24 - HISTORY OF HENRY AND FULTON COUNTIES.

When the impartial historian reviews the beauties and attractions of this country, the ease with
which the Indian could subsist, the sport of hunting and fishing, of paddling his frail bark canoe
across lakes and on the streams, running the rapids of the swift rivers upon whose banks their
villages were usually situated, where their children, in the limpid waters, sported like dolphins in
the long summer days, and the hunter slaked his thirst at the bubbling spring of pure, cold water
that could be found bursting from the banks, and the thousand attractions natural to the civilized
or savage man, who would not contend for such a country ? Would not civilized and cultured
man ? Surely the North American Indian might be pardoned, if not exonerated for fighting for his
home, his council fires and the graves of his fathers, that had not been already desecrated by the
foot of the stranger.