western branches of Mobille-river; and within twelve miles of the
eastern main source of _Tahre Hache_, which lower down is called
_Chokchooma_-river, as that nation made their first settlements there,
after they came on the other side of the Missisippi. Where it empties
into this, they call it _Yahshoo_-river. Their tradition says they had
ten thousand men fit for war, when they first came from the west, and
this account seems very probable; as they, and the Choktah, and also the
Chokchooma, who in process of time were forced by war to settle between
the two former nations, came together from the west as one family.[201]
The Chikkasah in the year 1720, had four large contiguous settlements,
which lay nearly in the form of three parts of a square, only that the
eastern side was five miles shorter than the western, with the open part
toward the Choktah. One was called _Yaneka_, about a mile wide, and six
miles long, at the distance of twelve {352} miles from their present
towns. Another was ten computed miles long, at the like distance from
their present settlements, and from one to two miles broad. The towns
were called _Shatara_, _Chookheereso_, _Hykehah_, _Tuskawillao_, and
_Phalacheho_. The other square was single, began three miles from their
present place of residence, and ran four miles in length, and one mile
in breadth. This was called _Chookka Pharáah_, or “the long house.” It
was more populous than their whole nation contains at present. The
remains of this once formidable people make up the northern angle of
that broken square. They now scarcely consist of four hundred and fifty
warriors, and are settled three miles westward from the deep creek, in a
clear tract of rich land, about three miles square running afterward
about five miles toward the N. W. where the old fields are usually a
mile broad. The superior number of their enemies forced them to take
into this narrow circle, for social defence; and to build their towns,
on commanding ground, at such a convenient distance from one another, as
to have their enemies, when attacked, between two fires.[202]
Some of the old Nahchee Indians[203] who formerly lived on the
Missisippi, two hundred miles west of the Choktah, told me the French
demanded from every one of their warriors a drest buck-skin, without any
value for it, i. e. they taxed them; but that the warriors hearts grew
very cross, and loved the deer-skins. According to the French accounts
of the Missisippi-Indians, this seems to have been in the year 1729. As
those Indians were of a peaceable and kindly disposition, numerous and
warlike, and always kept a friendly intercourse with the Chikkasah, who
never had any good-will to the French; these soon understood their
heart-burnings, and by the advice of the old English traders, carried
them white pipes and tobacco in their own name and that of
South-Carolina,—persuading them with earnestness and policy to cut off
the French, as they were resolved to inslave them in their own beloved
land. The Chikkasah succeeded in their embassy. But as the Indians are
slow in their councils on things of great importance, though equally
close and intent, it was the following year before they could put their
grand scheme in execution. Some of their head-men indeed opposed the
plan, yet they never discovered it. But when these went a hunting in the
woods, the embers burst into a raging flame. They attacked the French,
who were flourishing away in the greatest security; and, as was
affirmed, they entirely cut off the garrison, and neighbouring
settlements, {353} consisting of fifteen hundred men, women, and
children—the misconduct of a few indiscreet persons, occasioned so great
a number of innocent lives to be thus cut off.
