It yet remains, Sir, to provide means of support; and when the
question respecting the instruction of their youth can be determined,
by what means and in what manner this shall be effected.
I will, at present, only use the freedom to suggest whether it might
not conduce to the furtherance and facilitating the above design to
appropriate for their accommodation a suitable portion of land at or
in the vicinity of Sandusky. Were the scattering tribes concentrated,
and with them some of their countrymen and others as patterns of
industry and morality, such circumstances must be highly favourable to
attempts to bring them into the habits of civilization.
I am, with great respect,
DAVENPORT PHELPS.
FROM JOSEPH BRANDT.
Grand River, May 7, 1800.
SIR,
About three weeks since I received a message from Obeel to attend a
council at Buffalo, where I expected the pleasure of seeing you. We
attended and waited a few days; but the chiefs there not being ready
to meet us, and we having business which required our attendance at
this place, were under the necessity of coming away. Had I been so
fortunate as to have met you there, it was my intention to have
conversed with you upon a subject which I have long considered as most
important and interesting to the present and future well being of the
Indians, on _both sides_ of the lakes and at large; namely, their
situation in a moral point of view, and concerning measures proper to
be taken in order that regular and stated religious instruction might
be introduced among them.
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