Appendix. — Advice to Statesmen
Shewing
The advantages of mutual affection between Great Britain, and the North American colonies—A description of the Floridas, and the Missisippi lands, with their productions—The benefits of colonizing Georgiana, and civilizing the Indians—and the way to make all the colonies more valuable to the mother country.
APPENDIX.
ADVICE to STATESMEN;
Though Great Britain hath been many years invested with the Missisipi-possessions, and which she purchased at a very high price; little hath been done to improve them. Every friend to his country and mankind, must wish administration to pay a due regard to the inestimable value of the American colonies—which is best done in engaging the colonists, by wise and prudent conduct, to exert themselves to promote her interest in the same manner they faithfully did, till arbitrary power assailed their maritime ports, to their grief, and her own immense loss. In proportion as a mother loves, or hates her children, and strives to make them either happy or miserable, they in the same degree will exert their endeavours to make a suitable return.
Whatever scheme is unjust, it is unwise in statesmen to form, or attempt to put in execution. Instinct moves the brutal creation to defend their young ones and property at the peril of their lives. The virtue of Britons will not allow them to do less for themselves and their children. As British legislators must be convinced that honesty is the best policy, it is to be hoped they will studiously apply themselves to promote the general good of their fellow-subjects, and engage the northern colonists cheerfully to bend their force in supplying Great Britain with such staple commodities as bountiful nature has given to them, but which through a strange kind of policy, she now chiefly purchases from foreigners, particularly timber and iron. The North-American trees are better in quality, than those which are brought from the Baltic, and in a far greater variety: and ships of a proper construction, might soon carry American timber to England as cheap as she has it from thence. The colonists could build either merchant-men, or men of war, of any size, much cheaper than can possibly be done in any European country, which would always insure them a ready market. French gold for their ships, would be of no disservice to Great Britain, though perhaps it might be as disagreeable to her, as the Spanish gold and silver was from the hands of the British Americans: however, to consign their ships to some British merchants, would sufficiently silence those who might find their present account in opposing the public good.
Natural causes produce natural effects. They who sow well, reap well; and as nature has planted a great plenty of iron ore through the American high lands, we hope the time will soon come, to allow her to take in so weighty a harvest. The consequence is great, and the application ought to be proportioned to the high value of so inviting, and complicated an acquisition. Their hills not only abound with inexhaustible mines of iron ore, but lie convenient to navigable rivers; such a commodious situation would soon enable them to sell it cheaper than Britain can ever expect from the Russians, who carry it from a distance to Petersburgh, as far as from Georgiana on the Missisippi,271 to the city of New York. We have been assured by gentlemen of veracity, that on repeated experiments, they found the American iron to be equal in goodness to that of Russia, or Sweden. Common sense directs Britain to live independent of such supplies, within her own prodigious empire, and not lay herself at the mercy of any foreign power, lest necessity should compel her a second time, to pay as dear for her left-handed wisdom as she did in the year 1703, for Swedish tar in Swedish bottoms,—which was nearly four hundred per cent, more than she in a short time paid to the American planters for the like, with her own manufactures, to the advantage of her merchants, the employment of her ships, and the increase of her seamen.
If Britain feels a decay of her former American trade, on account of attempting to introduce among her friendly colonies, illegal and dangerous innovations, it is high time to retract. She hath it yet in her power by a prudent and maternal conduct to enlarge her trade, to a far greater extent than it ever attained, by making it the interest of the northern planters to saw timber, and work in iron, for the British yards and merchants. She should invite the young, and unsettled families, to remove to the fertile lands of the Missisippi, and raise those valuable staple commodities she needs most. The Americans say, that, though their hearts burn with a seraphic fire, for constitutional blessings—ever sacred and inviolable; yet their tender feelings for the unhappy situation of their free-minded brethren in Great Britain and Ireland, are by sympathy, equal to their own for the sickened condition of their mourning provinces—that the fraternal tye will always incline their hearts to promote their welfare, if instead of endeavouring to oppress them, they make them such a return as brethren might justly expect on the like interesting occasion. If British legislators design to promote the true interests of their country, they will pay a steady regard to the real channel of her great wealth and power,—adopt such measures, as wisdom and honesty readily direct to, and endeavour to dispel those uneasinesses from the hearts of all the American colonists, produced by the unjust and invidious representations of men, whose garb and station ought to have kept them, even from the suspicion of ever fomenting so dangerous a controversy.
Great Britain, on account of her extensive American possessions, might soon and easily repair her decayed trade, and increase it beyond conception, on a sure and permanent foundation, by upright measures. The opposite means to whatsoever caused its decay, would gradually recover it—But when once the channel of trade is stopped by violent methods, it is exceedingly difficult to make it flow again in its former cheerful course. Force can never effect it, for that she utterly contemns. No mistress is more sagacious and coy. She must first be courted, and afterward treated kindly: if folly uses any violence, or makes any material breach of good faith to her, she soon flies, and never returns, unless she is strongly invited back, and can reasonably hope for better usage. A powerful maritime state may gain new colonies by the sword, but can never settle and continue such extensive ones as the American, by force of arms,—except over people of dastardly spirits, and in the enfeebling regions of the south. Even there, when the springs of the state-machine are any considerable time over-stretched, the sharp feelings of the people naturally rouse, and force them to conquer their timorous disposition, and exert their powers to break the torturing wheels, and free themselves of their pains. The voice of nature is against tyranny. It execrates the abettors, and consigns them to punishment.
As the lands in Virginia, and Maryland, are greatly exhausted by raising that impoverishing weed, tobacco,—Great Britain may expect to feel a gradual decay of that valuable branch of trade, in proportion to the increase of the people in those provinces, unless new colonies are settled on the Missisippi. Besides this tract, there is not a sufficient space of fertile land in North America, to invite planters to raise that staple commodity. Though the Ohio settlements are now numerous, and increasing fast, the settlers will only consult their own ease, as nature is there very prolific of every convenience of life; except government wisely encourages them to raise such products as would suit the mother-country, and reward them for their labour. Were proper measures adopted, the desire of gain would induce them to plant with the utmost assiduity: and smiling industry would soon beget a spirit of emulation among the planters, prompting each to excel his neighbour in the annual quantity and good quality of those staple commodities they were invited to fix upon. The vast tracts of fertile woods, which are now shamefully allowed to be only the haunts of wild beasts, and wolfish savages seeking for prey, might far easier be turned into valuable fine plantations by bounties, than the marshes and barren lands in Britain were, into their present flourishing condition, by the repeated encouragements of the Royal Society, and of parliament. Any thing that promotes greatly the public good, ought always to be done at the expence of the public; otherwise it will never be done, especially by labouring individuals. Charity begins at home, and every one’s domestic affairs demand his close attention. To preserve the Ohio lands, cost Great Britain, and our colonies in particular, a river of blood, in consequence of the blindness and obstinacy of a haughty general. A legal constitutional form of government, ought immediately to be established there, both for the general welfare, and preventing evils that may reasonably be expected to grow up among a remote, and numerous body of people,—hardy and warlike,—without any public religion or civil law,—in a healthful climate, and very extensive and fertile country.
Young glittering courtiers may think their merit exceedingly depreciated, to have the offer of the Ohio government conferred on either of them—as it is now chiefly inhabited by long-legged, tawny hunters, who are clothed in winter with the shaggy skins of wild beasts, and are utterly unlearned in the polished art of smiling, when their hearts are displeased at the rash conduct of high-headed rulers: but unless they learned the difficult lesson, “know thyself,” and were endued with a frank open spirit, experience would soon convince them that they were unequal to the task of governing, or inducing the people to promote the general good of the community. The court sophistry of extending the prerogative of the crown, will never do in America—Nothing will please the inhabitants, but the old constitutional laws of Britain. Colonel Philip Skene, who gained wreaths of laurel under General Johnson, and now lives at Lake Champlain, is highly esteemed in the extensive circle of his acquaintance, and revered by all his savage neighbours, because in him is displayed the intrepid warrior, and the open friend to all.—These, together with his knowledge of agriculture, render him as proper a person as any for the office—and it is to be wished that the government would appoint him to preside over the valuable district of Ohio, and he think proper to accept it. Such a measure could not fail of adding greatly to the true interests of Great-Britain and her colonies: thus, the present inhabitants would be incited to promote the public good, and multitudes of the northern people would remove to settle those fruitful lands, and cheerfully apply themselves in raising such commodities, as would prove beneficial to the community. Though the Ohio is far distant from any navigable port, yet we have full proof that every article of luxury will bear great expence for its culture, carriage by land, and freight by water: and, as the fertility of the soil by the stream and small branches of the Missisippi, is well known through North America, and the colonists cannot remove there with their live stock, through the country of the mischievous Muskohge; doubtless numbers of industrious families would come by the Ohio, and soon enrich themselves by increasing the riches of the public.
Any European state, except Great Britain, would at once improve their acquisitions, taken and purchased by an immense quantity of blood and treasure, and turn them to the public benefit. At the end of the late war, the ministry, and their adherents, held up East and West Florida before the eyes of the public, as greatly superior to those West-India islands, which Spain and France were to receive back in exchange. The islands however are rich, and annually add to the wealth and strength of those respective powers: while East Florida, is the only place of that extensive and valuable tract ceded to us, that we have any way improved; and this is little more than a negative good to our other colonies, in preventing their negroes from sheltering in that dreary country, under the protection of Fort St. Augustine. The province is a large peninsula, consisting chiefly of sandy barrens; level sour ground, abounding with tussucks; here and there is some light mixt land; but a number of low swamps, with very unwholesome water in general. In proportion as it is cleared, and a free circulation of air is produced, to dispel the noxious vapours that float over the surface of this low country, it may become more healthful; though any where out of the influence of the sea air, the inhabitants will be liable to fevers and agues. The favourable accounts our military officers gave of the pure wholesome air of St. Augustine, are very just, when they compare it with that of the sand burning Pensacola, and the low stagnated Mobille: St. Augustine stands on a pleasant hill, at the conflux of two salt water rivers, overlooking the land from three angles of the castle, and down the sound, to the ocean. Their relation of the natural advantages of this country, could extend no farther than their marches reached. I formerly went volunteer, about six hundred miles through the country, with a great body of Indians against this place; and we ranged the woods to a great extent. The tracts we did not reach, we got full information of, by several of the Muskohge then with us, who had a thorough knowledge, on account of the long continued excursions they made through the country in quest of the Florida Indians; and even after they drove them into the islands of Florida, to live on fish, among clouds of musketoes. The method these Indians took to keep off those tormenting insects, as their safety would not allow them to make a fire, lest the smoke should guide their watchful enemies to surprise them, was, by anointing their bodies with rank fish oil, mixed with the juice or ashes of indigo. This perfume, and its effluvia, kept off from them every kind of insect. The Indians likewise informed me, that when they went to war against the Floridians, they carried their cypress bark canoes from the head of St. John’s black river, only about half a mile, when they launched them again into a deep river, which led down to a multitude of islands to the N. W. of Cape Florida.
As this colony is incontestably much better situated for trade than West Florida, or the Missisippi lands, it is surprising that Britain does not improve the opportunity which offers, by adding to these unhealthy low grounds a sufficient quantity of waste high land to enable the settlers, and their families, to raise those staples she wants. The Muskohge who claim it, might be offered, and they would accept, what it seems to be worth in its wild state. Justice to ourselves and neighbours, condemns the shortening the planter’s days, by confining their industrious families to unhealthy low lands, when nature invites them to come out, to enjoy her bountiful gifts of health and wealth, where only savage beasts prey on one another, and the bloodier two-footed savages, ramble about to prey on them, or whatsoever falls in their way. Under these, and other pressing circumstances of a similar nature, does this part of America now labour. A west north-west course from the upper parts of Georgia to the Missisippi, would contain more fertile lands than are in all our colonies on the continent, eastward. As most of these colonies abound with frugal and industrious people, who are increasing very fast, and every year crowding more closely together on exhausted land, our rulers ought not to allow so mischievous and dangerous a body as the Muskohge to ingross this vast forest, mostly for wild beasts. This haughty nation is directly in the way of our valuable southern colonies, and will check them from rising to half the height of perfection, which the favourableness of the soil and climate allow, unless we give them severe correction, or drive them over the Missisippi, the first time they renew their acts of hostility against us, without sufficient retaliation. At present, West Florida is nothing but an expence to the public.—The name amuses indeed, at a distance; but were it duly extended and settled, it would become very valuable to Great Britain; and Pensocola harbour would be then serviceable also in a time of war with Spain, being in the gulph of Florida, and near to Cuba. Mobille is a black trifle. Its garrison, and that at Pensacola, cannot be properly supplied by their French neighbours though at a most exorbitant price: and, on account of our own passive conduct, the Muskohge will not allow the inhabitants of Georgia to drive cattle to those places for the use of the soldiers. Neither can the northern merchant-men supply them with salt and fresh provisions, but at a very unequal hazard; for the gulph stream would oblige them to sail along the Cuba shore, where they would be likely to be seized by the Spanish guarda costas, as have many fine American vessels on the false pretence of smuggling, and which, by a strange kind of policy, they have been allowed to keep as legal prizes. In brief, unless Great Britain enlarges both East and West Florida to a proper extent, and adopts other encouraging measures, for raising those staple commodities which she purchases from foreigners, the sagacious public must be convinced, that the opportunity of adding to her annual expences, by paying troops, and maintaining garrisons, to guard a narrow slip of barren sand-hills, and a tract of low grave-yards, is not an equivalent for those valuable improved islands our enemies received in exchange for them.
We will now proceed to the Missisippi, and that great extent of territory, which Great Britain also owns by exchange; and shew the quality of those lands, and how far they may really benefit her, by active and prudent management. As in Florida, so to a great distance from the shore of the gulph, the lands generally consist of burning sand, and are uninhabitable, or of wet ground, and very unhealthy. But, a little beyond this dreary desart, are many level spots very fertile, and which would suit people who are used to a low situation, and prove very valuable, both to planters, and the inhabitants of a trading town. As the river runs from north to south, the air is exceedingly pure in the high lands of this extensive tract. The soil is generally very rich; and, to the distance of six hundred miles up, from the low lands of the sea coast, it is as happy a climate as any under heaven, quite free from the extremities of heat and cold. Any product of the same clime from 31 to 45 degrees N. L. might be raised here in the greatest perfection, to the great profit of the planter and the public. Many thousands of us would heartily rejoice to see administration behave as wise men—leave their mean, or mad policy, and promote a spirit of emigration among the families of the crowded northern colonies. Thus the industrious poor in Britain, would find more employ in manufactures; and the public would receive from their brethren, what they now purchase chiefly from rival powers with gold and silver, with the balance of trade greatly against them. This fine country, Georgiana, invites Great Britain to smile upon it, and in return to receive its grateful tribute of tobacco, hemp, silk, flax, cotton, indigo, wine and tea, in plenty, besides many other valuable products. Hops grow wild on the Missisippi—and the tobacco raised at the Nahchee old settlement, was esteemed of superior quality to any belonging France. The lands on the extensive ramifications of the Missisippi lands are capable of producing the like. All kind of vegetables planted, or sowed in their fields, gardens, and orchards, either for profit or pleasure, would grow to greater perfection, and with less art and labour, in this tract, than any in Europe, so fruitful is the soil, and favourable the climate. As the savages live in a direct line between our northern colonies, and this, to the distance of four hundred miles above New Orleans; our northern people will be obliged to make a winding course by the Ohio, before they can reach it with their families and necessary moveables; which shews that it requires public spirit, and the support of government to settle a flourishing colony here. The two Floridas, and this, which to the great loss of the nation, lie shamefully neglected, are the only places in the British empire, from whence she can receive a sufficient supply of those staples she wants. The prosperity, and even the welfare of Great Britain, depends on sundry accounts, in a high degree, on improving these valuable and dear bought acquisitions; and we hope her eyes will be opened soon, and her hands stretched out to do it—she will provide for the necessities of her own poor at home, by the very means that would employ a multitude of useless people in agriculture here, and bring the savages into a probable way of being civilized, and becoming christians, by contracting their circle of three thousand miles, and turning them from a lonely hunt of wild beasts, to the various good purposes of society. Should Great Britain duly exert herself as the value of this place requires, by the assistance of our old Chikkasah allies, the other Indian nations would be forced to pursue their true interest, by living peaceably with us; and be soon enticed to become very serviceable both to our planters, and the enlargement of trade.
As the Missisippi Indians are not likely to be soon corrupted by the haughty stiff Spaniards, and are mostly of a tractable disposition, consequently they might be civilized, and their wants so greatly extended as to demand every kind of British manufactures, in imitation of their friendly, industrious, and opulent neighbours: and, as the small profits of hunting would not be sufficient to purchase a variety of such new necessaries, they might be easily induced to cultivate those commodities that would best answer their demands. Raising of silk, would extremely well agree with them, on account of its easy process; mulberry trees grow spontaneously to a considerable height here, and in the low lands through all our southern colonies; which, were they topped, and transplanted near to the houses, would serve to feed the silk worms with their leaves. The easy culture of this valuable commodity, silk, would not hinder the planter from attending the inviting products of the field. Thus the Indians would be gently led out of their uncultivated state of nature, and a fair opportunity would be given to discreet, sensible and pious teachers to instruct them in the plain, and easy principles of christianity.
The prodigious number of fertile hills lying near some of the large streams, and among the numberless smaller branches of the Missisippi, from 33 to 37 degrees N. L. (and likewise in the two Floridas) are as well adapted by nature, for producing different sorts of wine, as any place whatever. The high lands naturally abound with a variety of wine grapes: if therefore these extensive lands were settled, and planters met with due encouragement, Great Britain in a few years might purchase here, with her own manufactures, a sufficient supply of as good wines as she buys from her dangerous rival France, at a great disadvantage of trade, or even from Portugal. The level lands here, as in other countries, are badly watered; which therefore would absolutely require the colony to be extended six hundred miles up the Missisippi, to answer the main design of settling it. The lands in our northern colonies are too much exhausted to raise a sufficient quantity of hemp for their own consumption: and indigo does not grow to the north of Cape Fear river, in North Carolina, on account of the coldness of the climate. And as it grows only in rich lands, it is liable to be devoured the second year by swarms of grasshoppers, and its roots are of so penetrating a nature, as not only to impoverish the ground, but requires more new fertile land than the planters can allow; so that in a short time, that product will cease of course in South Carolina, and Georgia. This favourable country will supply that growing defect. In the Carolinas, and along the sea-coast to the Missisippi, tea grows spontaneously; and doubtless, if the East-India tea was transplanted into those colonies, it would grow, as well as in the eastern regions of the same latitude. The chief point consists in curing it well: but foreigners, or experience, would soon overcome that difficulty by due encouragement. Some years ago, a gentleman of South Carolina told me he raised some of the East-India tea, and it grew extremely well. He said, he had it cured in a copper kettle, well covered, and fixed in a common pot with water, which boiled three hours, was then taken out, and allowed to cool before they opened it; and that when the vessel was not filled with the leaves, they curled in the same manner as the East-India weed imported at a great loss of men and money, and better tasted.
I am well acquainted with near two thousand miles along the American continent, and have frequently been in the remote woods; but the quantity of fertile lands, in all that vast space, exclusive of what ought to be added to East and West-Florida, seems to bear only a small proportion to those between the Missisippi and Mobille-river, with its N. W. branches, which run about thirty miles north of the Chikkasah country, and intermix with pleasant branches of the great Cheerake river.272 In settling the two Floridas, and the Missisippi-lands, administration should not suffer them to be monopolized—nor the people to be classed and treated as slaves—Let them have a constitutional form of government, the inhabitants will be cheerful, and every thing will be prosperous. The country promises to yield as plentiful harvests of the most valuable productions, as can be wished.
There is a number of extensive and fertile Savannas, or naturally clear land, between the Missisippi and the western branches of Mobille river. They begin about two hundred and fifty miles above the low lands of the coast, and are interspersed with the woods to a great distance, probably three hundred miles. The inland parts are unknown to any but the Indians and the English traders—the warlike Chikkasah were so dreadful to the French, that even their fleet of large trading boats avoided the eastern side of the Missisippi, or near this shore under a high point of land, for the space of two hundred leagues:273 so that, beyond what they barely saw from their boats, their accounts of the interior parts of this extensive country, are mere conjectures. The soil of the clear land, generally consists of loose rich mould to a considerable depth, and either a kind of chalk, or marl, underneath. We frequently find the grass with its seeded tops as high as our heads, when on horse-back, and very likely it would bear mowing, three or four times in one season. As the Indians gather their wild hemp, in some of these open fertile lands, both it and our hemp would grow to admiration, with moderate tillage; and so would tobacco, indigo, cotton, and flax, in perfection. If Great-Britain exerts herself in earnest, with an helping hand to this new colony; granting only for eight years, an equal bounty with that she gave to the bleak and barren settlement of Nova Scotia, she would receive at the expiration of that period, in return for her favours, an abundant variety of valuable raw materials, for employing a vast multitude of her poor at home, as well as luxurious productions, for her own consumption, and that of foreigners; greatly increase the public revenue; destroy the sale of French wines, and tobacco, the chief sinews of their state; render herself independent of foreign countries—and make millions of people easy and happy, on both sides of the broad water, by mutual industry, and reciprocal offices of friendship.
If Great Britain thus wisely improves the natural advantages of North-America, she will soon reap sufficient fruit for her expences of cultivating it: but she must certainly be a loser, in proportion to any unconstitutional attempt excited by false views, against the natural rights and chartered privileges of the colonists. We now and then see the lamentable power that illiberal prejudices and self-interest obtain over gentlemen of learning, and judgment, by transforming them from honest, wise men, into dangerous political incendiaries. Whether the colonists are large in their British imports, or are forced to more domestic frugality on account of the late severe restraints upon their trade, these sophists declare them to be rivals in trade, and devote them to destruction. The colonists however generally proportion their expences to the annual income of their possessions. If they gain but a little by trade, and labour, they spend as little in luxuries. At the very worst, they can keep the wolf of want from their doors. They are so happily situated, as to have far less real demands for gold and silver than any other civilized, increasing body of people. When they received those metals abroad by their Spanish trade, they soon remitted them to Great Britain; and they are now quite easy, if she chuses to strike her own pocket very hard, in order to hurt them. Our political physicians prescribe a strange sort of means and regimen to heal the wounds of the body politic; assuredly they will tear them open, and make them bleed fresh again, and more than ever. It is a pity, that before they thought of hunger and phlebotomy for the supposed unsound Americans, they had not duly considered the solid reasonings and unanswerable arguments of the very worthy, upright patriot, John Dickenson, Esq; and other American gentlemen, and the speeches and publications of some patriots at home. Smollett’s observations are also very pertinent—“The natives of New-England acquired great glory from the success of this enterprize against Louisbourg. Britain, which had in some instances behaved like a stepmother to her own colonies, was now convinced of their importance; and treated those as brethren whom she had too long considered as aliens and rivals. Circumstanced as the nation is, the legislature cannot too tenderly cherish the interests of the British plantations in America. They are inhabited by a brave, hardy, industrious people, animated with an active spirit of commerce, inspired with a noble zeal for liberty and independence. The trade of Great-Britain, clogged with heavy taxes and impositions, has for some time languished in many valuable branches. The French have undersold our cloths, and spoiled our markets in the Levent. Spain is no longer supplied as usual with the commodities of England: the exports to Germany must be considerably diminished by the misunderstanding between Great Britain and the house of Austria;—consequently her greatest resource must be in her communication with her own colonies, which consume her manufactures, and make immense returns in sugar, rum, tobacco, fish, timber, naval stores, iron, furs, drugs, rice, and indigo. The southern plantations likewise produce silk; and with due encouragement might furnish every thing that could be expected from the most fertile soil and the happiest climate. The continent of North America, if properly cultivated, will prove an inexhaustible fund of wealth and strength to Great Britain; and perhaps it may become the last asylum of British liberty, when the nation is enslaved by domestic despotism or foreign dominion; when her substance is wasted, her spirit broke, and the laws and constitution of England are no more: then those colonies sent off by our fathers may receive and entertain their sons as hapless exiles and ruined refugees.”
Evil-minded writers depreciate those Americans most, who stand most in their way. Could their enemies subjugate them, they might then put their hands in their pockets with impunity, use scorpion-whips on their backs at pleasure, and establish the most delicious part of the Jewish law, tithes, through the whole continent.
The present Quixote scheme evidently seems to fetter the British Americans, at all events, and force them to pay for their fetters; to compel them to maintain a great body of imperious red coats to rule over them, after the manner of the miserable sons of Hibernia, without allowing them any militia, even on their barriers: otherwise our rulers think that, about twenty years hence, the quick increase of the British Americans, will render the execution of their scheme impracticable. Rather than let them be free and happy, they are for reducing them, in effect, to poverty and a state of slavery. However, if they conjure right, and even allowing them that success they pine for, it cannot well be supposed that such vast multitudes of British subjects would be so inured to slavery, in the short space of twenty years, but that they would cut off their chains, and set themselves free. Some statesmen have shewn themselves to be no less strangers to the generous principles of the constitution, and feelings of humanity, than they are to the extraordinary martial abilities of the American provincials, especially in the woods, which are continued almost through all our colonies, and would prove a grave-yard to a great army of regular troops. Tame Frenchmen might submit to the yoke intended—But Britons, of revolution-principles, especially the Americans, contemn it and all its supporters, far beyond the power of language to express. Were they impoverished, and subjugated, their own bravery would soon set them free from tyranny. When sufferings become sharp, brave men always make desperate efforts, in proportion to their pain. And the annals of the world uniformly declare, that no enemies are so desperate and bitter, as despised, abused, and persecuted friends.
They who are in the least acquainted with the principles of our colonists, can truly testify their universal attachment to the present line of Brunswick; and that their hearts are faithful to the real honour and best interest of their king and country, whose interests cannot be divided. And we hope, that they who have the chief direction of public affairs, will soon cherish that disposition, so peculiar to free-minded Britons; and that condign punishment will be inflicted on those who endeavour to check it, and to foment a civil war. Thus, a profitable intercourse, a lasting peace, and perpetual friendship, will continue between the honest parent and her grateful colonies, who will not fail to be just to her, to themselves, and to their posterity.
FINIS
Notes
156. By Matthew Roche, of the “Sphynx Company,” for which see later. A letter of Adair was incorporated in the pamphlet, and it may not be doubted that Adair figured not a little in the preparation and composition of its contents.
157. Capt. John Stuart, who was rescued by Attakullakulla at the downfall of Ft. Loudoun, was principal superintendent of Indian affairs at the South, from 1762 to the end of the colonial era.
158. Evidently “on”—a misprint.
159. The records abound in proofs of the awe in which the Chickasaws were held by the other tribes of the Southern and Northern Indians.
160. Described by Lord Adam Gordon in 1764, Wolf King was a sensible old man, who said he might be one hundred years old. Mereness, Travels in the American Colonies, 385.
161. The Shawnees were hereditary enemies of the Cherokees, but usually allies of the Creeks. By capture or intermarriage there was quite an admixture of Shawnee blood among the Cherokees. The small party referred to in the text may have been one of this character.
162. The reference seems to be to Gov. James Glen, who made such an effort.
163. Lachlan McGillivray. The archives at Columbia bear out Adair’s statements on this point.
164. Bienville gave their number of warriors in 1725-26 as 8,000 and the Colonial Records of Georgia state a higher number. There had been a frightful loss of life in the numerous wars fought with the Chickasaws under French incitement. In wars with the Creeks, 1765-1771, they lost about three hundred warriors, Gallatin, Synopsis, etc., 100. Cushman draws a brighter picture of the Choctaws, but Milfort makes a distinction between the Northern and Southern Choctaws, giving to the former superior qualities. The earliest mention of them is found in the De Soto narratives, 1540.
165. The reference is to the firms of Baynton, Wharton & Morgan, and Franks & Co.
166. George Johnstone.
167. Adair was not well up on North Carolina geography. The Yadkin does not flow into the Cape Fear River.
168. Charles Stuart, seemingly a brother of John Stuart, was deputy superintendent.
169. The reference is to Col. Abraham Wood, of Virginia, and to his sending out Batts and Fallam in 1671—not 1654 or 1664. Adair is here following Cox’s Carolana. See Alvord and Bidgood, First Explorations of the Trans-Allegheny Region, 191, and Williams, Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 17. Capt. Bolton made no such discovery in 1670.
170. Dr. Cox, of London, father of the author of Carolana and a proprietor of West (New) Jersey but never in America, did send Capt. Bond by sea to, then up the Mississippi about one hundred miles, in 1698; the vessel was turned back by Iberville acting for the French, at a place ever since called “the English turn,” just below New Orleans.
171. Adair is yet following the Carolana of Daniel Cox, son of Dr. Cox, taking no notice of the journeys of Marquette and Jolliet in 1673 and of La Salle in 1682.
172. The fort was abandoned in January, 1768.
173. Gov. James Glen. As corroborative of Adair: “We have advices from some of our traders that the Choctaw Indians (for many years past in the French interest) have invited them into their towns to trade, promising them a guard of 400 men; and as a testimony of their good intentions they brought with them the scalps of three Frenchmen.” S. C. Gazette, Nov. 4, 1746.
174. The celebrated and double-faced Red Shoes, leader of a faction of the Choctaws. He took part with the French in the war of 1736; but proving insolent after the war, Vaudreuil stopped the supply of arms and ammunition to his party. Further incensed by the discovery of a Frenchman from Ft. Tombekbe in adultery with his favorite wife, Adair found him ripe for heading a faction of the Choctaws against the French. Adair’s influence was exerted to that end in 1746, for in October of that year, De Beauchamp was among the friendly Choctaws, warning them against Adair, “that trader who was at the Chikachas [Chickasaws], mentioning him by name,” and offering a reward for the death of Red Shoes. Mereness, Travels in the American Colonies, 290 et seq. A fratricidal war broke out among the Choctaws. Red Shoes’ party with a band of the Creeks, in June, 1748, not 1747 as Adair states from memory, made an attack on the German settlement (Quartier des Alemands) as stated by Adair. Vaudreuil was more fortunate in compassing the death of Red Shoes later in 1748, seemingly through Jean Grondel. The fiat went forth that the arch-intriguer must die. He was set upon and killed while convoying to his towns a train of English goods from Charles Town. English traders saved the goods; and, by making a distribution of them, managed to revive the war, placing a brother of Red Shoes at the head of his partisans. This faction was soon defeated and put to rout by Grandpre, then commandant at Ft. Tombikbe. In the event, the connection of Red Shoes and Adair was unfortunate for both.
175. The reference is to the two unsuccessful campaigns of the French against the Chickasaws under Bienville.
176. The Chickasaws’ horses were favorites throughout the South. Barton in his New View says: “It is a well established fact that the Chickasaws brought with them from the West those beautiful horses called Chickasaw breed.” Major Robert Rogers in his Concise Account of North America, says that the Chickasaws are supposed to have introduced the horse, and had large droves of them in 1762. But others attribute the origin to De Soto’s visit among them. Hugh Williamson (Observations, 80) in 1811 said: “Those Indians were originally furnished by De Soto with a breed of Spanish horses. The Indians, towards the middle of the last century, discovered that their horses were a valuable article of commerce.... The traders in all cases bought their largest horses.” Smyth (1774) in North Carolina “purchased a beautiful Chickasaw horse, named so from a nation of Indians who are very careful of preserving a fine breed of Spanish horses they have long preserved, unmixed with any other.” A Tour, I, 139. In 1785 Henry Laurens, Jr., of Charleston, wrote of being “informed by a Friend of his expectations of a string of five and forty horses from the Chickasaws which are generally esteemed as good horses as any in America.” So. Car. Hist. Mag., XXIV, 11. The horse, it seems, was not introduced among the Cherokees until the beginning of the seventeenth century, and then probably from the Chickasaws. Byrd says that the Indians “were utter strangers to all our beasts of carriage before the slothful Europeans came amongst them.” The Seminoles of Florida also had horses of Andalusian breed, brought over by the Spaniards. Bartram, Travels, 213. The Chickasaw breed was in high repute in East Tennessee in the last decade of the eighteenth century. A celebrated sire “Piomingo,” named for the great chief, was advertised as “a fine Spanish horse raised in the Chickasaw nation.” Knoxville Gazette, Mar. 24, 1792.
177. For accordant statement: Williams, Memoirs of Timberlake, 79; Lawson, History of North Carolina (1903 ed.) 133.
178. This ecomium on the Chickasaws finds full confirmation on the part of historians and travelers, French, Spanish and English:
“The nation of the Chickasaws is very warlike. The men have regular features, well shaped and neatly dressed; they are fierce, and have a high opinion of themselves. The nations who border upon them who speak the Chickasaw language best value themselves upon it.” (Du Pratz.)
“They are accounted and esteemed the bravest Indians upon the main, which makes good the common observation that the bravest soldiers are generally the most civil to prisoners.” (Eveleigh.)
“They are the most indefatigable and most valiant of all the Indians.” (Rev. John Wesley.)
“Not so numerous as the Choctaws, but more terrible on account of their intrepidity. The Chickasaws are tall, well made, and of an unparalleled courage.” (Bossu.)
“A brave, warlike people; tall, well-shaped and handsome featured.” (Rogers.)
“These brave Indians, our ancient allies and steady friends; irreconciliable enemies of the French.” (Sir Jeffrey Amherst.)
“There is no Indian nation on the continent near so handsome as the Chickasaws; they have always been distinguished for their gallant actions and feats of heroism which have rendered them, even individually, to be particularly respected throughout all the nations of North America. For which reason Chickasaw guides are more sought after and are more serviceable than those of any other nation.” (Smyth.)
“The most intrepid warriors of the South.” (Bancroft.)
“The bravest of the brave. Admirably proportioned, athletic, active and graceful in their movements, and possessed of open and manly countenances.” (Pickett.)
“Their courage exceeded that of all other aborigines. Neighboring tribes found them invincible.” (Brewer.)
“Through all the epochs of colonial history the Chickasaw people maintained their old reputation for independence and bravery.” (Gatschet.)
“The ancient Chickasaws have justily been regarded as the bravest and most skillful warriors among all the American Indians.” (Cushman.)
“The smallest of the Southern nations, but they were also the bravest and most warlike.” (Roosevelt.)
“Noted from remote times for their bravery, independence and warlike disposition.” (Hodge.)
179. See on this town, Swanton, Early Creeks, 313, et seq.
180. Should be 1748, when “the Western Choctaws attack the Quartier Alemands.” French Transcripts at Jackson, Miss., Vol. 32, p. 81.
181. Quapaw, a Southwestern Siouan tribe, their villages west of the Mississippi and north of the Arkansas River. Hodge, Handbook, II, 333.
182. A name applied by Adair to a company of traders, composed of Gov. James Glen, his brother and two others, and given official countenance.
183. At their head Charles McNaire.
184. George Galphin.
185. Perhaps Joseph Wood, of Georgia.
186. James Campbell who had traded among the Chickasaws for nearly twenty years. He had conducted a small trade among the Choctaws, and joined Adair in the plan to win over Red Shoes.
187. “Friday last arrived 47 Indians of a very potent nation heretofore in enmity and now come to solicit peace and the encouragement of English traders to settle and supply them with goods, giving assurances of fidelity and good treatment.” South Carolina Gazette, Apr. 13, 1748. A brother of Red Shoes headed the delegation. Ib., Apr. 17.
188. The mythic place, Nani Waya (winding hill), in Winston County, Miss. Nanna Waya Creek through the county yet is known by the name. Gatschet, Migration Legend, 105; Cushman, History, 361.
189. The French archives, with data of the year 1748, afford ample corroboration of “the Choctaw rebellion,” as they termed the civil war.
190. Or Paya Mattaha; he represented the Chickasaw Nation as principal leader in the Indian Congress held by Gov. Johnstone and John Stuart, at Mobile in March, 1765. He there made an extended speech: “Tho’ I am a red man, my heart is white from my connection with and the benefit I have received from the white people. I almost look upon myself as one of them.... The English have always supported me in my distress and never deserted or deceived me.”
191. Gov. Glen in 1748 admitted that Adair and John Campbell had been his chief agents in bringing about the Red Shoe revolt. Adair’s bitterness towards the governor was not without cause.
