in his otherwise admirable book, The American Race (49), that the fatigues of the Indian women were scarce greater than those of their husbands, nor their life more onerous than that of the peasant women of Europe to-day.  Peasants in Europe work quite as hard as their wives, whereas the Indian—­except during the delightful hunting period, or in war-time, which, though frequent, was after all merely episodic—­did nothing at all, and considered labor a disgrace to a man, fit only for women.  The difference between the European peasant and the American red man can be inferred by anyone from what observers reported of the Creek Indians of our Southern States (Schoolcraft, V., 272-77): 

“The summer season, with the men, is devoted to war, or their domestic amusements of riding, horse-hunting, ball-plays, and dancing, and by the women to their customary hard labor.”

“The women perform all the labor, both in the house and field, and are, in fact, but slaves to the men, without any will of their own, except in the management of the children.”

“A stranger going into the country must feel distressed when he sees naked women bringing in huge burdens of wood on their shoulders, or, bent under the scorching sun, at hard labor in the field, while the indolent, robust young men are riding about, or stretched at ease on some scaffold, amusing themselves with a pipe or a whistle.”

The excesses to which bias and unintelligent philanthropy can lead a man are lamentably illustrated in the writings of the Moravian missionary, Heckewelder, regarding the Delaware Indians.[218] He argues that

“as women are not obliged to live with their husbands any longer than suits their pleasure or convenience, it cannot be supposed that they would submit to be loaded with unjust or unequal burdens” (!) “Were a man to take upon himself a part of his wife’s duty, in addition to his own [hunting (!), for the Delawares were then a peaceful tribe], he must necessarily sink under the load, and of course his family must suffer with him.”

The heartless sophistry of this reasoning—­heartless because of its pitiless disregard of the burdens and sufferings of the poor women—­is exposed in part by his own admissions regarding the selfish actions of the men.  He does not deny that after the women have harvested their corn or maple sugar the men arrogate the right to dispose of it as they please.  He relates that in case of a domestic quarrel the husband shoulders his gun and goes away a week or so.  The neighbors naturally say that his wife is quarrelsome.  All the odium consequently falls on her, and when he gets back she is only too willing to drudge for him more than ever.  Heckewelder naively gives the Indian’s recipe for getting a useful wife: