seen America, nor
the Indians he wrote about -- presented a fat and inviting
target. Jefferson replied that no correlation existed
between sexual ardor and the amount of body hair on a
man. "With them it is disgraceful to be hairy on the
body. They say it likens them to hogs. They therefore
pluck the hair as fast as it appears," Jefferson
wrote. He recounted Indians' bravery in war to refute
de Buffon's assertion that they were timid and cowardly,
and he cited examples of Indian oratory to show that
America's natives were not mentally deficient. While
Jefferson believed that Indians' sexual equipment and
drive was not less than that of whites, he wondered
whether constant hunting and the Indians' diet might
have diminished those natural gifts. What raised such
a question in his mind, Jefferson did not say.
As
with many scientific debates through the ages, the
emotional exchanges between Europeans and Americans
over the degeneracy theories reflected the political and
social conflicts of the age. In the writings of Franklin
there seems to be an emerging awareness of a distinctive
American habit of mind, a sense that these transplanted
Europeans, himself included, were becoming something not
inferior to Europeans, but something very different. As
the debate over degeneracy theories was taking place,
more and more Americans were, like Franklin, coming to
conclude that history and dignity demanded the colonies
become a separate nation. Franklin more than once rushed
to the defense of America and things American. When
British publishers derided American cuisine, he hurried
into print with a defense of American (Indian) corn,
replete with recipes. When French authors peddled
fantasies about the wildness of America and the savagery
of its native inhabitants, Franklin set up a press in
Passy and issued from it essays on the virtues of America
and Americans, white and red.
During
the decade after the Stamp Act, Franklin's
writings developed into an argument for American
distinctiveness, a sense of nationhood in a new land, a
sense that an entirely new age was dawning for the
Americans who traced their roots to Europe. The new
nation would not be European, but American -- combining
both heritages to make a specifically different
culture. Franklin and his contemporaries, among whom
one of the most articulate was Jefferson, were setting
out to invent a nation. Before they could have a nation,
however, they had to break with Britain, an act that
called for an intellectual backdrop for rebellion, and
a rationale for revolution.
Philosopher as Savage
Wheelock, Reflections, Moral and Political
on Great Britain and Her Colonies
But the Wickedness cannot be Covered, the Guilt will
lie on the Whole Land, till Justice is done on the
Murderers. THE BLOOD OF THE INNOCENT WILL CRY TO
HEAVEN FOR VENGEANCE!
I wrote a pamphlet entitled A Narrative &c (which
I think I sent you) to strengthen the hands of our weak
Government, by rendering the proceedings of the rioters
unpopular and odious. This had a good effect, and
afterwards when a great Body of them with Arms march'd
towards the Capital in defiance of the Government, with
an avowed resolution to put to death 140 Indian converts
under its protection, I form'd an Association at the
Governor's request. . . . Near 1,000 of the Citizens
accordingly took arms; Governor Penn made my house for
some time his Head Quarters, and did everything by my
Advice.
Savages we call them, because their manners differ from
ours, which we think the Perfection of Civility; they
think the same of theirs. . . . Perhaps, if we could
examine the Manners of different Nations with
Impartiality, we should find no People so rude, as to be
without any Rules of Politeness; nor any so polite, as
not to have some Remains of Rudeness.
Having few artificial Wants, they [Indians] have
abundance of Leisure for Improvement by
Conversation. Our laborious Manner of Life, compared
with theirs, they esteem slavish and base; and the
Learning, on which we value ourselves, they regard as
frivolous and useless.
We must let you know that we love our Children too well
to send them so great a Way, and the Indians are not
inclined to give their Children Learning. We allow it
to be good, and thank you for your Invitation; but
our customs differing from yours, you will be so good
as to excuse us.
All of the Indians of North America not under the
dominion of the Spaniards are in that natural state,
being restrained by no laws, having no Courts, or
Ministers of Justice, no Suits, no Prisons, no Governors
vested with any Legal Authority. The Persuasion of
Men distinguished by Reputation of Wisdom is the only
means by which others are govern'd or rather led -- and
the State of the Indians was probably the first State of
all Nations.
If a white Man, in travelling thro' our country, enters
one of our cabins, we treat him as I treat you; we dry
him if he is wet, we warm him if he is cold, we give him
Meat and Drink that he may allay his Thirst and
Hunger; and we spread soft furs for him to rest and
sleep on; we demand nothing in return. But, if I go to
a white man's house in Albany, and ask for Victuals and
Drink, they say "Where is your Money?" And if I have
none, they say, "Get out, you Indian Dog!"
I am sorry that the Great Council Fire of our Nation is
not now burning, so that you cannot do your business
there. In a few months, the coals will be rak'd out of
the ashes and will again be kindled. Our wise men will
then take the complaints . . . of your Nation into
consideration and take the proper Measures for giving
you Satisfaction.
My brother [the Indians told the missionary], it seems
that your friends have not done you Justice in your
Education, that they have not well instructed you in
the Rules of Common Civility. You saw that we, who
understand and practice those Rules, believ'd all your
stories. Why do you refuse to believe ours?
The proneness of human Nature to a life of ease, of freedom
from care and labour appear strongly in the heretofore little
success that has attended every attempt to civilize our
American Indians. . . . They visit us frequently and see the
advantages that Arts, Science and compact Society procure
us; they are not deficient in natural understanding and
yet they have never strewn any inclination to change their
manner of life for ours, or to learn any of our Arts.
When an Indian child has been brought up among us,
taught our language and habituated to our customs, yet
if he goes to see his relations and makes one Indian
Ramble with them, there is no perswading him ever to
return. And that this is not natural [only to Indians],
but as men, is plain from this, that when white persons
of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the
Indians, and lived awhile among them, tho' ransomed
by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable
tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the
English, yet within a Short time they become disgusted
with our manner of Life, and the care and pains that
are necessary to support it, and take the first good
Opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from
whence there is no reclaiming them.
The Care and Labour of providing for Artificial and
fashionable Wants, the sight of so many Rich
wallowing in superfluous plenty, whereby so many are
kept poor and distress'd for Want, the Insolence of
Office . . . the restraints of Custom, all contrive to
disgust them with what we call civil Society.