Alonzo Lee entered Hampton in 1894 and left without graduating in 1900. He published several essays on the Cherokees in Talks and Thoughts and was editor from 1896 to 1897. (Littlefield and Parins, American Indian, 358; Littlefield and Parins, Biobibliography: Supplement, 243)
When I came to Hampton in September 1893, the Government still near our reservation was just being built.17 This still is the greatest downfall on the Cherokees that ever occurred in our part of the country. As we all know, the red man has a great appetite for strong drink and when he is tempted will generally take it unless trained to withstand the temptation.
The men who are running this still are old moonshiners. They are getting all the Indians’ money, yes, more than that they are taking the red man’s life.
It seems to me the government is helping the Indians up with one hand and down with the other. We get our education by the help of the government and our whiskey from a government licensed still. Which is the stronger influence, we can know only when we go back home and try to change the discouraging state of things described in a letter from a former Hampton student.
“I am glad that the Cherokees there are doing well. I wish they could all get good places there or up north and never come back to this dreadful place. The Indians drink nearly all the time. Last week two white men and a Negro jumped onto a drunken Indian and cut him terribly so that he died before morning. They have the Negro in jail but the two white men are not caught yet. There is a reward for six hundred dollars out for them. The Indians hunt them day and night. Whiskey is killing Indians and making this place unfit to live in.”
I think all the educated Cherokees ought to go back home and try to help their friends up and out of darkness into light. We may find it discouraging at first but if we will stick to it we can do a great deal of good.18
In Georgia there is a swamp that has a large quicksand in it. The red men who remained in Georgia in the beginning of this century declared that the swamp was holy ground, that in the vast morass were islands inhabited by a peculiar race of Indians who did no evil and who were ruled by beautiful winged women. This was the land of peace and pleasure.
No hunter could ever visit these islands. When his boat entered the river that penetrated the swamp the shores vanished from before him until, starving and homesick, he died. Then his body was carried to this happy land.
On the Blue Ridge there is a peak that the Indians also held as a holy place. Upon this peak is a rock in which were to be found deeply indented tracks of animals and human feet. There were nearly five hundred of these footprints, of every size, from that of a baby up to a large mark ten inches in length.
The Indians thought the Great Spirit had destroyed all the living creatures but one family, who escaped in a large canoe to this high peak. Whenever a hunter succeeded in climbing the mountain and reaching the top, heavy rain fell. The Great Spirit wept remembering the destruction of so many living creatures with water.
Modern civilization, churches, and ministers are rapidly destroying such superstitions as these which our forefathers believed. It is worth our while to preserve them, for they have value. They furnished a clue to the past history and religion of the Indians.
In these few lines are remembrances of the flood and a promised heaven. Nothing is useless which shows that red, or white, or black, we are children of one father and therefore we are brethren.19
A good many Cherokees live in the northeastern part of Tennessee and once I visited a friend there for two weeks.
One bright sunny day my friend said,
“Come, I am going to take you to a show.”
“Is it far?” I asked as we started out.
“The first house up the road about five miles,” replied my friend. “That is near for this part of the country.”
“Is this neighbor the show?” I inquired as we walked along the path.
“Yes, he’s an odd stick and the people about here think he is not quite bright, but I think he is a first-rate fellow. He and his mother have lived here many years. She is a root and herb doctor and he is a naturalist. Hark! He is at home, you can hear his shingle-saw going. He has a little sawmill on the brook and makes his living by putting up fine shingles. He keeps cows and raises an acre of corn and potatoes every season.”
When we entered the door the old man was singing and seemed very happy. He was glad to see us and had my friend and me take a seat.
“Is old snoozer waked up yet?”
“Yes, he crawled out last Monday.”
“What did he think of the weather?”
“Wal, he didn’t know what to make of it. I laid down and laughed to see him snuff and smell the air and was so hot he almost melted. He was as poor as a shadow too.”
“Who is old Snoozer?” I ventured to inquire.
“It is my old groundhog,” said the Indian. “Come with me and you shall see him.”
We crossed the fence and went into a lot to the woodchuck’s hole. Then the Indian puckering up his lips gave a sharp whistle, prolonged in low quavers, almost exactly the sound which every country boy has heard a woodchuck make. Immediately we heard a slight rumble down in the hole, and the next moment a black head appeared in sight. Seeing his master, the chuck came out from the ground and rising on his hind feet, sat up and dropped his forepaws like a cat. Woodchucks are usually so shy that it seemed odd indeed to see this one sit docile at the threshold of its burrow and allow his master to scratch its head and pat its back. It seemed to enjoy these caresses and once or twice gave vent to a droll little chuck in its throat.
“We will go and see Drog next,” remarked the naturalist.
