36 The Environmental Debate
My reason teaches me that land cannot be
sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to
live upon, and cultivate, as far as is necessary for
their subsistence; and so long as they occupy and
cultivate it, they have the right to the soil, but if
they voluntarily leave it then any other people
have a right to settle on it. Nothing can be sold
but such things as can be carried away.
In consequence of the improvements of the
intruders on our fields, we found considerable dif-
ficulty to get ground to plant a little corn. Some
of the whites permitted us to plant small patches
[of corn] in the fields they had fenced, keeping
all the best ground for themselves. Our women
had great difficulty in climbing their fences, being
unaccustomed to that kind, and were ill-treated if
they left a rail down.
One of my old friends thought he was safe.
His cornfield was on a small island in Rock River.
He planted his corn, it came up well; but the
white man saw it, he wanted it [the island], and
took his team over, ploughed up the corn, and
replanted it for himself. The old man shed tears;
not for himself, but on account of the distress his
family would be in if they raised no corn.Source: Black Hawk’s Autobiography, interpreted by Antoine
LeClaire, ed. J. P. Patterson and James D. Rishell (Rock Island,
IL: American Publishing, 1912), pp. 62-63, 84-85.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 fur-
nished 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 Val-
ley, 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 friends?
***DOCUMENT 33: John James Audubon on the Senseless Destruction
of Fish, Birds, and Quadrupeds (1833)The Haitian-born naturalist and painter John James Audubon traveled throughout the United States and parts
of Canada in search of subjects for his paintings of the birds and quadrupeds of North America. He deplored
the senseless destruction of America’s wildlife that was obviously taking place all around him.We are often told rum kills the Indian; I
think not; it is oftener the want of food, the loss
of hope as he loses sight of all that was once
abundant, before the white man intruded on
his land and killed off the wild quadrupeds and
birds with which he has fed and clothed himself
since his creation. Nature herself seems perish-
ing. Labrador must shortly be depeopled, not
only of aboriginal man, but of all else having
life, owing to man’s cupidity. When no more fish,
no more game, no more birds exist on her hills,
along her coasts, and in her rivers, then she will
be abandoned and deserted like a worn-out field.
Source: John James Audubon, Labrador Journals, in A.
Donald Culross Peattie, ed., Audubon’s America (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1940), p. 245.