1843

Conrad, Judge. "The Sons of the Wilderness. Reflections Beside an Indian Mound." [Philadelphia] Graham's Lady's and Gentlemen's Magazine 23.1 (July 1843): 39-47. Robert Taylor Conrad was indeed a judge but also mayor of Philadelphia as well as a journal editor. This longish poem with longish notes is a meditation on the wrongs -- "the heritage of blood" -- committed against the Indians. How has a race of God ceased to be? One of the notes, in fact, sharply criticizes the right of discovery used to justify European claims in America. Smith, whom Pocahontas saved, of course, shrank from no treachery or outrage and was no better than the "chief of banditti," and Pocahontas was later imprisoned, triggering this reaction: "Vain was thy love, fond Pocahontas! Thou / Dreamed not so false the race which thou hadst saved: / Yet – though with fainting heart – thy flashing brow, / Queenly and cold, that scene of torture braved. / Loving and lost, thy grief and scorn were graved / Where no one turned the leaf. Didst thou not think, / Fawn of the desert! of the day when waved / The war club o’er his head, and thou didst sink / Between him and the death? Alas, that love / Young, yearning, truthful, hath no home save that above!" What can the Indians do but die. "It is their doom."
[poetry; Indian problem]
[Electronic Version]