Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
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PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A YANKEE IN CANADA: HENRY ROWE SCHOOLCRAFT “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY People Mentioned in A Yankee in Canada “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A YANKEE IN CANADA: HENRY ROWE SCHOOLCRAFT “A YANKEE IN CANADA”: The most interesting object in Canada to me was the River St. Lawrence, known far and wide, and for centuries, as the Great River. Cartier, its discoverer, sailed up it as far as Montreal in 1535, — nearly a century before the coming of the Pilgrims; and I have seen a pretty accurate map of it so far, containing the city of “Hochelaga” and the river “Saguenay,” in Ortelius’s THEATRUM ORBIS TERRARUM, printed at Antwerp in 1575, – the first edition having appeared in 1570,– in which the famous cities of “Norumbega” and “Orsinora” stand on the rough-blocked continent where New England is to-day, and the fabulous but unfortunate Isle of Demons, and Frislant, and others, lie off and on in the unfrequented sea, some of them prowling near what is now the course of the Cunard steamers. In this ponderous folio of the “Ptolemy of his age,” said to be the first general atlas published after the revival of the sciences in Europe, only one page of which is devoted to the topography of the Novus Orbis, the St. Lawrence is the only large river, whether drawn from fancy or from observation, on the east side of North America. It was famous in Europe before the other rivers of North America were heard of, notwithstanding that the mouth of the Mississippi, or even the Hudson, was known to the world. (Schoolcraft was misled by Gallatin into saying that Narvaez discovered the Mississippi. De Vega does not say so.) The first explorers declared that the summer in that country was as warm as France, and they named one of the bays in the Gulf of St. Lawrence the Bay of Chaleur, or of warmth; but they said nothing about the winter being as cold as Greenland. In the manuscript account of Cartier’s second voyage, attributed by some to that navigator himself, it is called “the greatest river, without comparison, that is known to have ever been seen.” ABRAHAM ORTELIUS HENRY ROWE SCHOOLCRAFT ALBERT GALLATIN HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A YANKEE IN CANADA: HENRY ROWE SCHOOLCRAFT 1528 October: Henry Thoreau would be motivated, in “A YANKEE IN CANADA”, to dispel a myth that had grown up about this period in the history of the exploration of the North American continent: “Schoolcraft [Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, 1793-1864] was misled by Gallatin [Albert Gallatin, 1761-1849] into saying that Narvaez [the expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez, 1478-1528)] discovered the Mississippi. De Vega [Garcilaso de la Vega, 1539-1616] does not say so.” “A YANKEE IN CANADA”: The most interesting object in Canada to me was the River St. Lawrence, known far and wide, and for centuries, as the Great River. Cartier, its discoverer, sailed up it as far as Montreal in 1535, — nearly a century before the coming of the Pilgrims; and I have seen a pretty accurate map of it so far, containing the city of “Hochelaga” and the river “Saguenay,” in Ortelius’s THEATRUM ORBIS TERRARUM, printed at Antwerp in 1575, – the first edition having appeared in 1570,– in which the famous cities of “Norumbega” and “Orsinora” stand on the rough-blocked continent where New England is to-day, and the fabulous but unfortunate Isle of Demons, and Frislant, and others, lie off and on in the unfrequented sea, some of them prowling near what is now the course of the Cunard steamers. In this ponderous folio of the “Ptolemy of his age,” said to be the first general atlas published after the revival of the sciences in Europe, only one page of which is devoted to the topography of the Novus Orbis, the St. Lawrence is the only large river, whether drawn from fancy or from observation, on the east side of North America. It was famous in Europe before the other rivers of North America were heard of, notwithstanding that the mouth of the Mississippi, or even the Hudson, was known to the world. (Schoolcraft was misled by Gallatin into saying that Narvaez discovered the Mississippi. De Vega does not say so.) The first explorers declared that the summer in that country was as warm as France, and they named one of the bays in the Gulf of St. Lawrence the Bay of Chaleur, or of warmth; but they said nothing about the winter being as cold as Greenland. In the manuscript account of Cartier’s second voyage, attributed by some to that navigator himself, it is called “the greatest river, without comparison, that is known to have ever been seen.” ABRAHAM ORTELIUS HENRY ROWE SCHOOLCRAFT ALBERT GALLATIN HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A YANKEE IN CANADA: HENRY ROWE SCHOOLCRAFT Thoreau seems to have been making reference to a footnote on page 32 of Volume III of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft’s and Seth Eastman’s HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL INFORMATION, RESPECTING THE HISTORY, CONDITION AND PROSPECTS OF THE INDIAN TRIBES OF THE UNITED STATES: COLL. AND PREPARED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS PER ACT OF CONGRESS OF MARCH 3RD 1847: “It has been stated by Mr. Gallatin, vide Am. Eth. Trans. Vol. II., p.