Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and forty-two,

BY JOHN ALLEN,

In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Southern District of New-York.

THE KNICKER BOCKER.

VOL. XX.

JULY, 1842.

No. 1.

LETTERS FROM THE INDIAN COUNTRY.

WE have been shown a series of familiar letters written from the Indian Country during the years 1836-7, by a gentleman who had peculiar facilities for observing the manners and customs of the aborigines. We have been permitted to copy one of them; and if it shall prove sufficiently interesting to our readers, we are persuaded that we may be able to give the whole series to the public.

ED. KNICKERBOCKER.

Mackinac, October 6, 1836.

MY DEAR S: Since my arrival here, I have received a number of letters from you, the latest on Tuesday last, and have written you once.

My last letter describes the state of things as they then existed, but it did not convey an adequate idea of the savage character of the population Indian, half-breed, and white-by which I have been surrounded for several weeks. Ferocious however as were some of these people, there was no danger so long as there was no fear. Such persons are generally as cowardly as they are blood-thirsty.

It is unusual for Indian treaties' to pass off with so little disturbance. At the treaty of Chicago in 1833 there were seven or eight murders committed; and the Indian agent is not unfrequently the first victim. On this occasion however order has been preserved by the strict police maintained by the military force, and the prohibition of the use of ardent spirits. But after all, our situation might have been made uncomfortable. There have been at least one thousand warriors on the island, and several hundred halfbreeds, not a whit less savage or treacherous. We had a force of only a hundred and fifty men, and were at least one hundred miles from any other white settlement. The odds in case of difficulty would have been rather against us. But there has been no difficulty; and the angry passions always engendered on such occasions have been attended with no serious consequences as yet.

There may however still be some murders among them. One man, who was not in fact a chief, got himself put into the treaty as one of the first class, and the actual head chief was placed in the second class. The former received five hundred dollars and the