The Nahchee afterwards built and settled a strong stockade fort,
westward of their old fields, near a lake that communicates with _Bayouk
Dargent_; but the ensuing summer, near 2000 French regulars and
provincials, besides a great body of the Choktah and other savages
invested it. The besieged sallied on them, with the utmost fury, killed
a considerable number, and in all probability, would have totally
destroyed the white soldiery, but for the sharp opposition of the
Choktah in their own method of fighting. The Nahchee were at length
repulsed, and bombarded with three mortars, which forced them to fly off
different ways. The soldiers were too slow footed to pursue; but the
Choktah, and other red allies, captivated a great number of them, and
carried them to New Orleans, where several were burned, and the rest
sent as slaves to the West India Islands: the greater part however went
to the Chikkasah, where they were secured from the power of their French
enemies. The French demanded them, but being absolutely refused,
unluckily for many thousands of them, they formally declared war against
the Chikkasah. In the open fields the Chikkasah bravely withstood, and
repelled the greatest combined armies they were able to bring against
them, north and south, and gave them and their swarms of red allies
several notable defeats.[204]
A body of the lower French, and about fourteen hundred Choktah, attacked
the Long House Town, when only sixty warriors were at home; yet they
fought so desperately, as to secure themselves, their women and
children, till some of the hunters, who had been immediately sent for,
came home to their assistance; when, though exceedingly inferior in
number, they drove them off with great loss. Another time, the lower and
upper Louisiana-French, and a great body of red auxiliaries, surprised
late at night all their present towns, except Amalahta, that had about
forty warriors, and which stood at some distance from the others. A
considerable number of the enemy were posted at every door, to prevent
their escape; and what few ran out were killed on the spot. The French
seemed quite sure of their prey, having so well inclosed it. But, at the
dawn of day, when they were capering and using those flourishes, that
are peculiar {354} to that volatile nation, the other town drew round
them stark naked, and painted all over red and black; thus they attacked
them, killed numbers on the spot, released their brethren, who joined
them like enraged lions, increasing as they swept along, and in their
turn incircled their enemies. Their release increased they joy and fury,
and they rent the sky with their sounds. Their flashy enemies, now
changed their boasting tune, into “Oh morblieu!” and gave up all for
lost. Their red allies out-heel’d them, and left them to receive their
just fate. They were all cut off but two, an officer, and a negroe who
faithfully held his horse till he mounted, and then ran along side of
him. A couple of swift runners were sent after them, who soon came up
with them, and told them to live and go home and inform their people,
that as the Chikkasah hogs had now a plenty of ugly French carcases to
feed on till next year, they hoped then to have another visit from them
and their red friends; and that, as messengers, they wished them safe
home. They accordingly returned with heavy hearts to the Chikkasah
landing place, N. W. on the Missisippi, at the distance of 170 miles,
where they took boat, and delivered their unexpected message:—grief and
trembling spread through the country,—and the inhabitants could not
secure themselves from the fury of these war-like, and enraged
Chikkasah. Every one of their prisoners was put to the fiery torture,
without any possibility of redemption, their hearts were so exceedingly
imbittered against them.
Flushed with this success, many parties turned out against the French,
and from time to time hunted them far and near:—some went to the
Missisippi, made a fleet of cypress-bark canoes, watched their trading
boats, and cut off many of them without saving any of the people.[205]
The French finding it impracticable for a few boats to pass those red
men of war, were obliged to go in a fleet, carry swivel-guns in their
long pettiaugres, with plenty of men; but always shunning the Chikkasah
side of the river, and observing the strictest order in their movements
by day, and in their stations at night. The walking of a wild beast, I
have been assured, has frequently called them to their arms, and kept
them awake for the whole night, they were in so great a dread of this
warlike nation. The name of a Chikkasah became as dreadful, as it was
hateful to their ears.[206] And had it not been more owing to French
policy than bravery, in uniting all the Missisippi and Canada-Indians in
a confederacy and enmity against them, Louisiana-settlements {355} would
have been long since, either entirely destroyed, or confined to
garrisons.
When any of the French armies made a tolerable retreat, they thought
themselves very happy. Once, when the impression was pretty much worn
out of their minds, and wine inspired them with new stratagems, and
hopes of better success, a great body of them, mixed with a multitude of
savages, came to renew their attack. But as their hostile intentions
were early discovered, the Chikkasah had built a range of strong
stockade forts on ground which could not safely be approached, as the
contiguous land was low, and chanced then to be wet. A number of the
French and their allies drew near the western fort, but in the manner of
hornets, flying about to prevent their enemies from taking a true aim,
while several ranks followed each other in a slow and solemn procession,
like white-robed, tall, midnight-ghosts, and as if fearless, and
impenetrable. The Indians did not at first know what sort of animals
they were, for several shots had been fired among them, without
incommoding them, or retarding their direct course to the fort:—as they
advanced nearer, the Chikkasah kept a continual fire at them, with a
sure aim, according to their custom; this was with as little success as
before, contrary to every attempt they had ever made before against
their enemies. The warriors concluded them to be wizards, or old
French-men carrying the ark of war against them. In their council, they
were exceedingly perplexed: but just as they had concluded to oppose
some of their own reputed prophets to destroy the power of those cunning
men, or powerful spirits of the French, lo! those uncommon appearances
spread themselves in battle-array, along the south-side of the fort, and
threw hand-granadoes into the fort. Hoop Hoop Ha was now joyfully
sounded every where by the Chikkasah, being convinced they had skin and
bone to fight with, instead of spirits. The matches of the few shells
the French had time to throw, were too long; and as our traders had
joined their friends by this time, they pulled out some, and threw out
other shells, as near to the enemy as they possibly could. They soon
found those dreadful phantoms were only common French-men, covered with
wool-packs, which made their breasts invulnerable to all their
well-aimed bullets. They now turned out of the fort, fell on, fired at
their legs, brought down many of them and scalped them, and drove the
others with considerable loss quite away to the southern hills, where
the {356} trembling army had posted themselves out of danger. In the
midst of the night they decamped, and saved themselves by a well-timed
retreat, left the Chikkasah triumphant, and inspired them with the
fierceness of so many tygers; which the French often fatally
experienced, far and near, till the late cession of West-Florida to
Great Britain. I have two of these shells, which I keep with veneration,
as speaking trophies over the boasting Monsieurs, and their bloody
schemes.
