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Show 82 LANDS PURCHASED OF THE INDIANS----BACKWOODSMEN. If II I The early history of Indiana mentions, as the inhabitants of this State, when the French first settled here, the Kickapoos, Musquitons, Potanons, and some other nations, remnants of which are still to be found at the sources of the Wabash, as well as the Piankishaws, Miamis, and Viandots. In the year 1804, a treaty was concluded with them at Vincennes for the purchase of the lands between the Wabash and the Ohio, after which they emigrated. Some well-informed inhabitants of Harmony, who, at the time of the Indiana emigration, when the United States had repeatedly bought land of those people, saw the several dislodged tribes pass through this country, assured me that the character of their physiognomy was often essentially different; and I myself found this confirmed both in North and South America; though the fundamental features of the American race are everywhere the same. All these Indians are now totally extirpated or expelled from Indiana, and the country enjoys the advantage of being peopled by the backwoodsmen. The fertile and salubrious country of Harmony has attracted a great number of settlers, who have begun to thin the great forests of Indiana. These settlers are usually called backwoodsmen, because they live in the remote forests. They are a robust, rough race of men, of English or Irish origin. They dwell very isolated, scattered in the forests, and but seldom come to the towns, only when business calls them. There is a school at Harmony where the children learn to read and write; two dollars are paid quarterly, and the children receive instruction in the morning and afternoon; but in the country the young people grow up without any education, and are, probably, no better than the Indians themselves. In the Western States, the sixteenth section of the Congress land (i. e., land belonging to the Government) is always assigned for the benefit of the schools, but is not always employed according to the first intention. At this time there was in the state of Indiana only one college; it was at Blooming Town. There was no clergyman at Harmony, and, with the exception of the meetings of some religious sects, the inhabitants were destitute of both religious and school instruction. Business, or festive occasions, brings the backwoodsmen into the town, where they indulge their love of whisky, which generally retards their return homeward. They have a good race of horses, and are bold horsemen; even the women are frequently seen on the saddle, and whole families travel in this way-man, woman, and child ofttimes mounted on the same beast. There is nothing characteristic in their costume, like the original dresses which are met with in the country in Germany; but they wear a medley, and bad imitation of all the fashions of English towns ; caps, felt and straw hats, frocks, great-coats, plaids, &c. The women, too, endeavour to imitate the fashions of the towns, wear large hats with loose veils, and gaudy plaid mantles, which, altogether, have often a most ludicrous effect in these remote forests. The winter dress of the men is often not ill chosen, though perfectly novel to a stranger. At that season they wear great-coats made of the common woollen horsecloths, white or green, with gay stripes on the collar, cuffs, and pockets |