—, that he [the 1528 expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez, 1478-1528)] discovered the mouth of the Mississippi; but this is not sustained by De Vaca, and there is no other authority” (we should make careful note of the fact that Thoreau has here substituted the name “De Vega,” which is to say “Garcilaso de la Vega, 1539-1616, author of the 1605 LA FLORIDA DEL INCA,” for Schoolcraft’s “De Vaca,” meaning “Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, circa 1490/1507-circa 1557/1559, author of the 1543 LA RELACIÓN” — because I do no myself know whether this amounts to Thoreau’s silent correction of an error, or, perhaps, his inadvertent introduction of an error). Here is the actual passage by Albert Gallatin containing that misunderstanding (it had appeared in Transactions of the American Ethnological Society for 1848): 1848 TRANS. AM. ETHN. SOC. What the 1528 expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez did do was skirt the coast and note that they sailed through fresh water far at sea. This was however not a “first sighting by a white man,” not only because it was not a sighting, but also because already in June 1519, nine years earlier the four ships of Alfonsó Alvaréz Pinéda had reconnoitered the mouth of the Mississippi. It was in this year that Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and three others off the coast of Texas, at Galveston Island, became castaways from the expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez. HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A YANKEE IN CANADA: HENRY ROWE SCHOOLCRAFT 1793 March 28, Thursday: Henry Rowe Schoolcraft was born at Guilderland near Albany, New York. His father was a glassmaker and he would study to become a glassmaker as well. NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT People Mentioned in A Yankee in Canada “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A YANKEE IN CANADA: HENRY ROWE SCHOOLCRAFT 1800 Jane Johnston (Schoolcraft) was born in this year as one of eight children of an Irish fur trader and an influential Chippewa or Ojibwa (alternate Englishings of the same tribal name) woman, daughter of tribal leader Waub Ojeeb (White Fisher). Jane would grow up in Sault Ste. Marie and returned there after being educated in Ireland. She would learn tribal lore from her mother and would speak Ojibwa fluently. War Department agent Henry Rowe Schoolcraft would board with the Johnston family when he arrived in 1822, assigned to gain tribal cooperation in new policies concerning control of the Great Lakes area established after the War of 1812. The Johnstons would assist him in researching Indian culture. Jane would help him compile a Chippewa vocabulary and would draw his interest toward tales and legends. They would marry in 1823. With her husband, beginning in 1826, Schoolcraft would publish THE LITERARY VOYAGER OR MUZZENIEGUN (printed document or book), a weekly magazine distributed in eastern cities as well as locally, with articles on Ojibwa culture, history, and biography. Her writings, including Christian devotional poems, tributes to her grandfather, and poems on the death of her son, would appear in the magazine under the pseudonyms Rosa and Leelinau. Jane Johnston Schoolcraft would become widely known as “The Northern Pocahontas” and would be sought out by traveling public intellectuals, among them British authors Harriet Martineau and Anna B. Jameson. She would die in 1841. LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. People Mentioned in A Yankee in Canada “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A YANKEE IN CANADA: HENRY ROWE SCHOOLCRAFT 1808 Henry Rowe Schoolcraft matriculated at Union College in Schenectady, New York.1 William Learned Marcy graduated from Brown University and began practicing law in Troy, New York. THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT 1. The name “Union” had been chosen for this new college in expression of a desire that the college never affiliate itself with any particular Protestant religious denomination, such as the Presbyterians or the Congregationalists; they would have named themselves after a major benefactor, as for instance Brown recently had done — except that as luck would have it no such major benefactor ever appeared.