Alexandria Gazette & Advertiser

SENECA INDIANS.

We were last week visited by the famous Chief Red Jacket, together with two other chiefs belonging to the Six Nations, to wit—Blue Sky, William Sky, Peter Smoke and Twenty Canoes, who arrived here on Monday about sun set.

To answer the solicitations of our inhabitants, Red Jacket delivered a speech in the evening at the Academy, which was almost instantly filled with an attentive auditory. His speech, if it had been properly interpreted, no doubt would have been both eloquent and interesting. But as it was, merely enough could be understood to know his object, while his native eloquence and rhetorical powers could only be guessed at, from his manner and appearance. He commenced by representing the whole human race as the creatures of God, or the Great Spirit, and that both white men and red men were brethren of the same great family. He then mentioned the emigration of our forefathers from towards the rising of the sun, and their landing among their red brethren in this new discovered world. He next hinted at the success of our armies under the great Washington:—our prosperity as a nation since the declaration of our independence; mentioned Gen. Washington's advice to the red men, to plough and plant and cultivate their lands.—This, he said, they wished to do, but the white men took away their lands and drove them further and further towards the setting sun:—and what was worse than all, had sent Missionaries to preach and hold meetings among them:—that the whites who instituted and attended these meetings, stole their horses, drove off their cattle, and taxed their land. These things he considered their greatest calamity—too grievous to be borne.

The principal object of this visit by these Chiefs was, we understand to intercede with the Friends in whose honesty they appear to place the most implicit confidence, to use their influence to free them from the Missionaries now in their borders.

What are the real grounds of this opposition to the Missionaries among these our red brethren, we know not, but the cause of pure religion and christian philanthropy demand their speedy investigation and public explanation.

[Palmyra Gazette.