192. Identified by Swanton as the Cusabo Indians. Early Hist. Creeks, 71 et seq.
193. Adair is here recounting Cherokee raids in the early decades of the eighteenth century.
194. George Haig who in 1748 was taken captive, with Thomas Brown’s half-breed son, and put to death by the Indians (R. L. Meriwether). Thomas Brown is mentioned by Adair as “T. B.” He and Haig were associates in the Indian trade from a post on Congaree River up to Brown’s death in 1747.
195. Col. George Chicken, Ibid.
196. Col. Fox, see n. p. 254 ante.
197. Henry Foster (sometimes Francis), son-in-law of James Francis. See Introduction, p. xiii ante.
198. See Introduction on this Memorial.
199. There must be a misprint here, since there was no such disparity between the water and land routes, and Adair was well posted on the point.
200. “The tribal name is Tciaca. The suffix aca denoting people collectively; another form Tcikocokela, okela denoting tribe, is in common use.” Frank G. Speck in Journal of American Folk Lore, XX, 50-58.
201. Adair is corroborated by Cushman (History of the Choctaws, Chickasaws, etc., 19-20, 242-246, 361, 494). The languages were for the most part identical. It appears that in speeches made by Chickasaw chiefs in councils held by the British with them and the Choctaws, jointly, the former spoke as “elders” to the Choctaws.
202. Adair does not go further back than 1720 in his account of the Chickasaws. The expedition of De Soto in 1540-41 crossed their country, called by its historians or narrators “Chicaca provincia,” and suffered a defeat by the tribe. In La Salle’s own account of his expedition of 1682 he mentions the “river inhabited by the Sicachas,” as having “its source near Carolina”—the Tennessee River, manifestly. His men came in contact with “five of the Chikacha nation” at one of the Chickasaw Bluffs on the Mississippi in the present West Tennessee. In 1687, Father Anastasius Douay records respecting a party of La Salle’s force, “we went to the Sicachas, where we had not been,” previously. “This nation is very numerous; they count at least four thousand warriors; have an abundance of peltry.” But Tonty, in 1693, noted the tribe as having “2,000 warriors.” By 1720-21 that the Chickasaws were a thorn in the side of the French is demonstrated by Charlevoix and Diron D’Artaguette. For all their accounts, see Williams, Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, passim. In the closing years of the seventeenth century Carolina traders were among the Chickasaws, initiating a commerce that Adair carried forward. For later glimpses: Du Pratz, History of Louisiana, II, 217; for a few customs, Bossu, Travels in Louisiana, passim; Roman’s East and West Florida, and authorities later cited. Having in view the part played by the Chickasaws in aiding the English in holding the Mississippi Valley against the French, all too scant attention has been paid to that gallant and remarkable nation of red men by the historians of America.
203. The best account of the Natchez Indians is Swanton’s Lower Tribes, passim, supplemented by his Early History of the Creeks.
204. For the three humiliatingly unsuccessful campaigns of the French against the Chickasaws, due to their giving asylum to the Natchez, see: Primary, Rowland and Sanders, Mississippi Provincial Archives, I, passim; Ga. Col. Recs., XXI and XXII, and Shea’s reprint of [Bouache] Journal de la Guerre du Micissippi contre les Chicachas en 1739-40, translation in Claiborne’s Mississippi. Secondary, Pickett’s History of Alabama, Hamilton, Colonial Mobile, and Williams, Beginnings of West Tennessee, chs. IV and V.
205. Confirmation: Williams, op. cit., chs. V and VI. Most of the Chickasaw sallies were from the Bluffs in West Tennessee, at the site of Memphis and above.
206. Not only the French but their Indians: “Both French and Indians stand in awe of them.” Williams, op. cit., 29.
207. In the treaties of 1818 (Shelby-Jackson) and 1832 (Coffee-Colbert). As to the latter, Jackson, then President, wrote: “All things considered, I think it is a good one, and surely the religious enthusiasts or those who have been weeping over the oppression of the Indians will not find fault with it for want of liberality or justice to the Indians.” This expressed hope of Adair was measurably (but barely so) proved to be true. Bassett, Correspondence of Jackson, IV, 483, and Williams, op. cit., App. A and B.
208. See n. 271, p. 484 post.
209. The reference is to Gen. Phineas Lyman’s scheme for a colony, Georgiana. Williams, op. cit., 18.
210. It is this point, well made by Adair, that our historians have failed fully to grasp or appreciate. The fate of the lower Mississippi Valley might have been otherwise but for the Chickasaws; not once but twice—first against the French but later against the Spaniards.
211. Of widespread culture among other tribes. See Bartram, Travels, 38, 421.
212. Used by the Indians in concocting the “black drink”; as to which see n. 22, p. 49 ante.
213. Ginseng is yet gathered wild and even cultivated for commerce in the mountains. As to the use made of it by the aborigines: Mooney, Myths, 421, 425, 505, and Sacred Formulas, 326.
214. If we assume that Adair wrote these words in 1768, then almost at the time the first steps were being taken by such people on their own initiative to found settlements on the Holston and Watauga Rivers, which were to become the seed-plot of the civilization of the Upper Southwest.
215. To the Natchez Country left open to settlement by the king’s proclamation of 1763.
216. Charles Town was the first center of the Indian trade. From that place prior to 1700 traders had reached the Indian tribes on the Mississippi; in that year they were found there by the French. McCrady says that many of the early fortunes of Charleston families were built up by the Indian trade. This is more than can be said of the traders, who adventured themselves into the wilderness encompassed by manifold dangers to make possible the merchants’ fortunes. Augusta followed as chief mart. “It was laid out in the beginning of the year 1736, and thrives prodigiously. It is the chief place of trade with the Indians. There are several warehouses in it well furnished with goods for the Indian trade.... There are five large boats which belong to different inhabitants of the town, and carry about nine thousand weight of deer skins, each; and last year about one hundred thousand weight of skins was brought from there. All the Indian traders from both provinces of South Carolina and Georgia, resort thither in the spring. In June, 1739, the traders, pack-horsemen, servants, townsmen and others dependent upon that business, made about six hundred whites who live by the trade in the Indian nations. Each hunter is reckoned to get three hundred weight of deer skins in a year, which is a very advantageous trade to England, for the deer skins, beaver and other furs are chiefly paid for in woolen goods and iron.” An Impartial Inquiry, London, 1741, also in Ga. Hist. Coll. I, 153 et seq. Among the traders of Adair’s early period as a trader may be mentioned a few not elsewhere named who traded to the Chickasaws: Thos. Welch, James Alford, John Chester, James Welch, John Buckles, John Brown, Thomas Andrews, Wm. McMullian, Augustine Smith, Jerome Courtonne, John Tanner, Benj. Sealey, John Smith, Richard McCully and Francis Underwood. For traders to the Cherokees: Rothrock, Carolina Traders Among the Overhill Cherokees, 1690-1760, E. T. Hist. Soc. Pub., I, 3 et seq.
217. Set out, article by article, with prices in the proceedings of the Congress.
218. Lt. Col. Wedderburn, chief military officer of West Florida.
219. Charles Stuart, a younger brother of John Stuart, was deputy for many years prior to the War of the Revolution.
220. James Colbert, who was to become a great leader of the Chickasaws.
221. George Craghan or Croghan, whose career is set forth in Volwiler, George Croghan, and the Westward Movement. There is evidence that Craghan or one of his agents was on the Tennessee River in the Tennessee Country prior to 1756.
222. Kaskaskia, in the Illinois Country.
223. Was this a Joseph Greer of the Valley of Virginia? Andrew Greer, of the Watauga Settlement, was somewhat later a trader to the Cherokees.
224. Supplementing Adair’s statements as to the strength of the Chickasaws, only a few authorities are here quoted: Sir Nathaniel Johnson, Sept. 17, 1708, stated in a report that “the Chikysaws have at least 600 men. These Indians are stout and warlike.... Slaves is what we have in exchange for our goods, which these people take from several nations of Indians that live beyond them.” Rivers, Historical Sketch of South Carolina, 238. In 1715, the census taken by South Carolina authorities gave 700 warriors. Gov. Bull, of South Carolina (1742): “They do not exceed 400 men.” Royal Com. Hist. MSS., Appendix IV, 269. After the attrition of three wars with the French, John Buckles, a trader among them, reported this estimate in 1754: “Able gunmen, 340; old men between 50 and 70 years, 25; young boys, 155. As to the number of women in the nation... every fellow has at least 2 or 3 wives; and young girls there may be about the same number as the boys, or they may exceed.” Maj. Robert Rogers in his Concise Account of North America, stated that in 1762 “they can raise 500 fighting men.” Two years later (1764) Capt. Thomas Hutchins estimated 750 warriors. For other figures: Swanton, Early Creeks, 449.
225. On methods of warfare: Bartram, Travels, 211; Gatschet, Migration Legend, 167; Williams, Memoirs of Timberlake, 57 et seq., 93, 102; Smith’s Captivity, 153, 163; Hodge, Handbook, II, 915, and Morgan, League of the Iroquois, I, 68, 72, 300 et seq.
226. On scalping: Hodge, Handbook, II, 482.
227. An instance is given by DeBrahm. Williams, Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 193.
228. Tattooing was practiced by Indians generally; the ink differed; by some charred box-elder was used, by others the dripping of rich pine-roots; the pricking was done by sharp flint points, sharp bone or gar’s tooth, and, in the West, cactus spines. Most tribes had one or more persons expert in the art. See, also, Bartram, Travels, 482 et seq.
229. Instances are numerous in the history of the American Indians.
230. In which he recites his war-like deeds, as by way of a swan-song.
231. This, it is believed, is the best description extant of torture at the stake.
232. A Seneca warrior from the North. Mooney, Myths, 491.
233. Gen. Oglethorpe: “In case of murder, the next in blood is obliged to kill the murderer, or else he is looked upon as infamous in the nation where he lives. There is no coersive power in that government.” Gentlemen’s Magazine (London) for 1733, p. 413.
234. Gatschet, Migration Legend, 136.
235. On these titles among the Cherokees: Williams, Memoirs of Timberlake, 194n.
236. For aid rendered by the Southern Indians to Oglethorpe: Harris, Memorials, 224; and the Chickasaws, Ga. Hist. Coll., I, 270, 277.
237. All authorities are in agreement: Bartram, Travels, 212; Lawson, History of Carolina, 287; Williams, Memoirs of Timberlake, 79; Mooney, Myths, lxviii, 434, 465; see p. 120 ante.
238. The fullest and best account is by Mooney, The Cherokee Ball Play, reprint from Am. Anthropologist, April, 1890; also in Myths, passim; also, Bartram, Travels, 506. For a game played for the amusement of the Duke of Orleans (King Louis Philippe) in 1797, Williams, Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 437.
239. The best account of the game and yard where played is Bartram’s in Observations, 34, and Myer, Prehistoric Villages in Middle Tennessee, 515. See also, Mooney, Myths, 434, Williams, Memoirs of Timberlake, 99; and Jones, Antiquities, 341-2.
240. The discoidal stone used somewhat resembled the discus of the Greek athletes; wrought of quartz. Travelers among the Creeks remark their grace in the game. “Nearly all the fine specimens that enrich the public and private collections of other States have been found in the valleys of Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers.” Thurston, Antiquities of Tennessee, 263, where illustrations may be found; also in Harrington, Remains on Upper Tennessee River, 236.
241. Consult on modes of fishing: Jones, Antiquities of Southern Indians, 327 et seq.; Bartram’s Observations, 44.
242. In the American Pioneer, of Cincinnati, I, 143, Barker gives an interesting account of the Chickasaws fishing in Duck River in Middle Tennessee (1805). He observed the Indians in their canoes pursuing large fishes which swarmed in that beautiful stream in the domain claimed by them; and taking great numbers by the use of long cane spears. Cane grew there in profusion. The spears “were sixteen or eighteen feet in length, sharpened with a knife into a lancet shape at one end, and were thrown with great dexterity twenty or thirty feet; seldom failing to pierce a fish through at every throw. This was doubtless an invention of great antiquity, and practiced by their fathers ages before the use of iron was known amongst them.”
243. For a similar account: Williams, Memoirs of Timberlake, 69.
244. Consult Jones, op. cit., 269-286, and illustrations.
245. On Indian agriculture: Bartram, Travels, 509; Jones, op. cit., 296-320; Timberlake, 68.
246. Consult on construction of dwelling houses: Jones, op. cit., 35, 39; Bartram, Travels, 365; Timberlake, 84.
247. Maize or com was also the dependence of the pioneer whites. Its importance in the history of the West cannot be overly emphasized. See Jones, op. cit., 297-301; Mooney, Myths, 421, 423, 471, 481.
248. Jones describes this stone, op. cit., 315-20.
249. Accord, Bartram, Travels, 38.
250. Wild strawberry vines matted the earth where there were barrens; the ripe “berries covered the ground as with a red cloth.” (F. A. Michaux, 1803.)
251. There was the wild or pig potato, indigenous and ancestors of the cultivated potato, and the artichoke.
252. Ante. p. 4.
253. For hot-house, see Williams, Memoirs of Timberlake, 35: “A little hut joined to the house, in which a fire is continually kept, and the heat so great that cloaths are not to be borne the coldest day in the winter.” Also, Jones, op. cit., 16.
254. There is no difficulty in finding ample corroboration of Adair’s description of the lower class of Indian traders. One of the best summaries is that of Rivers in his Topics in the History of South Carolina: “Many were dissolute and worthless, and were despised even by the savages. Many conciliated favor and insured safety by adopting Indian habits and marrying among them.”
255. Rivers, also, takes Adair’s distinction: “But, on the other hand, some were gentlemen who doubtless would have achieved renown in the most arduous duties of a public career.”
256. Not only the Indians but the whites, particularly the French hunters out of New Orleans, were responsible for the extirpation of the buffalo from the region east of the Mississippi. The tale is told in Williams, Beginnings of West Tennessee, 10 et seq., 245. In early times the American bison ranged in great herds through the Southeast and Old Southwest. Some writers have questioned whether it ever existed in the Southeast below North Carolina; but in the first settlement of Georgia they were as abundant as they were in Tennessee and Kentucky. “Col. Wm. McIntosh, the brother of Gen. Lachland McIntosh, my grandfather, has often told me that he had seen ten thousand buffaloes in a herd.... My father, whose Indian establishements (as Bartram’s book shows) extended to St. Mark’s, was constantly supplied with buffalo tongues, until as late as 1774, as my mother has often stated to me.” Thos. Spalding in Ga. Hist. Coll., I, 268. For the buffalo in North Carolina, see Byrd’s Dividing Line. In East Tennessee, Williams, Memoirs of Timberlake, 47, 71, 120. In Middle Tennessee, Haywood’s History of Tennessee, 90. They are said to have been of late arrival, comparatively, in the region east of the Mississippi and south of the Ohio. None of the De Soto narrators mentions the animal. The flesh and butter were food; the wool was used in making rough cloth; the skins for bedding. The hide was a symbol of protection to the early Cherokees; hence it was often given as a pledge. Worn by ardent lovers of the tribe, it was the mute offering of protection to the maid, chosen to preside over the warrior’s household.
257. Byrd, in Dividing Line, mentions a queer belief of the North Carolina Indians that the eating of bear’s flesh by women promotes vitality and makes child-bearing easy.
258. The flesh from the hump and rump was considered the choicest, next to the tongue.
259. Jones, op. cit., 311, citing Du Pratz, II, 225, and Loskiel’s History, etc., 67. Even the whites, in their first year on the frontier, of necessity used the mortar, and as late as 1820 in the Old Southwest. Williams, Beginnings of West Tennessee.
260. Some of the Chickasaw women are described as being of surpassing beauty. In 1762 Maj. Robert Rogers described them as “far exceeding in beauty any other nation to the Southward.” Cushman: “Seldom have I looked upon specimens of female grace and loveliness as I have seen among the Chickasaws three quarters of a century ago in their former homes east of the Mississippi River.... Their eyes were dark and full and their countenances like their native clime.... They were truly beautiful and, best of all, unconsciously so. Oft was I at a loss which most to admire—the graceful and seemingly perfect forms, finely chiseled features, lustrous eyes and flowing hair, or that soft, winning artlessness which was preëminently theirs.” History, etc., 488; also, Du Pratz, History, 366, 376. The men are described as handsome, beyond other tribes in the South. For mode of courtship, Cushman, op. cit., 498; and chastity, 232, 267.
261. The town or council house is best described in Bartram’s Observations (Creeks and Cherokees) pp. 52-57 and in Gatschet, Migration Legend, II, 186. See also, Thomas, Cherokees in Pre-Columbian Times, 63, 64, and Myer, Prehistoric Villages in Middle Tennessee, 510 et seq.
262. Perhaps John Wright of the Georgia Colony.
263. Compare Bartram, Travels, 499-502.
264. Best account, with illustrations, Jones, op. cit., 383-412; also, Timberlake Memoirs, 64, 78; Catlin, Illustrations of Manners, etc., of American Indians, I, 235.
265. For a fairly elaborate account, see Speck’s Decorative Art and Basketry of the Cherokee. (1920.)
266. Jones, op. cit., 440-446; Timberlake, 86; Bartram, Travels, 6. The pottery of the Cherokees was moulded from clay and glazed by holding in the smoke and heat of burning corn meal bran. Payne MSS., VI, 65. See, also, Myer, Prehistoric Villages in Tennessee, 522.
267. Plain and bold words at the time of publication.
268. On titles, see n. 235, p. 426 ante. The English were insistent upon dubbing chieftains “Emperor,” “King,” and even “General.”
269. On Cherokee charity, Williams, Memoirs of Timberlake, 92; Chickasaws, Cushman, History, etc., 493. Also, Gatschet, op. cit., 97.
270. Court houses.
271. Adair is here the advocate of the proposed Colony of Georgiana, which he mentions at least three times at various places in his book, pp. 251, 294, and here. He censures the policy of the English Government in restricting, by the king’s proclamation of 1763, settlements west of the Alleghany Mountains, and refusing to found or encourage colonies in the West, particularly on the Mississippi. A pamphlet appeared in London in 1772, entitled Political Essays Concerning the Present State of the British Empire, in which the establishment of a new colony east of the Mississippi between the thirty-third degree of latitude stretching to the Ohio River. This was the country of the Chickasaws. The following year another pamphlet appeared in advocacy of the undertaking as one already formulated. The scheme was, it seems, that of Gen. Phineas Lyman, revived. The location earlier or first sought was the territory between the Wolf River (Memphis) and the Illinois River, with an eastward extent of three hundred miles. It was then proposed to buy the Indian titles, which “could be easily obtained for a small price, as bringing them nearer home many conveniences that results from the neighborhood of Europeans.” The scheme was revived in 1772-3; and this time the promoters thought it wise to give the colony the name of the king, “Georgiana”; and to ask for less territory—that included in what is now North Mississippi, West Tennessee, and Western Kentucky—the exact domain of the Chickasaws. Was Adair, on visiting New York, or London, to bring out his book, approached to become one of the promoting syndicate to get the benefit of his influence with that tribe among whom he had resided so long? An inference in the affirmative is not a strained one. The Revolutionary War forced the scheme into a back eddy.
272. The Tennessee was called the Cherokee River for generations.
273. The Chickasaw Bluffs in the present West Tennessee, on the lower of which stands the city of Memphis. For these bluffs and the region in history, see Williams, Beginnings of West Tennessee, 1541-1841, passim. The remarks of Adair on cotton and tobacco in this region were proved to be true after its settlement by the white people following the Chickasaw treaty of 1818, negotiated by Gov. Isaac Shelby and Gen. Andrew Jackson.
Although there is a cross-reference to ‘Mounds’, there is no such topic there; and likewise for ‘Mourning’.
Incorrect references are given as printed, but the navigational links will bring the reader to the correct place.
The editor of this volume indicated that he took care to reproduce Adair’s “punctuation, spelling and capitalization”, an injunction honored here. We assume that his edition was performed accurately, though several apparent lapses have been corrected after consultation with Adair’s original 1775 text. The long ‘ſ’ of the original was printed as a standard ‘s’, but one instance was missed (‘enfeſtment’ on p. viii.).
The editor’s own notes (c. 1930) have been, on rare occasions, subject to correction where those errors have been deemed most likely to be the printer’s. All substantive corrections are noted below. The references are to the page and line in the original, or if in a footnote, the page, note and line.
| viii.8 | to order his enfe[f/s]tment | Replaced |
| xxx.22 | Sud-und Nord-Karolina [a/u]nd Virginien | Replaced. |
| 4.III.5 | a large body of the [C/S]hawano | Replaced. |
| 5.37 | from their christian neigh[b]ours | Inserted. |
| 25.13 | When I pas[s/t] that way | Replaced. |
| 43.5 | “Tahre lakkana[”] | Added. |
| 47.30 | “The fat of the corn.[”] | Added. |
| 48.5 | in forming [איש] and אישא | Rotated. |
| 71.6 | In like man[n]er | Inserted. |
| 76.41 | “If I ate, I should be fully satisfied.[”] | Added. |
| 77.23 | “strait, even, or right;[”] | Added. |
| 78.30 | Here I can[n]ot forbear remarking | Added. |
| 114.28 | and other bitter deco[c]tions> | Added. |
| 137.2 | Ahiskola Awa, Ooka Ho[m/o]meh Ishto | Replaced. |
| 159.13 | they observe that Mos[ia/ai]c precept | Transposed. |
| 159.16 | the Jewish pri[e]sts | Inserted. |
| 159.31 | The Muskoh[o]ge | Removed. |
| 201.19 | “the hair of one’s head,[”] | Added. |
| 229.3 | The fo[il/li]age of which is always green | Transposed. |
| 251.4 | as the Egypti[o/a]ns did | Replaced. |
| 298.24 | were great lose[r]s in the war | Inserted. |
| 324.40 | conven[ei/ie]nt convenient | Transposed. |
| 363.16 | they were or[i]ginally endued | Inserted. |
| 396.37 | di[ff/ss]idents | Long ſ misread. |