cluding what we had on the islands in Rock river.
The land around our village which remained unbroken, was covered with
blue-grass which furnished excellent pasture for our horses. Several
fine springs poured out of the bluff near by, from which we were well
supplied with good water. The rapids of Rock river furnished us with
an abundance of excellent fish, and the land being very fertile, never
failed to produce good crops of corn, beans, pumpkins and squashes. We
always had plenty; our children never cried from hunger, neither were
our people in want. Here our village had stood for more than a hundred
years, during all of which time we were the undisputed possessors of the
Mississippi valley, from the Wisconsin to the Portage des Sioux, near
the mouth of the Missouri, being about seven hundred miles in length.

At this time we had very little intercourse with the whites except those
who were traders. Our village was healthy, and there was no place in
the country possessing such advantages, nor hunting grounds better than
those we had in possession. If a prophet had come to our village in
those days and told us that the things were to take place which have
since come to pass, none of our people would have believed him. What! to
be driven from our village, and our hunting grounds, and not even to be
permitted to visit the graves of our forefathers and relatives and our
friends?

This hardship is not known to the whites. With us it is a custom to
visit the graves of our friends and keep them in repair for many years.
The mother will go alone to weep over the grave of her child. The
brave, with pleasure, visits the grave of his father, after he has been
successful in war, and repaints the post that marks where he lies. There
is no place like that where the bones of our forefathers lie to go to
when in grief. Here prostrate by the tombs of our fathers will the Great
Spirit take pity on us.

But how different is our situation now from what it was in those happy
days. Then were we as happy as the buffalo on the plains, but now, we
are as miserable as the hungry wolf on the prairie. But I am digressing
from my story. Bitter reflections crowd upon my mind and must find
utterance.

When we returned to our village in the spring, from our wintering
grounds, we would finish bartering with our traders, who always followed
us to our village. We purposely kept some of our fine furs for this
trade, and, as there was great oppositi