" The conduct of her son, when, many years after her
death, he saw her picture at Washington, is unspeakably affecting.
Catlin gives anecdotes of the grief of a chief for the loss of a
daughter, and the princely gifts he offers in exchange for her portrait,
worthy not merely of European, but of Troubadour sentiment. It is also
evident that, as Mrs. Schoolcraft says, the women have great power at
home. It can never be otherwise, men being dependent upon them for the
comfort of their lives. Just, so among ourselves, wives who are neither
esteemed nor loved by their husbands, have great power over their
conduct by the friction of every day, and over the formation of their
opinions by the daily opportunities so close a relation affords, of
perverting testimony and instilling doubts. But these sentiments should
not come in brief flashes, but burn as a steady flame, then there would
be more women worthy to inspire them. This power is good for nothing,
unless the woman be wise to use it aright. Has the Indian, has the white
woman, as noble a feeling of life and its uses, as religious a
self-respect, as worthy a field of thought and action, as man? If not,
the white woman, the Indian woman, occupies an inferior position to that
of man. It is not so much a question of power, as of privilege.
The men of these subjugated tribes, now accustomed to drunkenness and
every way degraded, bear but a faint impress of the lost grandeur of the
race. They are no longer strong, tall, or finely proportioned.
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