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war, they are apt at that age to have young men sons or sons-in-law to provide for them: they pafs the latter part of their days in peace (except the village is attacked) . A good hunter and warriour will meet with no difficulty in procuring a wife in one of the first families in the nation. I know a half-breed now living among the Sauk Indians who had the three sisters for wives, they were the daughters of the principal chief of the Nation. I have always observed that the half-breeds raised among the Indians are generally resolute, remarkably brave and respectable in the nation.72 The case that leads to war are many: the want of territory to hunt, depredations committed by one nation against another, and also the young Indians to raise their names, will make war against their neighbors without any cause whatever. The Sauk and Fox Indians have for many years back wished much for a war with the Pawnees who reside on the heads of the River Platte, they know that country is full of game and they don't fear the other
72 "It has long been an adage that the mixed-blood is a moral degenerate, exhibiting few or none of the virtues of either, but all the vices of both of the parent stocks. In various parts of the country there are many mixed-bloods of undoubted ability and of high moral standing, and there is no evidence to prove that the low moral status of the average mixed-blood of the frontier is a necessary result of mixture of blood, but there is much to indicate that it arises chiefly from his unfortunate environment. The mixed-blood often finds little favor with either race, while his superior education and advantages, derived from association with the whites, enable him to outstrip his Indian brother in the pursuit of either good or evil. Absorption into the dominant race is likely to be the fate of the Indian, and there is no reason to fear that when freed from his environment the mixed-blood will not win an honorable- social, industrial, and political place in the national life.— Henry W. Henshaw, in Handbook Amer. Indians, art. "Popular fallacies."
In the Forsyth Mss., vol. ii, doc 7 (pressmark "2T7") is a list of the Sauk and Fox half-breeds claiming land according to the treaty made at Washington, Aug. 4, 1824. It contains thirty-eight names. Another and similar list (doc. 8) gives thirty-one names, and fourteen others which are considered doubtful. Among the (presumably) rightful claimants appears Maurice Blondeau, mentioned in note 49. — Ed.