He led the way along the bank of the brook past the house and the little low barn. We went on for fifty or sixty yards up the brook, till we came to an old pine log lying among the rocks. Our showman then stopped and uttered a note which I cannot well describe, unless by the letters Oo-ee-ooo; droned out in a musical way. There suddenly dashed out of the hollow log a short legged and slim little creature, more trimly built than the woodchuck but not so large. It was reddish brown in color over the back, but light orange along the under part of its body. The tail was slightly bushy, the ears erect; the eyes like black beads in all of its movements. The naturalist called it a Sweet Marten.
From here we went down the brook to the mink’s hole.
“Do you feed your minks?” I inquired.
“No, they go off nights and get their own food. They killed the last old hen I had a few nights ago, but they always come back and stay under the banks during the day.”
He walked up near the bank of the brook, chirped a few times, then whistled between his teeth in a way that would be difficult to imitate. In response to this invitation first one little head appeared beside a rock then the second from beneath an old root. Again he whistled.
“There is one more but perhaps he is off on a hunt,” he said.
These two would allow the naturalist to approach them, but were more shy of us. Nearly every one has seen a mink, so I need not describe them. Next we went to see a bear, which was tied down near the mill.
As we were walking along down the brook, the Indian said, “There was [a] party of sportsmen up here last summer, and they brought a stock of nice supplies including two or three kegs of beer. They played a great deal with my bear; he was only a yearling then. They gave him beer and got him so that he would stand up, take a bottle in his paw, and drink it. They spoilt him for good, for after they had gone he would not eat anything, only sat and whined for that nasty beer.”
By this time we had reached the spot where the bear was. His last season’s coat of hair was still clinging to his sides in rusty patches and, as the Indian said, he would not play any now.
By this time it was getting late and we had five miles to walk home. I had learned many things from the old man, for he not only loved and cared for his pets, but he knew all their habits and, it seemed to me, even their thoughts.20
From the earliest history of this country the Cherokee Indian has inhabited the South Atlantic States. In 1836 the white people decided that they must have this land, and the Government sent General Scott to convey the whole Cherokee nation west of the Mississippi River. About two thousand of these Indians refused to leave their homes but they were forced to go. Before many days they succeeded in escaping from the soldiers at night and fled back into the mountains. There they stayed in hiding until several years later they were permitted by the Government to remain.
These people are always spoken of as the disloyal part of the Cherokee Nation because they would not share the fate of their brothers, but who can dishonor them for love of home? Men of every race and of every age since the birth of Adam have been ready to fight, or even die, to defend their homes. It is human nature to love the place where you are born and brought up.
They had left their tribe and were no more a part of that great nation. Thus they became known as the Eastern band of Cherokees, and in 1838 they were admitted to the state as citizens of North Carolina.
The land these Indians now own was bought by them from the state of North Carolina. The reservation contains 8000 acres, lying in the beautiful valley of the Ocona Lufta River. The soil is fertile and is cultivated in some places to the summit of the hills.
The chief occupation of the Indians is agriculture, including stock-raising and gardening. Some of them make good baskets while others manufacture fine pottery. They raise and sell to the surrounding towns, corn, wheat, rye, oats, potatoes, and most all kinds of vegetables.
They are peaceful, law abiding citizens, and are anxious to improve their condition in every good and prosperous way. They work for their white neighbors and are considered honest men in all their transactions. I once heard a tax collector say that if white men would pay their taxes as promptly as the Indian, he would have no trouble to raise tax money. When they know that it is their duty to do a thing they go ahead and do it.
I came to this school in 1894 and did not get an opportunity to go back until last Christmas. Four years, I am glad to say, have brought several changes for the better. The Indians are making progress in spite of the many difficulties they come in contact with.
Better homes are being built. The little log cabins are being replaced by comfortable frame houses with glass windows. The farms are better cared for, cultivated to larger and finer crops, barns are made to shelter grain as well as livestock; church is better attended, and those who claim to be Christians seem anxious to hear the Word of God. I noticed, too, that Christmas was kept as a holy day by the Christian people.
If it wasn’t for one thing, bright days would be dawning on the hilltops of North Carolina. That cloud is the curse of whiskey, which stops progress in every race. The Indians are noted for their thirst of strong drink, and down there it is a great temptation. A government still on one side and a half dozen moonshiners on the other, makes it as easy to get a drink of whiskey as a glass of water. If the liquor business is not stopped it will surely bring disaster to the red man of North Carolina.
These Indians are getting their education from the government schools; they are getting their whiskey from the Government stills. The Government is holding them up with one hand and pulling them down with the other. But in spite of this temptation there are a few men with purposes as true as steel. But they need an army of such men and women to stand for better work and higher living.21