There are many indications to warrant the conclusion that the
Mound-Builders occupied their principal seats in the Ohio and
Mississippi Valleys during a very long period. If they came from the
south, as appears evident, their settlements must have been extended up
the valley gradually. After their first communities were established in
the Gulf regions, considerable time must have elapsed before their
advancing settlements were extended northward, through the intervening
region, into the Valley of the Ohio. On the Ohio and in the valleys of
its tributaries their settlements were very numerous, and evidently
populous. The surprising abundance of their works in this region, which
have been traced in our time, shows that they dwelt here in great
numbers, and had no lack of industry.
This region seems to have been one of the principal centres from which
their settlements were advanced into the western part of Virginia; into
Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri. The spread
of their settlements was necessarily gradual, and a long period must
have been required to extend them over all the country where remains of
their works are known to exist. If their civilization was chiefly
developed after their arrival in the country, which is unlikely, many
years must have elapsed before colonies went forth, to any great extent,
from the original seat of its development. In any case, time was
required to make their chief settlements sufficiently old and populous
to send forth colonies. It is manifest in their remains that the
communities of this ancient people most remote from the populous centres
on the Ohio, east, north, and west, were, like all border settlements,
the rudest and least populous. The remains at these points do not
indicate either as much wealth or as many workers, and the places where
these borderers settled must have been the latest occupied and the
earliest abandoned. One diligent investigator, who believes they came
originally from Mexico, speaks of the time of their stay in the country
as follows:
"When we consider the time required to people the whole extent of the
territory where their remains are found, and bring that people into a
condition to construct such monuments, and when we reflect on the
interval that must have passed after their construction until the epoch
of their abandonment, we are constrained to accord them a very high
antiquity."
He points out that they were sun worshipers, like the Mexicans and
Peruvians, and calls attention to the disks dug from their mounds, which
appear to have been designed as representations of the sun and moon.
Their long occupation of the country is suggested by the great extent of
their mining works. All who have examined these works agree with Colonel
Whittlesey that they worked the Lake Superior copper mines "for a great
length of time." How long they had dwelt in the Ohio Valley when this
mining began can not be told, but a very considerable period must have
elapsed after their arrival at that point before the mines were
discovered. We can not suppose the first settlers who came up from the
Gulf region to the Ohio Valley went on immediately, through the
wilderness a thousand miles, to hunt for copper mines on Lake Superior;
and, even after they began to explore that region, some time must have
passed before the copper was found.
After they discovered the mines and began to work them, their progress
could not have been rapid. As their open trenches and pits could be
worked only in the summers, and by methods that made their operations
much slower than those of modern miners, no great advance of their work
was possible during the working time of each season; and yet remains of
their mining works have been discovered wherever mines have been opened
in our day; and, as previously stated, they are known to exist in heavy
forests, where the modern mining works have not yet been established.
There is nothing to indicate that they had settlements any where in the
mining region. Colonel Whittlesey, and others whose study of the subject
gives their opinion much weight, believe the Mound-Builders went up from
the settlements farther south in the summers, remained in the copper
region through the season, and worked the mines in organized companies
until the advance of winter terminated their operations.
Colonel Whittlesey says: "As yet, no remains of cities, graves,
domiciles, or highways have been found in the copper region;" and adds,
"as the race appears to have been farther advanced in civilization than
their successors, whom we call aborigines, they probably had better
means of transportation than bark canoes." It may be said, also, that
the accumulations called wealth were necessary to make this regular and
systematic mining possible. Without these they could not have provided
the supplies of every kind required to sustain organized companies of
miners through a single season. A great many summers must have passed
away before such companies of miners, with all needed tools and
supplies, could have made their works so extensive by means of such
methods as they were able to use.
They probably occupied the country on the Gulf and Lower Mississippi
much longer than any other portion of the great valley. Their oldest and
latest abandoned settlements appear to have been in this region, where,
we may reasonably suppose, they continued to dwell long after they were
driven from the Ohio Valley and other places at the north.
The Natchez Indians found settled on the Lower Mississippi may have been
a degenerate remnant of the Mound-Builders. They differed in language,
customs, and condition from all other Indians in the country; and their
own traditions connected them with Mexico. Like the Mexicans, they had
temples or sacred buildings in which the "perpetual fire" was
maintained. Each of their villages was furnished with a sacred building
of this kind. They had also peculiarities of social and political
organization different from those of other tribes. They were
sun-worshipers, and claimed that their chief derived his descent from
the sun. The Natchez were more settled and civilized than the other
Indians, and, in most respects, seemed like another race. One learned
investigator classes them with the Nahuatl or Toltec race, thinks they
came from Mexico, and finds that, like the ancient people of Panuco and
Colhuacan, they had the phallic ceremonies among their religious
observances. Their history can not be given, and there is little or
nothing but conjecture to connect them with the Mound-Builders. The
Natchez were exterminated in 1730 by the French, whom they had treated
with great kindness. Of the few who escaped death, some were received
among the Chickasaws and Muskogees, but more were sent to Santo Domingo
and sold as slaves.
No view that can be taken of the relics left by the Mound-Builders will
permit us to believe their stay in the country was short. Any hypothesis
based on the shortest possible estimate of the time must count the years
by centuries.