In the year 1748, the French sent a party of their Indians to storm some
of the Chikkasah traders’ houses. They accordingly came to my trading
house first, as I lived in the frontier: finding it too dangerous to
attempt to force it, they patted with their hands a considerable time on
one of the doors, as a decoy, imitating the earnest rap of the young
women who go a visiting that time of night. Finding their labour in
vain, one of them lifted a billet of wood, and struck the side of the
house, where the women and children lay; so as to frighten them and
awake me—my mastiffs had been silenced with their venison. At last, the
leader went a-head with the beloved ark, and pretending to be directed
by the divine oracle, to watch another principal trader’s house, they
accordingly made for it, when a young woman, having occasion to go out
of the house, was shot with a bullet that entered behind one of her
breasts and through the other, ranging the bone; she suddenly wheeled
round, and tumbled down, within the threshold of the house—the brave
trader instantly bounded up, sounding the war whoop, and in a moment
grasped his gun, (for the traders beds are always hung round with
various arms of defence) and rescued her—the Indian physician also, by
his skill in simples, soon cured her.
As so much hath been already said of the Chikkasah, in the accounts of
the Cheerake, Muskohge, and Choktah, with whose history, theirs was
necessarily interwoven, my brevity here, I hope will be excused.—The
Chikkasah live in as happy a region, as any under the sun. It is
temperate; as cool in summer, as can be wished, and but moderately cold
in winter. There is frost enough to purify the air, but not to chill the
blood; and the snow does not lie four-and-twenty hours together. This
extraordinary benefit, is not from its situation to the equator, for the
Cheerake country, among the Apalahche mountains is colder, in a
surprising degree; but from the nature and levelness of the extensive
circumjacent lands, which in general are very fertile. They have no
running stream in {357} their present settlement. In their old fields,
they have banks of oyster-shells, at the distance of four hundred miles
from the sea-shore; which is a visible token of a general deluge, when
it swept away the loose earth from the mountains, by the force of a
tempestuous north-east wind, and thus produced the fertile lands of the
Missisippi, which probably was sea, before that dreadful event.
