Between 400 and 500 Indians were
assembled. They appeared poorly clad, and needy, having suffered greatly
from the small-pox during the autumn and winter. About 40 had died on
the Shiawassa River, and some 30 on the Flint. After the Major had
completed the payment of their annuities and delivery of goods, I opened
a negotiation with them to complete the sale of their reservations.
_16th_. In a letter of this date, Dr. Greene, Sec. of the A.B.C., for F.
Missions, adverts to the positions heretofore taken, by that board,
respecting the missionary establishment at Mackinack. The moral position
of that Board, with respect to _that_ Mission, appears to me to be
wrong. This mission involves the mission cause, in some important
respects, with the entire question of missionary operations over the
North-west--reaching from lat. 42 deg. to 49 deg., with many degrees of
longitude; for, from all this region, the Indian boys and girls of the
mission have been collected. It began operations with them, I think, in
1822; and having, in this interval, expended many thousand dollars, and
erected expensive buildings, it now drops the thing, just at the point
when the Indians have commenced important cessions, and when their
condition is such that they are not only inclined to receive interior
teachers and evangelists, which have been raised at that central point,
but, by these cessions to the government, they have provided funds for
schools and teachers.
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