He came out to Mackinac with the traders about 1825, and went to find his relatives in Kentucky, with whom, however, he could not long live.  His habits were now so inveterately savage that he could not tolerate civilization.  He came back to the frontiers and obtained an interpretership at the U.S.  Agency at Mackinac.  The elements of his mind were, however, morose, sour, suspicious, antisocial, revengeful, and bad.  In a short time he was out with everybody.  He caused to be written to me a piteous letter.  Dr. James, who was post surgeon at the place, conceived that his narrative would form a popular introduction to his observations on some points of the Indian character and customs, which was the origin of a volume that was some years afterwards given to the public.

A note he brought me in 1828, from a high source, procured him my notice.  I felt interested in his history, received him in a friendly manner, and gave him the place of interpreter.  He entered on the duties faithfully; but with the dignity and reserve of an Indian chief.  He had so long looked on the dark side of human nature that he seldom or never smiled.  He considered everybody an enemy.  His view of the state of Indian society in the wilderness made it a perfect hell.  They were thieves and murderers.  No one from the interior agreed with him in this.  The traders, who called him a bad man, represent the Indians as social when removed from the face of white men, and capable of noble and generous acts.  He was, evidently, his own judge and his own avenger in every question.  I drew out of him some information of the Indian superstitions, and he was well acquainted practically with the species of animals and birds in the northern latitudes.

30th.  A letter informs me that a treaty has just been concluded with the Potawattomies of St. Joseph’s, who cede to the United States about a million and a half acres, comprising the balance of their lands in Michigan.  I received, at the same time, a few lines from Gen. Cass, speaking a word for the captive, John Tanner, the object of which was to suggest his employment as an interpreter in the Indian Department.[57]

[Footnote 57:  This man served a short time, but turned out, for eighteen years, to be the pest of that settlement, being a remarkably suspicious, lying, bad-minded man, having lost every virtue of the white man, and accumulated every vice of the Indian.  He became more and more morose and sour because the world would not support him in idleness, and went about half crazed, in which state he hid himself one day, in 1836, in the bushes, and shot and killed my brother, James L. Schoolcraft.  He then fled back to the Indians, and has not been caught.  The musket with which this nefarious act was done, is said to have been loaned to him from the guard-house at Fort Brady.  Dr. Bagg pronounced the ball an ounce-ball, such as is employed in the U.S. service.  The wad was the torn leaf of a hymn book.  It was extensively reported by the diurnal press, that I had been the victim of this unprovoked perfidy.]