Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/451

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
SCHOOLCRAFT
SCHOOLCRAFT
425

knighted him in 1845. After a few months' rest, he was given an appointment in the colonial department, and sent to make researches upon the idioms of the aborigines of South America. In 1848 he read before the British association a paper in which he proposed an alphabetical system for the Indian dialects. That same year he was appointed consul-general and chargé d'affaires in the Dominican republic, signed in 1850 an advantageous commercial treaty for Great Britain, and also secured a truce from Soulouque in behalf of the Dominican government. During the following years he contributed to the journal of the Geographical society valuable papers upon the physical geography of the island. He was promoted in 1857 consul-general at Bangkok, Siam, and resided there till 1864, when declining health compelled him to resign. Schomburgk was a member of various European, American, and Asiatic learned societies, and was a knight of the Legion of honor, and of the Prussian order of the Red Eagle. His works include “Voyage in Guiana and upon the Shores of the Orinoco during the Years 1835-'39” (London, 1840; translated into German by his brother Otto, under the title “Reisen in Guiana und am Orinoco in den Jahren 1835-'39,” Leipsic, 1841, with a preface by Alexander von Humboldt); “Researches in Guiana, 1837-'39” (1840); “Description of British Guiana, Geographical and Statistical” (1840); “Views in the Interior of Guiana” (1840); “Baubacenia Alexandrine et Alexandra imperatris” (Brunswick, 1845); “Rapatea Frederici Augusti et Saxo-Frederici regalis” (1845), being monographs of plants discovered by the author in British Guiana; “History of Barbadoes” (London, 1847); and “The Discovery of the Empire of Guiana by Sir Walter Raleigh” (1848). — Schomburgk's brother, Moritz Richard, published an account of the expedition in 1840-'4, under the title “Reisen in Britisch Guiana in den Jahren 1840-'44” (3 vols., Leipsic, 1847-'8).

SCHOOLCRAFT, Lawrence, soldier, b. in Albany county, N. Y., in 1760; d. in Verona, Oneida co., N. Y., 7 June, 1840. His grandfather, James, came from England in the reign of Queen Anne, settled in Albany county as a surveyor, and in later life was a teacher, and adopted the name of “Schoolcraft” in the place of his original family name of Calcraft. The grandson served during the Revolutionary war, and as a colonel in the second war with Great Britain. He was the superintendent of a large glass-factory ten miles west of Albany.—His son, Henry Rowe, ethnologist, b. in Albany county, N. Y., 28 March, 1793; d. in Washington, D. C., 10 Dec., 1804, was educated at Middlebury college, Vt., and at Union, where he pursued the studies of chemistry and mineralogy, learned the art of glass-making, and began a treatise on the subject entitled “Vitreology,” the first part of which was published (Utica, 1817). In 1817-'18 he travelled in Missouri and Arkansas, and returned with a large collection of geological and mineralogical specimens. In 1820 he was appointed geologist to Gen. Lewis Cass's exploring expedition to Lake Superior and the head-waters of Mississippi river. He was secretary of a commission to treat with the Indians at Chicago, and, after a journey through Illinois and along Wabash and Miami rivers, was in 1822 appointed Indian agent for the tribes of the lake region, establishing himself at Sault Sainte Marie, and afterward at Mackinaw, where, in 1823, he married Jane Johnston, granddaughter of Waboojeeg, a noted Ojibway chief, who had received her education in Europe. In 1828 he founded the Michigan historical society, and in 1831 the Algic society. From 1828 till 1832 he was a member of the territorial legislature of Michigan. In 1832 he led a government expedition, which followed the Mississippi river up to its source in Itasca lake. In 1836 he negotiated a treaty with the Indians on the upper lakes for the cession to the United States of 16,000,000 acres of their lands. He was then appointed acting superintendent of Indian affairs, and in 1839 chief disbursing agent for the northern department. On his return from Europe in 1842 he made a tour through western Virginia, Ohio, and Canada. He was appointed by the New York legislature in 1845 a commissioner to take the census of the Indians in the state, and collect information concerning the Six Nations. After the performance of this task, congress authorized him, on 3 March, 1847, to obtain through the Indian bureau reports relating to all the Indian tribes of the country, and to collate and edit the information. In this work he spent the remaining years of his life. Through his influence many laws were enacted for the protection and benefit of the Indians. Numerous scientific societies in the United States and Europe elected him to membership, and the University of Geneva gave him the degree of LL. D. in 1846. He was the author of numerous poems, lectures, and reports on Indian subjects, besides thirty-one larger works. Two of his lectures before the Algic society at Detroit on the “Grammatical Construction of the Indian Languages” were translated into French by Peter S. Duponceau, and gained for their author a gold medal from the French institute. His publications include “A View of the Lead-Mines of Missouri, including Observations on the Minerology and Geology of Missouri and Arkansas” (New York, 1819); a poem called “Transallegania, or the Groans of Missouri” (1820); “Journal of a Tour in the Interior of Missouri and Arkansas” (1820); “Travels from Detroit to the Sources of the Mississippi with an Expedition under Lewis Cass” (Albany, 1821); “Travels in the Central Portions of Mississippi Valley” (New York, 1825); “The Rise of the West, or a Prospect of the Mississippi Valley,” a poem (Detroit, 1827); “Indian Melodies,” a poem (1830); “The Man of Bronze” (1834); “Narrative of an Expedition through the Upper Mississippi to Itasca Lake” (New York, 1834); “Iosco, or the Vale of Norma” (Detroit, 1834); “Algic Researches,” a book of Indian allegories and legends (New York, 1839); “Cyclopædia indianensis,” of which only a single number was issued (1842); “Alhalla, or the Land of Talladega,” a poem published under the pen-name “Henry Rowe Colcraft” (1843); “Oneota, or Characteristics of the Red Race of America” (1844-'5), which was republished under the title of “The Indian and his Wigwam” (1848); “Report on Aboriginal Names and the Geographical Terminology of New York” (1845); “Plan for Investigating