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.)
Footnote 179:
See on this town, Swanton, _Early Creeks_, 313, _et seq._
Footnote 180:
Should be 1748, when “the Western Choctaws attack the Quartier
Alemands.” French Transcripts at Jackson, Miss., Vol. 32, p. 81.
Footnote 181:
Quapaw, a Southwestern Siouan tribe, their villages west of the
Mississippi and north of the Arkansas River. Hodge, _Handbook_, II,
333.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 183:
At their head Charles McNaire.
Footnote 184:
George Galphin.
Footnote 185:
Perhaps Joseph Wood, of Georgia.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 189:
The French archives, with data of the year 1748, afford ample
corroboration of “the Choctaw rebellion,” as they termed the civil
war.
Footnote 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.”
Footnote 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.
Footnote 192:
Identified by Swanton as the Cusabo Indians. _Early Hist. Creeks_, 71
_et seq._
Footnote 193:
Adair is here recounting Cherokee raids in the early decades of the
eighteenth century.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 195:
Col. George Chicken, _Ibid._
Footnote 196:
Col. Fox, see n. p. 254 _ante._
Footnote 197:
Henry Foster (sometimes Francis), son-in-law of James Francis. See
Introduction, p. xiii _ante._
Footnote 198:
See Introduction on this Memorial.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 203:
The best account of the Natchez Indians is Swanton’s _Lower Tribes_,
_passim_, supplemented by his _Early History of the Creeks_.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 206:
Not only the French but their Indians: “Both French and Indians stand
in awe of them.” Williams, _op. cit._, 29.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 208:
See n. 271, p. 484 _post_.
Footnote 209:
The reference is to Gen. Phineas Lyman’s scheme for a colony,
Georgiana. Williams, _op. cit._, 18.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 211:
Of widespread culture among other tribes. See Bartram, _Travels_, 38,
421.
Footnote 212:
Used by the Indians in concocting the “black drink”; as to which see
n. 22, p. 49 _ante._
Footnote 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.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 215:
To the Natchez Country left open to settlement by the king’s
proclamation of 1763.
Footnote 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._
Footnote 217:
Set out, article by article, with prices in the proceedings of the
Congress.
Footnote 218:
Lt. Col. Wedderburn, chief military officer of West Florida.
Footnote 219:
Charles Stuart, a younger brother of John Stuart, was deputy for many
years prior to the War of the Revolution.
Footnote 220:
James Colbert, who was to become a great leader of the Chickasaws.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 222:
Kaskaskia, in the Illinois Country.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 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._
Footnote 226:
On scalping: Hodge, _Handbook_, II, 482.
Footnote 227:
An instance is given by DeBrahm. Williams, _Early Travels in the
Tennessee Country_, 193.
Footnote 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._
Footnote 229:
Instances are numerous in the history of the American Indians.
Footnote 230:
In which he recites his war-like deeds, as by way of a swan-song.
Footnote 231:
This, it is believed, is the best description extant of torture at the
stake.
Footnote 232:
A Seneca warrior from the North. Mooney, _Myths_, 491.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 234:
Gatschet, _Migration Legend_, 136.
Footnote 235:
On these titles among the Cherokees: Williams, _Memoirs of
Timberlake_, 194n.
Footnote 236:
For aid rendered by the Southern Indians to Oglethorpe: Harris,
_Memorials_, 224; and the Chickasaws, _Ga. Hist. Coll._, I, 270, 277.
Footnote 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._
Footnote 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.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 241:
Consult on modes of fishing: Jones, _Antiquities of Southern Indians_,
327 _et seq._; Bartram’s _Observations_, 44.
Footnote 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.”
Footnote 243:
For a similar account: Williams, _Memoirs of Timberlake_, 69.
Footnote 244:
Consult Jones, _op. cit._, 269-286, and illustrations.
Footnote 245:
On Indian agriculture: Bartram, _Travels_, 509; Jones, _op. cit._,
296-320; _Timberlake_, 68.
Footnote 246:
Consult on construction of dwelling houses: Jones, _op. cit._, 35, 39;
Bartram, _Travels_, 365; _Timberlake_, 84.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 248:
Jones describes this stone, _op. cit._, 315-20.
Footnote 249:
Accord, Bartram, _Travels_, 38.
Footnote 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.)
Footnote 251:
There was the wild or pig potato, indigenous and ancestors of the
cultivated potato, and the artichoke.
Footnote 252:
_Ante._ p. 4.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 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.”
Footnote 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.”
Footnote 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.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 258:
The flesh from the hump and rump was considered the choicest, next to
the tongue.
Footnote 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_.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 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._
Footnote 262:
Perhaps John Wright of the Georgia Colony.
Footnote 263:
Compare Bartram, _Travels_, 499-502.
Footnote 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.
Footnote 265:
For a fairly elaborate account, see Speck’s _Decorative Art and
Basketry of the Cherokee_. (1920.)
Footnote 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.
Footnote 267:
Plain and bold words at the time of publication.
Footnote 268:
On titles, see n. 235, p. 426 _ante._ The English were insistent upon
dubbing chieftains “Emperor,” “King,” and even “General.”
Footnote 269:
On Cherokee charity, Williams, _Memoirs of Timberlake_, 92;
Chickasaws, Cushman, _History, etc._, 493. Also, Gatschet, _op. cit._,
97.
Footnote 270:
Court houses.
APPENDIX.
ADVICE TO STATESMEN;
SHEWING