This was written one year before the Wyandots were forced to leave Ohio and Michigan for Kansas.
It is a settlement of the Wyandot Indians who inhabit this place. Among
the company at breakfast was a mild old gentleman (John Johnston), who
had been for many year employed by the United State Government in conducting
negotiation with the Indians, and who had just concluded a treaty with
these people by which they bound themselves, in consideration of a certain
annual sum, to remove next year to some land provided for them, west of
the Mississippi and a little way beyond St. Louis. He gave me a moving
account of their strong attachment to the familiar scenes of their infancy,
and in particular to the burial places of their kindred: and of the great
reluctance to leave them. He had witnessed many such removals, and always
with pain, though he knew that theyt departed for their own good. The question
whether this tribe should go or stay had been discussed among them a day
or two before, in a hut erected for the purpose, the logs of which still
lay upon the before the inn. When the speaking was done, the ayes and noes
were ranged on opposite sides, nad every male adult voted in his turn.
The moment the result was known, the minority (a large one) cheerfully
yielded to the rest, and withdrew all kind of opposition.