As the Chikkasah fought the French and their red allies, with the utmost
firmness, in defense of their liberties and lands, to the very last,
without regarding their decay, only as an incentive to revenge their
losses; equity and gratitude ought to induce us to be kind to our steady
old friends, and only purchase so much of their land, as they would
dispose of, for value.[207] With proper management, they would prove
extremely serviceable to a British colony, on the Missisippi.[208] I
hope no future misconduct will alienate their affections, after the
manner of the super-intendant’s late deputy, which hath been already
mentioned. The skilful French could never confide in the Choktah, and we
may depend on being forced to hold hot disputes with them, in the infant
state of the Missisippi settlements: it is wisdom to provide against the
worst events that can be reasonably expected to happen. The remote
inhabitants of our northern colonies are well acquainted with the great
value of those lands, from their observations on the spot.[209] The soil
and climate are fit for hemp, silk, indigo, wine, and many other
valuable productions, which our merchants purchase from foreigners,
sometimes at a considerable disadvantage—The range is so good for
horses, cattle, and hogs, that they would grow large, and multiply fast,
without the least occasion of feeding them in winter, or at least for a
long space of time, by reason of the numberless branches of reeds and
canes that are interspersed, with nuts of various kinds. Rice, wheat,
oats, barley, Indian corn, fruit-trees, and kitchen plants, would grow
to admiration. As the ancients tell us, “Bacchus amat montes,” so
grape-vines must thrive extremely well on the hills of the Missisippi,
for they are so rich as to produce winter-canes, contrary to what is
known at any distance to the northward. If British subjects could settle
West-Florida in security, it would in a few years become very valuable
to Great Britain: and they would soon have as much profit, as they could
desire, to reward their labour. Here, five hundred families would in all
probability, be more beneficial to our mother-country, then the whole
colony of North Carolina: besides innumerable branches toward Ohio and
Monongahela. {358}
Enemies to the public good, may enter caveats against our settling where
the navigation is precarious; and the extraordinary kindness of the late
ministry to the French and Spaniards prevented our having an exclusive
navigation on the Missisippi. Aberville might still become a valuable
mart to us; and from New Orleans it is only three miles to Saint John’s
Creek, where people pass through the lake of Saint Louis, and embark for
Mobille and Pensacola. The Spaniards have wisely taken the advantage of
our misconduct, by fortifying Louisiana, and employing the French to
conciliate the affections of the savages; while our legislators,
fermented with the corrupt lees of false power, are striving to whip us
with scorpions. As all the Florida Indians are grown jealous of us,
since we settled E. and W. Florida, and are unacquainted with the great
power of the Spaniards in South America, and have the French to polish
their rough Indian politics, Louisiana is likely to prove more
beneficial to them, than it did to the French. They are fortifying their
Missisippi settlements like a New Flanders, and their French artists, on
account of our ministerial lethargy, will have a good opportunity, if an
European war should commence, to continue our valuable western barriers
as wild and waste, as the French left them. The warlike Chikkasah proved
so formidable to them, that, except a small settlement above New
Orleans, which was covered by the Choktah bounds, they did not attempt
to make any other on the eastern side of the Missisippi, below the
Illinois; though it contains such a vast tract of fine land, as would be
sufficient for four colonies of two hundred and fifty miles square. Had
they been able by their united efforts, to have destroyed the Chikkasah,
they would not have been idle;[210] for, in that case, the Choktah would
have been soon swallowed up, by the assistance of their other allies, as
they never supplied them with arms and ammunition, except those who went
to war against the Chikkasah.
From North-Carolina to the Missisippi, the land near the sea, is, in
general, low and sandy; and it is very much so in the two colonies of
Florida, to a considerable extent from the sea-shore, when the lands
appear fertile, level, and diversified with hills. Trees indicate the
goodness or badness of land. Pine-trees grow on sandy, barren ground,
which produces long coarse grass; the adjacent low lands abound with
canes, reeds, {359} or bay and laurel of various sorts, which are shaded
with large expanding trees—they compose an evergreen thicket, mostly
impenetrable to the beams of the sun, where the horses, deer, and
cattle, chiefly feed during the winter: and the panthers, bears, wolves,
wild cats, and foxes, resort there, both for the sake of prey, and a
cover from the hunters. Lands of a loose black soil, such as those of
the Missisippi, are covered with fine grass and herbage, and well shaded
with large and high trees of hiccory, ash, white, red, and black oaks,
great towering poplars, black walnut-trees, sassafras, and vines. The
low wet lands adjoining the rivers, chiefly yield cypress-trees, which
are very large, and of a prodigious height. On the dry grounds is plenty
of beach, maple, holly, the cotton-tree, with a prodigious variety of
other sorts. But we must not omit the black mulberry-tree, which,
likewise, is plenty. It is high, and, if it had proper air and
sun-shine, the boughs would be very spreading. On the fruit, the bears
and wild fowl feed during their season; and also swarms of paroquets,
enough to deafen one with their chattering, in the time of those joyful
repasts. I believe the white mulberry-tree does not grow spontaneously
in North-America. On the hills, there is plenty of chesnut-trees, and
chesnut-oaks. These yield the largest sort of acorns, but wet weather
soon spoils them. In winter, the deer and bears fatten themselves on
various kinds of nuts, which lie thick over the rich land, if the
blossoms have not been blasted by the north-east winds. The wild turkeys
live on the small red acorns, and grow so fat in March, that they cannot
fly farther than three or four hundred yards; and not being able soon to
take the wing again, we speedily run them down with our horses and
hunting mastiffs. At many unfrequented places of the Missisippi, they
are so tame as to be shot with a pistol, of which our troops profited,
in their way to take possession of the Illinois-garrison. There is a
plenty of wild parsley, on the banks of that river, the roots of which
are as large as those of parsnips, and it is as good as the other sort.
The Indians say, they have not seen it grow in any woods remote from
their country. They have a large sort of plums, which their ancestors
brought with them from South-America, and which are now become plenty
among our colonies, called Chikkasah plums.[211]
To the North West, the Missisippi lands are covered with filberts, which
are as sweet, and thin-shelled, as the scaly bark hiccory-nuts. {360}
Hazel-nuts are very plenty, but the Indians seldom eat them. Black haws
grow here in clusters, free from prickles: and pissimmons, of which they
make very pleasant bread, barbicuing it in the woods. There is a sort of
fine plums in a few places, large, and well-tasted; and, if
transplanted, they would become better. The honey-locusts are pods about
a span-long, and almost two inches broad, containing a row of large seed
on one side, and a tough sweet substance the other. The tree is large,
and full of long thorns; which forces the wild beasts to wait till they
fall off, before they can gather that part of their harvest.—The trees
grow in wet sour land, and are plenty, and the timber is very durable.
Where there is no pitch-pine, the Indians use this, or the sassafras,
for posts to their houses; as they last for generations, and the worms
never take them. Chinquapins are very plenty, of the taste of chesnuts,
but much less in size. There are several sorts of very wholesome and
pleasant-tasted ground nuts, which few of our colonists know any thing
of. In wet land, there is an aromatic red spice, and a sort of cinnamon,
which the natives seldom use. The Yopon, or Cusseena, is very plenty, as
far as the salt air reaches over the low lands. It is well tasted, and
very agreeable to those who accustom themselves to use it: instead of
having any noxious quality, according to what many have experienced of
the East-India insipid and costly tea, it is friendly to the human
system, enters into a contest with the peccant humours, and expels them
through the various channels of nature: it perfectly cures a tremor in
the nerves.[212] The North-American tea has a pleasant aromatic taste,
and the very same salubrious property, as the Cusseena. It is an
evergreen, and grows on hills. The bushes are about a foot high, each of
them containing in winter a small aromatic red berry, in the middle of
the stalk: such I saw it about Christmas, when hunting among the
mountains, opposite to the lower Mohawk Castle, in the time of a deep
snow. There is no visible decay of the leaf, and October seems to be the
proper time to gather it. The early buds of sassafras, and the leaves of
ginseng, make a most excellent tea, equally pleasant to the taste, and
conducive to health. The Chinese have sense enough to sell their
enervating and slow-poisoning teas, under various fine titles, while
they themselves prefer Ginseng-leaves. Each of our colonies abounds with
ginseng, among the hills that lie far from the sea.[213] Ninety-six
settlement, is the lowest place where I have seen it grow in South
Carolina. It is very plenty on the fertile parts of the Cheerake {361}
mountains; it resembles Angelica, which in most places is also plenty.
Its leaves are of a darker green, and about a foot and half from the
root; the stalk sends out three equal branches, in the center of which a
small berry grows, of a red colour, in August.—The seeds are a very
strong and agreeable aromatic: it is plenty in West-Florida. The Indians
use it on religious occasions. It is a great loss to a valuable branch
of trade, that our people neither gather it in a proper season, nor can
cure it, so as to give it a clear shining colour, like the Chinese tea.
I presume it does not turn out well to our American traders; for, up the
Mohawk river, a gentleman who had purchased a large quantity of it, told
me that a skippel, or three bushels, cost him only nine shillings of New
York currency: and in Charles-Town, an inhabitant of the upper Yadkin
settlements in North Carolina, who came down with me from viewing the
Nahchee old fields on the Missisippi, assured me he could not get from
any of the South Carolina merchants, one shilling sterling a pound for
it, though his people brought it from the Alehgany, and Apalahche
mountains, two hundred miles to Charles-Town.