Comparison of Cherokee dialects

Eastern (Lower) Middle Western (Upper)

fire atsi'ra atsi'la atsi'la

water awa' ama' ama'

dog gi'ri' gi'li' gi'li'

hair gitsû' gitsû' gitlû'

hawk tsa'nuwa' tsa'nuwa' tla'nuwa'

leech tsanu'si' tsanu'si' tlanu'si'

bat tsa'weha' tsa'meha' tla'meha'

panther tsûñtû'tsi tsûñtû'tsi tlûñtû'tsi

jay tsay'kû' tsay'kû' tlay'kû'

martin (bird) tsutsû' tsutsû' tlutlû'

war-club atasû' atasû' atasi'

heart unahu' unahu' unahwi'

where? ga'tsû ga'tsû ha'tlû

how much? hûñgû' hûñgû' hila'gû

key stugi'sti stugi'sti stui'sti

I pick it up (long) tsinigi'û tsinigi'û tsine'û

my father agidâ'ta agidâ'ta edâ'ta

my mother a'gitsi' a'gitsi' etsi'

my father's father agini'si agini'si eni'si

my mother's father agidu'tu agidu'tu edu'tu

It will be noted that the Eastern and Middle dialects are about the

same, excepting for the change of l to r, and the entire absence

of the labial m from the Eastern dialect, while the Western differs

considerably from the others, particularly in the greater frequency

of the liquid l and the softening of the guttural g, the changes

tending to render it the most musical of all the Cherokee dialects. It

is also the standard literary dialect. In addition to these three

principal dialects there are some peculiar forms and expressions in

use by a few individuals which indicate the former existence of one

or more other dialects now too far extinct to be reconstructed. As in

most other tribes, the ceremonial forms used by the priesthood are

so filled with archaic and figurative expressions as to be almost

unintelligible to the laity.

(4) Iroquoian tribes and migrations (p. 17): The Iroquoian stock,

taking its name from the celebrated Iroquois confederacy, consisted

formerly of from fifteen to twenty tribes, speaking nearly as many

different dialects, and including, among others, the following:

Wyandot, or Huron. | Ontario, Canada.

Tionontati, or Tobacco nation. |

Attiwan'daron, or Neutral nation. |

Tohotaenrat. |

Wenrorono. |

Mohawk. | Iroquois, or Five Nations, New York.

Oneida. |

Onondaga. |

Cayuga. |

Seneca. |

Erie. Northern Ohio, etc.

Conestoga, or Susquehanna. Southern Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Nottoway. | Southern Virginia.

Meherrin?. |

Tuscarora. Eastern North Carolina.

Cherokee. Western Carolina, etc.

Tradition and history alike point to the St. Lawrence region as the

early home of this stock. Upon this point all authorities concur. Says

Hale, in his paper on Indian Migrations (p. 4): "The constant tradition

of the Iroquois represents their ancestors as emigrants from the region

north of the Great lakes, where they dwelt in early times with their

Huron brethren. This tradition is recorded with much particularity

by Cadwallader Colden, surveyor-general of New York, who in the early

part of the last century composed his well known 'History of the Five

Nations.' It is told in a somewhat different form by David Cusick,

the Tuscarora historian, in his 'Sketches of Ancient History of

the Six Nations,' and it is repeated by Mr. L. H. Morgan in his now

classical work, 'The League of the Iroquois,' for which he procured his

information chiefly among the Senecas. Finally, as we learn from the

narrative of the Wyandot Indian, Peter Clarke, in his book entitled

'Origin and Traditional History of the Wyandotts,' the belief of

the Hurons accords in this respect with that of the Iroquois. Both

point alike to the country immediately north of the St. Lawrence,

and especially to that portion of it lying east of Lake Ontario, as

the early home of the Huron-Iroquois nations." Nothing is known of

the traditions of the Conestoga or the Nottoway, but the tradition of

the Tuscarora, as given by Cusick and other authorities, makes them a

direct offshoot from the northern Iroquois, with whom they afterward

reunited. The traditions of the Cherokee also, as we have seen, bring

them from the north, thus completing the cycle. "The striking fact

has become evident that the course of migration of the Huron-Cherokee

family has been from the northeast to the southwest--that is, from

eastern Canada, on the Lower St. Lawrence, to the mountains of northern

Alabama."--Hale, Indian Migrations, p. 11.

The retirement of the northern Iroquoian tribes from the St. Lawrence

region was due to the hostility of their Algonquian neighbors, by whom

the Hurons and their allies were forced to take refuge about Georgian

bay and the head of Lake Ontario, while the Iroquois proper retreated

to central New York. In 1535 Cartier found the shores of the river

from Quebec to Montreal occupied by an Iroquoian people, but on the

settlement of the country seventy years later the same region was

found in possession of Algonquian tribes. The confederation of the

five Iroquois nations, probably about the year 1540, enabled them to

check the Algonquian invasion and to assume the offensive. Linguistic

and other evidence shows that the separation of the Cherokee from

the parent stock must have far antedated this period.

(5) Walam Olum (p. 18): The name signifies "red score," from the

Delaware walam, "painted," more particularly "painted red," and olum,

"a score, tally-mark." The Walam Olum was first published in 1836 in a

work entitled "The American Nations," by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque,

a versatile and voluminous, but very erratic, French scholar, who spent

the latter half of his life in this country, dying in Philadelphia in

1840. He asserted that it was a translation of a manuscript in the

Delaware language, which was an interpretation of an ancient sacred

metrical legend of the Delawares, recorded in pictographs cut upon

wood, obtained in 1820 by a medical friend of his among the Delawares

then living in central Indiana. He says himself: "These actual olum

were first obtained in 1820 as a reward for a medical cure, deemed a

curiosity, and were unexplicable. In 1822 were obtained from another

individual the songs annexed thereto in the original language, but

no one could be found by me able to translate them. I had therefore

to learn the language since, by the help of Zeisberger, Heckewelder,

and a manuscript dictionary, on purpose to translate them, which I

only accomplished in 1833." On account of the unique character of

the alleged Indian record and Rafinesque's own lack of standing among

his scientific contemporaries, but little attention was paid to the

discovery until Brinton took up the subject a few years ago. After a

critical sifting of the evidence from every point of view he arrived at

the conclusion that the work is a genuine native production, although

the manuscript rendering is faulty, partly from the white scribe's

ignorance of the language and partly from the Indian narrator's

ignorance of the meaning of the archaic forms. Brinton's edition

(q. v.), published from Rafinesque's manuscript, gives the legend

in triplicate form--pictograph, Delaware, and English translation,

with notes and glossary, and a valuable ethnologic introduction by

Brinton himself.

It is not known that any of the original woodcut pictographs

of the Walam Olum are now in existence, although a statement of

Rafinesque implies that he had seen them. As evidence of the truth

of his statement, however, we have the fact that precisely similar

pictographic series cut upon birch bark, each pictograph representing

a line or couplet of a sacred metrical recitation, are now known to

be common among the Ojibwa, Menomini, and other northern tribes. In

1762 a Delaware prophet recorded his visions in hieroglyphics cut upon

a wooden stick, and about the year 1827 a Kickapoo reformer adopted

the same method to propagate a new religion among the tribes. One of

these "prayer sticks" is now in the National Museum, being all that

remains of a large basketful delivered to a missionary in Indiana

by a party of Kickapoo Indians in 1830 (see plate and description,

pp. 665, 697 et seq. in the author's Ghost-dance Religion, Fourteenth

Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology).

(6) Fish river (p. 18): Namæsi Sipu (Heckewelder, Indian Nations, 49),

or Namassipi (Walam Olum, p. 198). Deceived by a slight similarity of

sound, Heckewelder makes this river identical with the Mississippi,

but as Schoolcraft shows (Notes on Iroquois, p. 316) the true name of

the Mississippi is simply Misi-sipi, "great river," and "fish river"

would be a most inappropriate name for such a turbulent current, where

only the coarser species can live. The mere fact that there can be a

question of identity among experts familiar with Indian nomenclature

would indicate that it was not one of the larger streams. Although

Heckewelder makes the Alligewi, as he prefers to call them, flee down

the Mississippi after their final defeat, the Walam Olum chronicle says

only "all the Talega go south." It was probably a gradual withdrawal,

rather than a sudden and concerted flight (see Hale, Indian Migrations,

pp. 19-22).

(7) First appearance of whites (p. 19): It is possible that this may

refer to one of the earlier adventurers who coasted along the North

Atlantic in the first decades after the discovery of America, among

whom were Sebastian Cabot, in 1498; Verrazano, in 1524; and Gomez, in

1525. As these voyages were not followed up by permanent occupation

of the country it is doubtful if they made any lasting impression

upon Indian tradition. The author has chosen to assume, with Brinton

and Rafinesque, that the Walam Olum reference is to the settlement

of the Dutch at New York and the English in Virginia soon after 1600.

(8) De Soto's route (p. 26): On May 30, 1539, Hernando de Soto,

of Spain, with 600 armed men and 213 horses, landed at Tampa bay,

on the west coast of Florida, in search of gold. After more than

four years of hardship and disappointed wandering from Florida to the

great plains of the West and back again to the Mississippi, where De

Soto died and his body was consigned to the great river, 311 men,

all that were left of the expedition, arrived finally at Pánuco,

in Mexico, on September 10, 1543.

For the history of this expedition, the most important ever

undertaken by Spain within eastern United States, we have four original

authorities. First is the very brief, but evidently truthful (Spanish)

report of Biedma, an officer of the expedition, presented to the King

in 1544, immediately after the return to Spain. Next in order, but of

first importance for detail and general appearance of reliability, is

the narrative of an anonymous Portuguese cavalier of the expedition,

commonly known as the Gentleman of Elvas, originally published in

the Portuguese language in 1557. Next comes the (Spanish) narrative

of Garcilaso, written, but not published, in 1587. Unlike the others,

the author was not an eyewitness of what he describes, but made up his

account chiefly from the oral recollections of an old soldier of the

expedition more than forty years after the event, this information

being supplemented from papers written by two other soldiers of De

Soto. As might be expected, the Garcilaso narrative, although written

in flowery style, abounds in exaggeration and trivial incident, and

compares unfavorably with the other accounts, while probably giving

more of the minor happenings. The fourth original account is an

unfinished (Spanish) report by Ranjel, secretary of the expedition,

written soon after reaching Mexico, and afterward incorporated with

considerable change by Oviedo, in his "Historia natural y general de

las Indias." As this fourth narrative remained unpublished until 1851

and has never been translated, it has hitherto been entirely overlooked

by the commentators, excepting Winsor, who notes it incidentally. In

general it agrees well with the Elvas narrative and throws valuable

light upon the history of the expedition.

The principal authorities, while preserving a general unity of

narrative, differ greatly in detail, especially in estimates of

numbers and distances, frequently to such an extent that it is useless

to attempt to reconcile their different statements. In general the

Gentleman of Elvas is most moderate in his expression, while Biedma

takes a middle ground and Garcilaso exaggerates greatly. Thus the

first named gives De Soto 600 men, Biedma makes the number 620,

while Garcilaso says 1,000. At a certain stage of the journey the

Portuguese Gentleman gives De Soto 700 Indians as escort, Biedma

says 800, while Garcilaso makes it 8,000. At the battle of Mavilla

the Elvas account gives 18 Spaniards and 2,500 Indians killed,

Biedma says 20 Spaniards killed, without giving an estimate of the

Indians, while Garcilaso has 82 Spaniards and over 11,000 Indians

killed. In distances there is as great discrepancy. Thus Biedma

makes the distance from Guaxule to Chiaha four days, Garcilaso has

it six days, and Elvas seven days. As to the length of an average

day's march we find it estimated all the way from "four leagues,

more or less" (Garcilaso) to "every day seven or eight leagues"

(Elvas). In another place the Elvas chronicler states that they

usually made five or six leagues a day through inhabited territories,

but that in crossing uninhabited regions--as that between Canasagua and

Chiaha, they marched every day as far as possible for fear of running

out of provisions. One of the most glaring discrepancies appears in

regard to the distance between Chiaha and Coste. Both the Portuguese

writer and Garcilaso put Chiaha upon an island--a statement which

in itself is at variance with any present conditions,--but while

the former makes the island a fraction over a league in length the

latter says that it was five leagues long. The next town was Coste,

which Garcilaso puts immediately at the lower end of the same island

while the Portuguese Gentleman represents it as seven days distant,

although he himself has given the island the shorter length.

Notwithstanding a deceptive appearance of exactness, especially in

the Elvas and Ranjel narratives, which have the form of a daily

journal, the conclusion is irresistible that much of the record

was made after dates had been forgotten, and the sequence of events

had become confused. Considering all the difficulties, dangers, and

uncertainties that constantly beset the expedition, it would be too

much to expect the regularity of a ledger, and it is more probable

that the entries were made, not from day to day, but at irregular

intervals as opportunity presented at the several resting places. The

story must be interpreted in the light of our later knowledge of the

geography and ethnology of the country traversed.

Each of the three principal narratives has passed through translations

and later editions of more or less doubtful fidelity to the original,

the English edition in some cases being itself a translation from

an earlier French or Dutch translation. English speaking historians

of the expedition have usually drawn their material from one or

the other of these translations, without knowledge of the original

language, of the etymologies of the Indian names or the relations

of the various tribes mentioned, or of the general system of Indian

geographic nomenclature. One of the greatest errors has been the

attempt to give in every case a fixed local habitation to a name

which in some instances is not a proper name at all, and in others is

merely a descriptive term or a duplicate name occurring at several

places in the same tribal territory. Thus Tali is simply the Creek

word talua, town, and not a definite place name as represented by

a mistake natural in dealing through interpreters with an unknown

Indian language. Tallise and Tallimuchase are respectively "Old town"

and "New town" in Creek, and there can be no certainty that the same

names were applied to the same places a century later. Canasagua is

a corruption of a Cherokee name which occurs in at least three other

places in the old Cherokee country in addition to the one mentioned in

the narrative, and almost every old Indian local name was thus repeated

several times, as in the case of such common names as Short creek,

Whitewater, Richmond, or Lexington among ourselves. The fact that only

one name of the set has been retained on the map does not prove its

identity with the town of the old chronicle. Again such loose terms

as "a large river," "a beautiful valley," have been assumed to mean

something more definitely localized than the wording warrants. The

most common error in translation has been the rendering of the Spanish

"despoblado" as "desert." There are no deserts in the Gulf states,

and the word means simply an uninhabited region, usually the debatable

strip between two tribes.

There have been many attempts to trace De Soto's route. As nearly every

historian who has written of the southern states has given attention to

this subject it is unnecessary to enumerate them all. Of some thirty

works consulted by the author, in addition to the original narratives

already mentioned, not more than two or three can be considered as

speaking with any authority, the rest simply copying from these without

investigation. The first attempt to locate the route definitely was

made by Meek (Romantic Passages, etc.) in 1839 (reprinted in 1857),

his conclusions being based upon his general knowledge of the geography

of the region. In 1851 Pickett tried to locate the route, chiefly, he

asserts, from Indian tradition as related by mixed-bloods. How much

dependence can be placed upon Indian tradition as thus interpreted

three centuries after the event it is unnecessary to say. Both these

writers have brought De Soto down the Coosa river, in which they

have been followed without investigation by Irving, Shea and others,

but none of these was aware of the existence of a Suwali tribe,

or correctly acquainted with the Indian nomenclature of the upper

country, or of the Creek country as so well summarized by Gatschet in

his Creek Migration Legend. They are also mistaken in assuming that

only De Soto passed through the country, whereas we now know that

several Spanish explorers and numerous French adventurers traversed

the same territory, the latest expeditions of course being freshest

in Indian memory. Jones in his "De Soto's March Through Georgia"

simply dresses up the earlier statements in more literary style,

sometimes changing surmises to positive assertions, without mentioning

his authorities. Maps of the supposed route, all bringing De Soto down

the Coosa instead of the Chattahoochee, have been published in Irving's

Conquest of Florida, the Hakluyt Society's edition of the Gentleman

of Elva's account, and in Buckingham Smith's translation of the same

narrative, as well as in several other works. For the eastern portion,

with which we have to deal, all of these are practically duplicates of

one another. On several old Spanish and French maps the names mentioned

in the narrative seem to have been set down merely to fill space,

without much reference to the text of the chronicle. For a list and

notices of principal writers who have touched upon this subject see the

appendix to Shea's chapter on "Ancient Florida" in Winsor's Narrative

and Critical History of America, II; Boston, 1886. We shall speak

only of that part of the route which lay near the Cherokee mountains.

The first location which concerns us in the narrative is Cofitachiqui,

the town from which De Soto set out for the Cherokee country. The

name appears variously as Cofitachequi (Ranjel), Cofitachique

(Biedma), Cofachiqui (Garcilaso), Cutifa-Chiqui (by transposition,

Elvas), Cofetaçque (Vandera), Catafachique (Williams) and Cosatachiqui

(misprint, Brooks MSS), and the Spaniards first heard of the region as

Yupaha from a tribe farther to the south. The correct form appears to

be that first given, which Gatschet, from later information than that

quoted in his Creek Migration Legend, makes a Hitchitee word about

equivalent to "Dogwood town," from cofi, "dogwood," cofita, "dogwood

thicket," and chiki, "house," or collectively "town." McCulloch puts

the town upon the headwaters of the Ocmulgee; Williams locates it on

the Chattahoochee; Gallatin on the Oconee or the Savannah; Meek and

Monette, following him, probably in the fork of the Savannah and the

Broad; Pickett, with Jones and others following him, at Silver bluff

on the east (north) bank of the Savannah, in Barnwell county, South

Carolina, about 25 miles by water below the present Augusta. It will

thus be seen that at the very outset of our inquiry the commentators

differ by a distance equal to more than half the width of the state of

Georgia. It will suffice here to say, without going into the argument,

that the author is inclined to believe that the Indian town was on or

near Silver bluff, which was noted for its extensive ancient remains as

far back as Bartram's time (Travels, 313), and where the noted George

Galphin established a trading post in 1736. The original site has

since been almost entirely worn away by the river. According to the

Indians of Cofitachiqui, the town, which was on the farther (north)

bank of the stream, was two day's journey from the sea, probably by

canoe, and the sailors with the expedition believed the river to be the

same one that entered at St. Helena, which was a very close guess. The

Spaniards were shown here European articles which they were told had

been obtained from white men who had entered the river's mouth many

years before. These they conjectured to have been the men with Ayllon,

who had landed on that coast in 1520 and again in 1524. The town was

probably the ancient capital of the Uchee Indians, who, before their

absorption by the Creeks, held or claimed most of the territory on

both banks of Savannah river from the Cherokee border to within about

forty miles of Savannah and westward to the Ogeechee and Cannouchee

rivers (see Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend, I, 17-24). The country

was already on the decline in 1540 from a recent fatal epidemic,

but was yet populous and wealthy, and was ruled by a woman chief

whose authority extended for a considerable distance. The town was

visited also by Pardo in 1567 and again by Torres in 1628, when it was

still a principal settlement, as rich in pearls as in De Soto's time

(Brooks MSS, in the archives of the Bureau of American Ethnology).

Somewhere in southern Georgia De Soto had been told of a rich province

called Coça (Coosa, the Creek country) toward the northwest. At

Cofitachiqui he again heard of it and of one of its principal towns

called Chiaha (Chehaw) as being twelve days inland. Although on

first hearing of it he had kept on in the other direction in order

to reach Cofitachiqui, he now determined to go there, and made the

queen a prisoner to compel her to accompany him a part of the way

as guide. Coça province was, though he did not know it, almost due

west, and he was in haste to reach it in order to obtain corn, as

his men and horses were almost worn out from hunger. It is apparent,

however, that the unwilling queen, afraid of being carried beyond her

own territories, led the Spaniards by a roundabout route in the hope

of making her escape, as she finally did, or perhaps of leaving them

to starve and die in the mountains, precisely the trick attempted by

the Indians upon another Spanish adventurer, Coronado, entering the

great plains from the Pacific coast in search of golden treasure in

the same year.

Instead therefore of recrossing the river to the westward, the

Spaniards, guided by the captive queen, took the direction of the north

("la vuelta del norte"--Biedma), and, after passing through several

towns subject to the queen, came in seven days to "the province

of Chalaque" (Elvas). Elvas, Garcilaso, and Ranjel agree upon the

spelling, but the last named makes the distance only two days from

Cofitachiqui. Biedma does not mention the country at all. The trifling

difference in statement of five days in seven need not trouble us,

as Biedma makes the whole distance from Cofitachiqui to Xuala eight

days, and from Guaxule to Chiaha four days, where Elvas makes it,

respectively, twelve and seven days. Chalaque is, of course, Cherokee,

as all writers agree, and De Soto was now probably on the waters of

Keowee river, the eastern head stream of Savannah river, where the

Lower Cherokee had their towns. Finding the country bare of corn,

he made no stay.

Proceeding six days farther they came next to Guaquili, where they

were kindly received. This name occurs only in the Ranjel narrative,

the other three being entirely silent in regard to such a halting

place. The name has a Cherokee sound (Wakili), but if we allow for

a dialectic substitution of l for r it may be connected with such

Catawba names as Congaree, Wateree, and Sugeree. It was probably a

village of minor importance.

They came next to the province of Xuala, or Xualla, as the Elvas

narrative more often has it. In a French edition it appears as

Chouala. Ranjel makes it three days from Guaquili or five from

Chalaque. Elvas also makes it five days from Chalaque, while Biedma

makes it eight days from Cofitachiqui, a total discrepancy of four

days from the last-named place. Biedma describes it as a rough

mountain country, thinly populated, but with a few Indian houses,

and thinks that in these mountains the great river of Espiritu Santo

(the Mississippi) had its birth. Ranjel describes the town as situated

in a plain in the vicinity of rivers and in a country with greater

appearance of gold mines than any they had yet seen. The Portuguese

gentleman describes it as having very little corn, and says that

they reached it from Cofitachiqui over a hilly country. In his

final chapter he states that the course from Cofitachiqui to this

place was from south to north, thus agreeing with Biedma. According

to Garcilaso (pp. 136-137) it was fifty leagues by the road along

which the Spaniards had come from Cofitachiqui to the first valley

of the province of Xuala, with but few mountains on the way, and the

town itself was situated close under a mountain ("a la falda de una

sierra") beside a small but rapid stream which formed the boundary

of the territory of Cofitachiqui in this direction. From Ranjel we

learn that on the same day after leaving this place for the next

"province" the Spaniards crossed a very high mountain ridge ("una

sierra muy alta").

Without mentioning the name, Pickett (1851) refers to Xuala as "a

town in the present Habersham county, Georgia," but gives no reason

for this opinion. Rye and Irving, of the same date, arguing from a

slight similarity of name, think it may have been on the site of a

former Cherokee town, Qualatchee, on the head of Chattahoochee river in

Georgia. The resemblance, however, is rather farfetched, and moreover

this same name is found on Keowee river in South Carolina. Jones (De

Soto in Georgia, 1880) interprets Garcilaso's description to refer to

"Nacoochee valley, Habersham county"--which should be White county--and

the neighboring Mount Yonah, overlooking the fact that the same

description of mountain, valley, and swift flowing stream might apply

equally well to any one of twenty other localities in this southern

mountain country. With direct contradiction Garcilaso says that the

Spaniards rested here fifteen days because they found provisions

plentiful, while the Portuguese Gentleman says that they stopped but

two days because they found so little corn! Ranjel makes them stop

four days and says they found abundant provisions and assistance.

However that may have been, there can be no question of the identity

of the name. As the province of Chalaque is the country of the

Cherokee, so the province of Xuala is the territory of the Suwali

or Sara Indians, better known later as Cheraw, who lived in early

times in the piedmont country about the head of Broad river in North

Carolina, adjoining the Cherokee, who still remember them under

the name of Ani'-Suwa'li. A principal trail to their country from

the west led up Swannanoa river and across the gap which, for this

reason, was known to the Cherokee as Suwa'li-nuñnâ, "Suwali trail,"

corrupted by the whites to Swannanoa. Lederer, who found them in

the same general region in 1670, calls this gap the "Suala pass"

and the neighboring mountains the Sara mountains, "which," he says,

"The Spaniards make Suala." They afterward shifted to the north and

finally returned and were incorporated with the Catawba (see Mooney,

Siouan Tribes of the East, bulletin of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1894).

Up to this point the Spaniards had followed a north course from

Cofitachiqui (Biedma and Elvas), but they now turned to the west

(Elvas, final chapter). On the same day on which they left Xuala they

crossed "a very high mountain ridge," and descended the next day to

a wide meadow bottom ("savana"), through which flowed a river which

they concluded was a part of the Espiritu Santo, the Mississippi

(Ranjel). Biedma speaks of crossing a mountain country and mentions

the river, which he also says they thought to be a tributary of the

Mississippi. Garcilaso says that this portion of their route was

through a mountain country without inhabitants ("despoblado") and

the Portuguese gentleman describes it as being over "very rough and

high ridges." In five days of such travel--for here, for a wonder,

all the narratives agree--they came to Guaxule. This is the form

given by Garcilaso and the Gentleman of Elvas; Biedma has Guasula,

and Ranjel Guasili or Guasuli. The translators and commentators

have given us such forms as Guachoule, Quaxule, Quaxulla, and

Quexale. According to the Spanish method of writing Indian words the

name was pronounced Washulé or Wasuli, which has a Cherokee sound,

although it can not be translated. Buckingham Smith (Narratives,

p. 222) hints that the Spaniards may have changed Guasili to Guasule,

because of the similarity of the latter form to a town name in

southern Spain. Such corruptions of Indian names are of frequent

occurrence. Garcilaso speaks of it as a "province and town," while

Biedma and Ranjel call it simply a town ("pueblo"). Before reaching

this place the Indian queen had managed to make her escape. All the

chroniclers tell of the kind reception which the Spaniards met here,

but the only description of the town itself is from Garcilaso, who

says that it was situated in the midst of many small streams which

came down from the mountains round about, that it consisted of three

hundred houses, which is probably an exaggeration, though it goes to

show that the village was of considerable size, and that the chief's

house, in which the principal officers were lodged, was upon a high

hill ("un cerro alto"), around which was a roadway ("paseadero") wide

enough for six men to walk abreast. By the "chief's house" we are to

understand the town-house, while from various similar references in

other parts of the narrative there can be no doubt that the "hill"

upon which it stood was an artificial mound. In modern Spanish writing

such artificial elevations are more often called lomas, but these early

adventurers may be excused for not noting the distinction. Issuing

from the mountains round about the town were numerous small streams,

which united to form the river which the Spaniards henceforth followed

from here down to Chiaha, where it was as large as the Guadalquivir

at Sevilla (Garcilaso).

Deceived by the occurrence, in the Portuguese narrative, of the

name Canasagua, which they assumed could belong in but one place,

earlier commentators have identified this river with the Coosa,

Pickett putting Guaxule somewhere upon its upper waters, while Jones

improves upon this by making the site "identical, or very nearly

so, with Coosawattee Old town, in the southeastern corner of Murray

county," Georgia. As we shall show, however, the name in question was

duplicated in several states, and a careful study of the narratives,

in the light of present knowledge of the country, makes it evident

that the river was not the Coosa, but the Chattahoochee.

Turning our attention once more to Xuala, the most northern point

reached by De Soto, we have seen that this was the territory

of the Suwala or Sara Indians, in the eastern foothills of the

Alleghenies, about the head waters of Broad and Catawba rivers, in

North Carolina. As the Spaniards turned here to the west they probably

did not penetrate far beyond the present South Carolina boundary. The

"very high mountain ridge" which they crossed immediately after

leaving the town was in all probability the main chain of the Blue

ridge, while the river which they found after descending to the

savanna on the other side, and which they guessed to be a branch

of the Mississippi, was almost as certainly the upper part of the

French Broad, the first stream flowing in an opposite direction

from those which they had previously encountered. They may have

struck it in the neighborhood of Hendersonville or Brevard, there

being two gaps, passable for vehicles, in the main ridge eastward

from the first-named town. The uninhabited mountains through which

they struggled for several days on their way to Chiaha and Coça (the

Creek country) in the southwest were the broken ridges in which the

Savannah and the Little Tennessee have their sources, and if they

followed an Indian trail they may have passed through the Rabun gap,

near the present Clayton, Georgia. Guaxule, and not Xuala, as Jones

supposes, was in Nacoochee valley, in the present White county,

Georgia, and the small streams which united to form the river down

which the Spaniards proceeded to Chiaha were the headwaters of the

Chattahoochee. The hill upon which the townhouse was built must have

been the great Nacoochee mound, the most prominent landmark in the

valley, on the east bank of Sautee creek, in White county, about

twelve miles northwest of Clarkesville. This is the largest mound

in upper Georgia, with the exception of the noted Etowah mound near

Cartersville, and is the only one which can fill the requirements

of the case. There are but two considerable mounds in western North

Carolina, that at Franklin and a smaller one on Oconaluftee river,

on the present East Cherokee reservation, and as both of these are on

streams flowing away from the Creek country, this fact alone would

bar them from consideration. The only large mounds in upper Georgia

are this one at Nacoochee and the group on the Etowah river, near

Cartersville. The largest of the Etowah group is some fifty feet

in height and is ascended on one side by means of a roadway about

fifty feet wide at the base and narrowing gradually to the top. Had

this been the mound of the narrative it is hardly possible that the

chronicler would have failed to notice also the two other mounds of

the group or the other one on the opposite side of the river, each of

these being from twenty to twenty-five feet in height, to say nothing

of the great ditch a quarter of a mile in length which encircles the

group. Moreover, Cartersville is at some distance from the mountains,

and the Etowah river at this point does not answer the description

of a small rushing mountain stream. There is no considerable mound

at Coosawatee or in any of the three counties adjoining.

The Nacoochee mound has been cleared and cultivated for many years

and does not now show any appearance of a roadway up the side, but

from its great height we may be reasonably sure that some such means

of easy ascent existed in ancient times. In other respects it is the

only mound in the whole upper country which fills the conditions. The

valley is one of the most fertile spots in Georgia and numerous ancient

remains give evidence that it was a favorite center of settlement

in early days. At the beginning of the modern historic period it was

held by the Cherokee, who had there a town called Nacoochee, but their

claim was disputed by the Creeks. The Gentleman of Elvas states that

Guaxule was subject to the queen of Cofitachiqui, but this may mean

only that the people of the two towns or tribes were in friendly

alliance. The modern name is pronounced Nagu`tsi' by the Cherokee,

who say, however, that it is not of their language. The terminal may

be the Creek udshi, "small," or it may have a connection with the

name of the Uchee Indians.

From Guaxule the Spaniards advanced to Canasoga (Ranjel) or Canasagua

(Elvas), one or two days' march from Guaxule, according to one

or the other authority. Garcilaso and Biedma do not mention the

name. As Garcilaso states that from Guaxule to Chiaha the march

was down the bank of the same river, which we identify with the

Chattahoochee, the town may have been in the neighborhood of the

present Gainesville. As we have seen, however, it is unsafe to trust

the estimates of distance. Arguing from the name, Meek infers that

the town was about Conasauga river in Murray county, and that the

river down which they marched to reach it was "no doubt the Etowah,"

although to reach the first named river from the Etowah it would

be necessary to make another sharp turn to the north. From the same

coincidence Pickett puts it on the Conasauga, "in the modern county

of Murray, Georgia," while Jones, on the same theory, locates it

"at or near the junction of the Connasauga and Coosawattee rivers,

in originally Cass, now Gordon county." Here his modern geography

as well as his ancient is at fault, as the original Cass county is

now Bartow, the name having been changed in consequence of a local

dislike for General Cass. The whole theory of a march down the Coosa

river rests upon this coincidence of the name. The same name however,

pronounced Gansâ'gi by the Cherokee, was applied by them to at least

three different locations within their old territory, while the one

mentioned in the narrative would make the fourth. The others were

(1) on Oostanaula river, opposite the mouth of the Conasauga, where

afterward was New Echota, in Gordon county, Georgia; (2) on Canasauga

creek, in McMinn county, Tennessee; (3) on Tuckasegee river, about

two miles above Webster, in Jackson county, North Carolina. At each

of these places are remains of ancient settlement. It is possible

that the name of Kenesaw mountain, near Marietta, in Cobb county,

Georgia, may be a corruption of Gansâ'gi, and if so, the Canasagua

of the narrative may have been somewhere in this vicinity on the

Chattahoochee. The meaning of the name is lost.

On leaving Canasagua they continued down the same river which they

had followed from Guaxule (Garcilaso), and after traveling several

days through an uninhabited ("despoblado") country (Elvas) arrived

at Chiaha, which was subject to the great chief of Coça (Elvas). The

name is spelled Chiaha by Ranjel and the Gentleman of Elvas, Chiha by

Biedma in the Documentos, China by a misprint in an English rendering,

and Ychiaha by Garcilaso. It appears as Chiha on an English map of

1762 reproduced in Winsor, Westward Movement, page 31, 1897. Gallatin

spells it Ichiaha, while Williams and Fairbanks, by misprint, make

it Chiapa. According to both Ranjel and Elvas the army entered it

on the 5th of June, although the former makes it four days from

Canasagua, while the other makes it five. Biedma says it was four

days from Guaxule, and, finally, Garcilaso says it was six days and

thirty leagues from Guaxule and on the same river, which was, here

at Chiaha, as large as the Guadalquivir at Sevilla. As we have seen,

there is a great discrepancy in the statements of the distance from

Cofitachiqui to this point. All four authorities agree that the town

was on an island in the river, along which they had been marching

for some time (Garcilaso, Ranjel), but while the Elvas narrative

makes the island "two crossbow shot" in length above the town and

one league in length below it, Garcilaso calls it a "great island

more than five leagues long." On both sides of the island the stream

was very broad and easily waded (Elvas). Finding welcome and food

for men and horses the Spaniards rested here nearly a month (June

5-28, Ranjel; twenty-six or twenty-seven days, Biedma; thirty days,

Elvas). In spite of the danger from attack De Soto allowed his men to

sleep under trees in the open air, "because it was very hot and the

people should have suffered great extremity if it had not been so"

(Elvas). This in itself is evidence that the place was pretty far to

the south, as it was yet only the first week in June. The town was

subject to the chief of the great province of Coça, farther to the

west. From here onward they began to meet palisaded towns.

On the theory that the march was down Coosa river, every commentator

hitherto has located Chiaha at some point upon this stream, either

in Alabama or Georgia. Gallatin (1836) says that it "must have

been on the Coosa, probably some distance below the site of New

Echota." He notes a similarity of sound between Ichiaha and "Echoy"

(Itseyi), a Cherokee town name. Williams (1837) says that it was on

Mobile (i. e., the Alabama or lower Coosa river). Meek (1839) says

"there can be little doubt that Chiaha was situated but a short

distance above the junction of the Coosa and Chattooga rivers,"

i. e., not far within the Alabama line. He notes the occurrence of a

"Chiaha" (Chehawhaw) creek near Talladega, Alabama. In regard to the

island upon which the town was said to have been situated he says:

"There is no such island now in the Coosa. It is probable that the

Spaniards either mistook the peninsula formed by the junction of

two rivers, the Coosa and Chattooga, for an island, or that those

two rivers were originally united so as to form an island near their

present confluence. We have heard this latter supposition asserted

by persons well acquainted with the country."--Romantic Passages,

p. 222, 1857. Monette (1846) puts it on Etowah branch of the Coosa,

probably in Floyd county, Georgia. Pickett (1851), followed in turn

by Irving, Jones, and Shea, locates it at "the site of the modern

Rome." The "island" is interpreted to mean the space between the two

streams above the confluence.

Pickett, as has been stated, bases his statements chiefly or entirely

upon Indian traditions as obtained from half breeds or traders. How

much information can be gathered from such sources in regard to events

that transpired three centuries before may be estimated by considering

how much an illiterate mountaineer of the same region might be able to

tell concerning the founding of the Georgia colony. Pickett himself

seems to have been entirely unaware of the later Spanish expeditions

of Pardo and De Luna through the same country, as he makes no mention

of them in his history of Alabama, but ascribes everything to De

Soto. Concerning Chiaha he says:

"The most ancient Cherokee Indians, whose tradition has been handed

down to us through old Indian traders, disagree as to the precise

place [!] where De Soto crossed the Oostanaula to get over into the

town of Chiaha--some asserting that he passed over that river seven

miles above its junction with the Etowah, and that he marched from

thence down to Chiaha, which, all contend, lay immediately at the

confluence of the two rivers; while other ancient Indians asserted

that he crossed, with his army, immediately opposite the town. But

this is not very important. Coupling the Indian traditions with

the account by Garcellasso and that by the Portuguese eyewitness,

we are inclined to believe the latter tradition that the expedition

continued to advance down the western side of the Oostanaula until they

halted in view of the mouth of the Etowah. De Soto, having arrived

immediately opposite the great town of Chiaha, now the site of Rome,

crossed the Oostanaula," etc. (History of Alabama, p. 23, reprint,

1896). He overlooks the fact that Chiaha was not a Cherokee town,

but belonged to the province of Coça--i. e., the territory of the

Creek Indians.

A careful study of the four original narratives makes it plain that

the expedition did not descend either the Oostanaula or the Etowah,

and that consequently Chiaha could not have been at their junction, the

present site of Rome. On the other hand the conclusion is irresistible

that the march was down the Chattahoochee from its extreme head springs

in the mountains, and that the Chiaha of the narrative was the Lower

Creek town of the same name, more commonly known as Chehaw, formerly

on this river in the neighborhood of the modern city of Columbus,

Georgia, while Coste, in the narrative the next adjacent town,

was Kasi`ta, or Cusseta, of the same group of villages. The falls

at this point mark the geologic break line where the river changes

from a clear, swift current to a broad, slow-moving stream of the

lower country. Attracted by the fisheries and the fertile bottom

lands the Lower Creeks established here their settlement nucleus,

and here, up to the beginning of the present century, they had within

easy distance of each other on both sides of the river some fifteen

towns, among which were Chiaha (Chehaw), Chiahudshi (Little Chehaw),

and Kasi`ta (Cusseta). Most of these settlements were within what

are now Muscogee and Chattahoochee counties, Georgia, and Lee and

Russell counties, Alabama (see town list and map in Gatschet, Creek

Migration Legend). Large mounds and other earthworks on both sides of

the river in the vicinity of Columbus attest the importance of the site

in ancient days, while the general appearance indicates that at times

the adjacent low grounds were submerged or cut off by overflows from

the main stream. A principal trail crossed here from the Ocmulgee,

passing by Tuskegee to the Upper Creek towns about the junction of

the Coosa and Tallapoosa in Alabama. At the beginning of the present

century this trail was known to the traders as "De Soto's trace"

(Woodward, Reminiscences, p. 76). As the Indian towns frequently

shift their position within a limited range on account of epidemics,

freshets, or impoverishment of the soil, it is not necessary to assume

that they occupied exactly the same sites in 1540 as in 1800, but only

that as a group they were in the same general vicinity. Thus Kasi`ta

itself was at one period above the falls and at a later period some

eight miles below them. Both Kasi`ta and Chiaha were principal towns,

with several branch villages.

The time given as occupied on the march from Canasagua to Chiaha

would seem too little for the actual distance, but as we have seen,

the chroniclers do not agree among themselves. We can easily believe

that the Spaniards, buoyed up by the certainty of finding food and rest

at their next halting place, made better progress along the smooth

river trail than while blundering helplessly through the mountains

at the direction of a most unwilling guide. If Canasagua was anywhere

in the neighborhood of Kenesaw, in Cobb county, the time mentioned in

the Elvas or Garcilaso narrative would probably have been sufficient

for reaching Chiaha at the falls. The uninhabited country between the

two towns was the neutral ground between the two hostile tribes, the

Cherokee and the Creeks, and it is worth noting that Kenesaw mountain

was made a point on the boundary line afterward established between

the two tribes through the mediation of the United States government.

There is no large island in either the Coosa or the Chattahoochee,

and we are forced to the conclusion that what the chronicle describes

as an island was really a portion of the bottom land temporarily cut

off by back water from a freshet. In a similar way "The Slue," east

of Flint river in Mitchell county, may have been formed by a shifting

of the river channel. Two months later, in Alabama, the Spaniards

reached a river so swollen by rains that they were obliged to wait

six days before they could cross (Elvas). Lederer, while crossing

South Carolina in 1670, found his farther progress barred by a "great

lake," which he puts on his map as "Ushery lake," although there is

no such lake in the state; but the mystery is explained by Lawson,

who, in going over the same ground thirty years later, found all the

bottom lands under water from a great flood, the Santee in particular

being 36 feet above its normal level. As Lawson was a surveyor his

figures may be considered reliable. The "Ushery lake" of Lederer was

simply an overflow of Catawba river. Flood water in the streams of

upper Georgia and Alabama would quickly be carried off, but would be

apt to remain for some time on the more level country below the falls.

According to information supplied by Mr Thomas Robinson, an expert

engineering authority familiar with the lower Chattahoochee, there

was formerly a large mound, now almost entirely washed away, on the

eastern bank of the river, about nine miles below Columbus, while

on the western or Alabama bank, a mile or two farther down, there is

still to be seen another of nearly equal size. "At extreme freshets

both of these mounds were partly submerged. To the east of the former,

known as the Indian mound, the flood plain is a mile or two wide,

and along the eastern side of the plain stretches a series of swamps

or wooded sloughs, indicating an old river bed. All the plain between

the present river and the sloughs is river-made land. The river bluff

along by the mound on the Georgia side is from twenty to thirty feet

above the present low-water surface of the stream. About a mile above

the mound are the remains of what was known as Jennies island. At

ordinary stages of the river no island is there. The eastern channel

was blocked by government works some years ago, and the whole is filled

up and now used as a cornfield. The island remains can be traced now,

I think, for a length of half a mile, with a possible extreme width

of 300 feet.... This whole country, on both sides of the river, is

full of Indian lore. I have mentioned both mounds simply to indicate

that this portion of the river was an Indian locality, and have also

stated the facts about the remains of Jennies island in order to give

a possible clew to a professional who might study the ground."--Letter,

April 22, 1900.

Chiaha was the first town of the "province of Coça," the territory

of the Coosa or Creek Indians. The next town mentioned, Coste (Elvas

and Ranjel), Costehe (Biedma) or Acoste (Garcilaso), was Kasi`ta,

or Cusseta, as it was afterward known to the whites. While Garcilaso

puts it at the lower end of the same island upon which Chiaha was

situated, the Elvas narrative makes it seven days distant! The modern

towns of Chehaw and Cusseta were within a few miles of each other on

the Chattahoochee, the former being on the western or Alabama side,

while Cusseta, in 1799, was on the east or Georgia side about eight

miles below the falls at Columbus, and in Chattahoochee county, which

has given its capital the same name, Cusseta. From the general tone

of the narrative it is evident that the two towns were near together

in De Soto's time, and it may be that the Elvas chronicle confounded

Kasi`ta with Koasati, a principal Upper Creek town, a short distance

below the junction of the Coosa and Tallapoosa. At Coste they crossed

the river and continued westward "through many towns subject to the

cacique of Coça" (Elvas) until they came to the great town of Coça

itself. This was Kusa or Coosa, the ancient capital of the Upper

Creeks. There were two towns of this name at different periods. One,

described by Adair in 1775 as "the great and old beloved town of

refuge, Koosah," was on the east bank of Coosa river, a few miles

southwest of the present Talladega, Alabama. The other, known as

"Old Coosa," and probably of more ancient origin, was on the west

side of Alabama river, near the present site of Montgomery (see

Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend). It was probably the latter which

was visited by De Soto, and later on by De Luna, in 1559. Beyond

Coca they passed through another Creek town, apparently lower down

on the Alabama, the name of which is variously spelled Ytaua (Elvas,

Force translation), Ytava (Elvas, Hakluyt Society translation), or

Itaba (Ranjel), and which may be connected with I'tawa', Etowah or

"Hightower," the name of a former Cherokee settlement near the head of

Etowah river in Georgia. The Cherokee regard this as a foreign name,

and its occurrence in upper Georgia, as well as in central Alabama,

may help to support the tradition that the southern Cherokee border

was formerly held by the Creeks.

De Soto's route beyond the Cherokee country does not concern us except

as it throws light upon his previous progress. In the seventeenth

chapter the Elvas narrative summarizes that portion from the landing

at Tampa bay to a point in southern Alabama as follows: "From the Port

de Spirito Santo to Apalache, which is about an hundred leagues, the

governor went from east to west; and from Apalache to Cutifachiqui,

which are 430 leagues, from the southwest to the northeast; and from

Cutifachiqui to Xualla, which are about 250 leagues, from the south to

the north; and from Xualla to Tascaluca, which are 250 leagues more,

an hundred and ninety of them he traveled from east to west, to wit,

to the province of Coça; and the other 60, from Coça to Tascaluca,

from the north to the south."

Chisca (Elvas and Ranjel), the mountainous northern region in search

of which men were sent from Chiaha to look for copper and gold, was

somewhere in the Cherokee country of upper Georgia or Alabama. The

precise location is not material, as it is now known that native

copper, in such condition as to have been easily workable by the

Indians, occurs throughout the whole southern Allegheny region from

about Anniston, Alabama, into Virginia. Notable finds of native copper

have been made on the upper Tallapoosa, in Cleburne county, Alabama;

about Ducktown, in Polk county, Tennessee, and in southwestern

Virginia, one nugget from Virginia weighing several pounds. From

the appearance of ancient soapstone vessels which have been found

in the same region there is even a possibility that the Indians had

some knowledge of smelting, as the Spanish explorers surmised (oral

information from Mr W. H. Weed, U. S. Geological Survey). We hear

again of this "province" after De Soto had reached the Mississippi,

and in one place Garcilaso seems to confound it with another province

called Quizqui (Ranjel) or Quizquiz (Elvas and Biedma). The name has

some resemblance to the Cherokee word tsiskwa, "bird."

(9) De Luna and Rogel (p. 27): Jones, in his De Soto's March

through Georgia, incorrectly ascribes certain traces of ancient

mining operations in the Cherokee country, particularly on Valley

river in North Carolina, to the followers of De Luna, "who, in 1560

... came with 300 Spanish soldiers into this region, and spent the

summer in eager and laborious search for gold." Don Tristan de Luna,

with fifteen hundred men, landed somewhere about Mobile bay in 1559

with the design of establishing a permanent Spanish settlement in

the interior, but owing to a succession of unfortunate happenings the

attempt was abandoned the next year. In the course of his wanderings

he traversed the country of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Upper Creeks,

as is shown by the names and other data in the narrative, but returned

without entering the mountains or doing any digging (see Barcia,

Ensayo Cronologico, pp. 32-41, 1723; Winsor, Narrative and Critical

History, II, pp. 257-259).

In 1569 the Jesuit Rogel--called Father John Roger by Shea--began

mission work among the South Carolina tribes inland from Santa Elena

(about Port Royal). The mission, which at first promised well, was

abandoned next year, owing to the unwillingness of the Indians to give

up their old habits and beliefs. Shea, in his "Catholic Missions,"

supposes that these Indians were probably a part of the Cherokee,

but a study of the Spanish record in Barcia (Ensayo, pp. 138-141)

shows that Rogel penetrated only a short distance from the coast.

(10) Davies' History of the Carribby Islands (p. 29): The fraudulent

character of this work, which is itself an altered translation of a

fictitious history by Rochefort, is noted by Buckingham Smith (Letter

of Hernando de Soto, p. 36, 1854), Winsor (Narrative and Critical

History, II, p. 289), and Field (Indian Bibliography, p. 95). Says

Field: "This book is an example of the most unblushing effrontery. The

pseudo author assumes the credit of the performance, with but

the faintest allusion to its previous existence. It is a nearly

faithful translation of Rochefort's 'Histoire des Antilles.' There is,

however, a gratifying retribution in Davies' treatment of Rochefort,

for the work of the latter was fictitious in every part which was not

purloined from authors whose knowledge furnished him with all in his

treatise which was true."

(11) Ancient Spanish Mines (pp. 29, 31): As the existence of the

precious metals in the southern Alleghenies was known to the Spaniards

from a very early period, it is probable that more thorough exploration

of that region will bring to light many evidences of their mining

operations. In his "Antiquities of the Southern Indians," Jones

describes a sort of subterranean village discovered in 1834 on Dukes

creek, White county, Georgia, consisting of a row of small log cabins

extending along the creek, but imbedded several feet below the surface

of the ground, upon which large trees were growing, the inference being

that the houses had been thus covered by successive freshets. The

logs had been notched and shaped apparently with sharp metallic

tools. Shafts have been discovered on "Valley river, North Carolina,

at the bottom of one of which was found, in 1854, a well-preserved

windlass of hewn oak timbers, showing traces of having once been banded

with iron. Another shaft, passing through hard rock, showed the marks

of sharp tools used in the boring. The casing and other timbers were

still sound (Jones, pp. 48, 49). Similar ancient shafts have been

found in other places in upper Georgia and western North Carolina,

together with some remarkable stone-built fortifications or corrals,

notably at Fort mountain, in Murray county, Georgia, and on Silver

creek, a few miles from Rome, Georgia.

Very recently remains of an early white settlement, traditionally

ascribed to the Spaniards, have been reported from Lincolnton, North

Carolina, on the edge of the ancient country of the Sara, among whom

the Spaniards built a fort in 1566. The works include a dam of cut

stone, a series of low pillars of cut stone, arranged in squares

as though intended for foundations, a stone-walled well, a quarry

from which the stone had been procured, a fire pit, and a series

of sinks, extending along the stream, in which were found remains

of timbers suggesting the subterranean cabins on Dukes creek. All

these antedated the first settlement of that region, about the year

1750. Ancient mining indications are also reported from Kings mountain,

about twenty miles distant (Reinhardt MS, 1900, in Bureau of American

Ethnology archives). The Spanish miners of whom Lederer heard in 1670

and Moore in 1690 were probably at work in this neighborhood.

(12) Sir William Johnson (p. 38): This great soldier, whose history

is so inseparably connected with that of the Six Nations, was born

in the county Meath, Ireland, in 1715, and died at Johnstown, New

York, in 1774. The younger son of an Irish gentleman, he left his

native country in 1738 in consequence of a disappointment in love,

and emigrated to America, where he undertook the settlement of a

large tract of wild land belonging to his uncle, which lay along the

south side of the Mohawk river in what was then the wilderness of

New York. This brought him into close contact with the Six Nations,

particularly the Mohawks, in whom he became so much interested as to

learn their language and in some degree to accommodate himself to their

customs, sometimes even to the wearing of the native costume. This

interest, together with his natural kindness and dignity, completely

won the hearts of the Six Nations, over whom he acquired a greater

influence than has ever been exercised by any other white man before

or since. He was formally adopted as a chief by the Mohawk tribe. In

1744, being still a very young man, he was placed in charge of British

affairs with the Six Nations, and in 1755 was regularly commissioned

at their own urgent request as superintendent for the Six Nations

and their dependent and allied tribes, a position which he held for

the rest of his life. In 1748 he was also placed in command of the

New York colonial forces, and two years later was appointed to the

governor's council. At the beginning of the French and Indian war he

was commissioned a major-general. He defeated Dieskau at the battle

of Lake George, where he was severely wounded early in the action,

but refused to leave the field. For this service he received the

thanks of Parliament, a grant of £5,000, and a baronetcy. He also

distinguished himself at Ticonderoga and Fort Niagara, taking the

latter after routing the French army sent to its relief. At the head

of his Indian and colonial forces he took part in other actions and

expeditions, and was present at the surrender of Montreal. For his

services throughout the war he received a grant of 100,000 acres of

land north of the Mohawk river. Here he built "Johnson Hall," which

still stands, near the village of Johnstown, which was laid out by

him with stores, church, and other buildings, at his own expense. At

Johnson Hall he lived in the style of an old country baron, dividing

his attention between Indian affairs and the raising of blooded stock,

and dispensing a princely hospitality to all comers. His influence

alone prevented the Six Nations joining Pontiac's great confederacy

against the English. In 1768 he concluded the treaty of Fort Stanwix,

which fixed the Ohio as the boundary between the northern colonies

and the western tribes, the boundary for which the Indians afterward

contended against the Americans until 1795. In 1739 he married a

German girl of the Mohawk valley, who died after bearing him three

children. Later in life he formed a connection with the sister of

Brant, the Mohawk chief. He died from over-exertion at an Indian

council. His son, Sir John Johnson, succeeded to his title and estates,

and on the breaking out of the Revolution espoused the British side,

drawing with him the Mohawks and a great part of the other Six Nations,

who abandoned their homes and fled with him to Canada (see W. L. Stone,

Life of Sir William Johnson).

(13) Captain John Stuart (p. 44): This distinguished officer was

contemporaneous with Sir William Johnson, and sprang from the same

adventurous Keltic stock which has furnished so many men conspicuous

in our early Indian history. Born in Scotland about the year 1700, he

came to America in 1733, was appointed to a subordinate command in the

British service, and soon became a favorite with the Indians. When Fort

Loudon was taken by the Cherokee in 1760, he was second in command,

and his rescue by Ata-kullakulla is one of the romantic episodes of

that period. In 1763 he was appointed superintendent for the southern

tribes, a position which he continued to hold until his death. In 1768

he negotiated with the Cherokee the treaty of Hard Labor by which the

Kanawha was fixed as the western boundary of Virginia, Sir William

Johnson at the same time concluding a treaty with the northern tribes

by which the boundary was continued northward along the Ohio. At

the outbreak of the Revolution he organized the Cherokee and other

southern tribes, with the white loyalists, against the Americans, and

was largely responsible for the Indian outrages along the southern

border. He planned a general invasion by the southern tribes along

the whole frontier, in cooperation with a British force to be landed

in western Florida, while a British fleet should occupy the attention

of the Americans on the coast side and the Tories should rise in the

interior. On the discovery of the plot and the subsequent defeat of

the Cherokee by the Americans, he fled to Florida and soon afterward

sailed for England, where he died in 1779.

(14) Nancy Ward (p. 47): A noted halfbreed Cherokee woman, the date

and place of whose birth and death are alike unknown. It is said that

her father was a British officer named Ward and her mother a sister of

Ata-kullakulla, principal chief of the Nation at the time of the first

Cherokee war. She was probably related to Brian Ward, an oldtime trader

among the Cherokee, mentioned elsewhere in connection with the battle

of Tali'wa. During the Revolutionary period she resided at Echota,

the national capital, where she held the office of "Beloved Woman,"

or "Pretty Woman," by virtue of which she was entitled to speak in

councils and to decide the fate of captives. She distinguished herself

by her constant friendship for the Americans, always using her best

effort to bring about peace between them and her own people, and

frequently giving timely warning of projected Indian raids, notably

on the occasion of the great invasion of the Watauga and Holston

settlements in 1776. A Mrs Bean, captured during this incursion, was

saved by her interposition after having been condemned to death and

already bound to the stake. In 1780, on occasion of another Cherokee

outbreak, she assisted a number of traders to escape, and the next

year was sent by the chiefs to make peace with Sevier and Campbell,

who were advancing against the Cherokee towns. Campbell speaks of

her in his report as "the famous Indian woman, Nancy Ward." Although

peace was not then granted, her relatives, when brought in later with

other prisoners, were treated with the consideration due in return

for her good offices. She is described by Robertson, who visited her

about this time, as "queenly and commanding" in appearance and manner,

and her house as furnished in accordance with her high dignity. When

among the Arkansas Cherokee in 1819, Nuttall was told that she had

introduced the first cows into the Nation, and that by her own and her

children's influence the condition of the Cherokee had been greatly

elevated. He was told also that her advice and counsel bordered on

supreme, and that her interference was allowed to be decisive even

in affairs of life and death. Although he speaks in the present

tense, it is hardly probable that she was then still alive, and he

does not claim to have met her. Her descendants are still found in

the Nation. See Haywood, Natural and Aboriginal Tennessee; Ramsey,

Tennessee; Nuttall, Travels, p. 130, 1821; Campbell letter, 1781,

and Springstone deposition, 1781, in Virginia State Papers I, pp. 435,

436, 447, 1875; Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography.

(15) General James Robertson (p. 48): This distinguished pioneer and

founder of Nashville was born in Brunswick county, Virginia, in 1742,

and died at the Chickasaw agency in west Tennessee in 1814. Like

most of the men prominent in the early history of Tennessee, he was

of Scotch-Irish ancestry. His father having removed about 1750 to

western North Carolina, the boy grew up without education, but with

a strong love for adventure, which he gratified by making exploring

expeditions across the mountains. After his marriage his wife taught

him to read and write. In 1771 he led a colony to the Watauga river

and established the settlement which became the nucleus of the future

state of Tennessee. He took a leading part in the organization of

the Watauga Association, the earliest organized government within

the state, and afterward served in Dunmore's war, taking part in the

bloody battle of Point Pleasant in 1774. He participated in the earlier

Revolutionary campaigns against the Cherokee, and in 1777 was appointed

agent to reside at their capital, Echota, and act as a medium in their

correspondence with the state governments of North Carolina (including

Tennessee) and Virginia. In this capacity he gave timely warning of

a contemplated invasion by the hostile portion of the tribe early in

1779. Soon after in the same year he led a preliminary exploration

from Watauga to the Cumberland. He brought out a larger party late

in the fall, and in the spring of 1780 built the first stockades on

the site which he named Nashborough, now Nashville. Only his force of

character was able to hold the infant settlement together in the face

of hardships and Indian hostilities, but by his tact and firmness

he was finally able to make peace with the surrounding tribes, and

established the Cumberland settlement upon a secure basis. The Spanish

government at one time unsuccessfully attempted to engage him in a

plot to cut off the western territory from the United States, but met

a patriotic refusal. Having been commissioned a brigadier-general

in 1790, he continued to organize campaigns, resist invasions,

and negotiate treaties until the final close of the Indian wars in

Tennessee. He afterward held the appointment of Indian commissioner

to the Chickasaw and Choctaw. See Ramsey, Tennessee; Roosevelt,

Winning of the West; Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography.

(16) General Griffith Rutherford (p. 48): Although this Revolutionary

officer commanded the greatest expedition ever sent against the

Cherokee, with such distinguished success that both North Carolina

and Tennessee have named counties in his honor, little appears to

be definitely known of his history. He was born in Ireland about

1731, and, emigrating to America, settled near Salisbury, North

Carolina. On the opening of the Revolutionary struggle he became a

member of the Provincial Congress and Council of Safety. In June, 1776,

he was commissioned a brigadier-general in the American army, and a

few months later led his celebrated expedition against the Cherokee,

as elsewhere narrated. He rendered other important service in the

Revolution, in one battle being taken prisoner by the British and held

by them nearly a year. He afterward served in the state senate of North

Carolina, and, subsequently removing to Tennessee, was for some time

a member of its territorial council. He died in Tennessee about 1800.

(17) Rutherford's route (p. 49): The various North Carolina detachments

which combined to form Rutherford's expedition against the Cherokee

in the autumn of 1776 organized at different points about the upper

Catawba and probably concentrated at Davidson's fort, now Old fort, in

McDowell county. Thence, advancing westward closely upon the line of

the present Southern railroad and its Western North Carolina branch,

the army crossed the Blue ridge over the Swannanoa gap and went down

the Swannanoa to its junction with the French Broad, crossing the

latter at the Warrior ford, below the present Asheville; thence up

Hominy creek and across the ridge to Pigeon river, crossing it a few

miles below the junction of the East and West forks; thence to Richland

creek, crossing it just above the present Waynesville; and over the

dividing ridge between the present Haywood and Jackson counties to

the head of Scott's creek; thence down that creek by "a blind path

through a very mountainous bad way," as Moore's old narrative has

it, to its junction with the Tuckasegee river just below the present

Webster; thence, crossing to the west (south) side of the river, the

troops followed a main trail down the stream for a few miles until

they came to the first Cherokee town, Stekoa, on the site of the farm

formerly owned by Colonel William H. Thomas, just above the present

railroad village of Whittier, Swain county, North Carolina. After

destroying the town a detachment left the main body and pursued the

fugitives northward on the other side of the river to Oconaluftee

river and Soco creek, getting back afterward to the settlements by

steering an easterly course across the mountains to Richland creek

(Moore narrative). The main army, under Rutherford, crossed the

dividing ridge to the southward of Whittier and descended Cowee creek

to the waters of Little Tennessee, in the present Macon county. After

destroying the towns in this vicinity the army ascended Cartoogaja

creek, west from the present Franklin, and crossed the Nantahala

mountains at Waya gap--where a fight took place--to Nantahala river,

probably at the town of the same name, about the present Jarretts

station. From here the march was west across the mountain into the

present Cherokee county and down Valley river to its junction with

the Hiwassee, at the present Murphy. Authorities: Moore narrative

and Wilson letter in North Carolina University Magazine, February,

1888; Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 164; Roosevelt, Winning of the West, I,

pp. 300-302; Royce, Cherokee map; personal information from Colonel

William H. Thomas, Major James Bryson, whose grandfather was with

Rutherford, and Cherokee informants.

(18) Colonel William Christian (p. 50): Colonel William Christian,

sometimes incorrectly called Christy, was born in Berkeley county,

Virginia, in 1732. Accustomed to frontier warfare almost from boyhood,

he served in the French and Indian war with the rank of captain, and

was afterward in command of the Tennessee and North Carolina forces

which participated in the great battle of Point Pleasant in 1774,

although he himself arrived too late for the fight. He organized a

regiment at the opening of the Revolutionary war, and in 1776 led

an expedition from Virginia against the Upper Cherokee and compelled

them to sue for peace. In 1782, while upon an expedition against the

Ohio tribes, he was captured and burned at the stake.

(19) The great Indian war path (p. 50): This noted Indian thoroughfare

from Virginia through Kentucky and Tennessee to the Creek country in

Alabama and Georgia is frequently mentioned in the early narrative

of that section, and is indicated on the maps accompanying Ramsey's

Annals of Tennessee and Royce's Cherokee Nation, in the Fifth Annual

Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Royce's map shows it in more

correct detail. It was the great trading and war path between the

northern and southern tribes, and along the same path Christian,

Sevier, and others of the old Indian fighters led their men to the

destruction of the towns on Little Tennessee, Hiwassee, and southward.

According to Ramsey (p. 88), one branch of it ran nearly on the line of

the later stage road from Harpers ferry to Knoxville, passing the Big

lick in Botetourt county, Virginia, crossing New river near old Fort

Chiswell (which stood on the south bank of Reed creek of New river,

about nine miles east from Wytheville, Virginia) crossing Holston at

the Seven-mile ford, thence to the left of the stage road near the

river to the north fork of Holston, "crossing as at present"; thence to

Big creek, and, crossing the Holston at Dodson's ford, to the Grassy

springs near the former residence of Micajah Lea; thence down the

Nolichucky to Long creek, up it to its head, and down Dumplin creek

nearly to its mouth, where the path bent to the left and crossed French

Broad near Buckinghams island. Here a branch left it and went up the

West fork of Little Pigeon and across the mountains to the Middle towns

on Tuckasegee and the upper Little Tennessee. The main trail continued

up Boyd's creek to its head, and down Ellejoy creek to Little river,

crossing near Henry's place; thence by the present Maryville to the

mouth of Tellico, and, passing through the Cherokee towns of Tellico,

Echota, and Hiwassee, down the Coosa, connecting with the great war

path of the Creeks. Near the Wolf hills, now Abingdon, Virginia,

another path came in from Kentucky, passing through the Cumberland

gap. It was along this latter road that the early explorers entered

Kentucky, and along it also the Shawano and other Ohio tribes often

penetrated to raid upon the Holston and New river settlements.

On Royce's map the trail is indicated from Virginia southward. Starting

from the junction of Moccasin creek with the North fork of Holston,

just above the Tennessee state line, it crosses the latter river from

the east side at its mouth or junction with the South fork, just below

Kingsport or the Long island; then follows down along the west side

of the Holston, crossing Big creek at its mouth, and crossing to the

south (east) side of Holston at Dodson's creek; thence up along the

east side of Dodson's creek and across Big Gap creek, following it for

a short distance and continuing southwest, just touching Nolichucky,

passing up the west side of Long creek of that stream and down the

same side of Dumplin creek, and crossing French Broad just below the

mouth of the creek; thence up along the west side of Boyd's creek to

its head and down the west side of Ellejoy creek to and across Little

river; thence through the present Maryville to cross Little Tennessee

at the entrance of Tellico river, where old Fort Loudon was built;

thence turning up along the south side of Little Tennessee river to

Echota, the ancient capital, and then southwest across Tellico river

along the ridge between Chestua and Canasauga creeks, and crossing

the latter near its mouth to strike Hiwassee river at the town of

the same name; thence southwest, crossing Ocoee river near its mouth,

passing south of Cleveland, through the present Ooltewah and across

Chickamauga creek into Georgia and Alabama.

According to Timberlake (Memoirs, with map, 1765), the trail crossed

Little Tennessee from Echota, northward, in two places, just above and

below Four-mile creek, the first camping place being at the junction

of Ellejoy creek and Little river, at the old town site. It crossed

Holston within a mile of Fort Robinson.

According to Hutching (Topographical Description of America, p. 24,

1778), the road which went through Cumberland gap was the one taken by

the northern Indians in their incursions into the "Cuttawa" country,

and went from Sandusky, on Lake Erie, by a direct path to the mouth of

Scioto (where Portsmouth now is) and thence across Kentucky to the gap.

(20) Peace towns and towns of refuge (p. 51): Towns of refuge existed

among the Cherokee, the Creeks, and probably other Indian tribes, as

well as among the ancient Hebrews, the institution being a merciful

provision for softening the harshness of the primitive law, which

required a life for a life. We learn from Deuteronomy that Moses

appointed three cities on the east side of Jordan "that the slayer

might flee thither which should kill his neighbor unawares and hated

him not in times past, and that fleeing into one of these cities he

might live." It was also ordained that as more territory was conquered

from the heathen three additional cities should be thus set aside as

havens of refuge for those who should accidentally take human life,

and where they should be safe until the matter could be adjusted. The

wilful murderer, however, was not to be sheltered, but delivered up

to punishment without pity (Deut. IV, 41-43, and XIX, 1-11).

Echota, the ancient Cherokee capital near the mouth of Little

Tennessee, was the Cherokee town of refuge, commonly designated as the

"white town" or "peace town." According to Adair, the Cherokee in his

time, although extremely degenerate in other things, still observed

the law so strictly in this regard that even a wilful murderer who

might succeed in making his escape to that town was safe so long

as he remained there, although, unless the matter was compounded in

the meantime, the friends of the slain person would seldom allow him

to reach home alive after leaving it. He tells how a trader who had

killed an Indian to protect his own property took refuge in Echota,

and after having been there for some months prepared to return to

his trading store, which was but a short distance away, but was

assured by the chiefs that he would be killed if he ventured outside

the town. He was accordingly obliged to stay a longer time until the

tears of the bereaved relatives had been wiped away with presents. In

another place the same author tells how a Cherokee, having killed a

trader, was pursued and attempted to take refuge in the town, but

was driven off into the river as soon as he came in sight by the

inhabitants, who feared either to have their town polluted by the

shedding of blood or to provoke the English by giving him sanctuary

(Adair, American Indians, p. 158, 1775). In 1768 Oconostota, speaking

on behalf of the Cherokee delegates who had come to Johnson Hall to

make peace with the Iroquois, said: "We come from Chotte, where the

wise [white?] house, the house of peace is erected" (treaty record,

1768, New York Colonial Documents, VIII, p. 42, 1857). In 1786 the

friendly Cherokee made "Chota" the watchword by which the Americans

might be able to distinguish them from the hostile Creeks (Ramsey,

Tennessee, p. 343). From conversation with old Cherokee it seems

probable that in cases where no satisfaction was made by the relatives

of the man-slayer he continued to reside close within the limits of

the town until the next recurrence of the annual Green-corn dance,

when a general amnesty was proclaimed.

Among the Creeks the ancient town of Kusa or Coosa, on Coosa river in

Alabama, was a town of refuge. In Adair's time, although then almost

deserted and in ruins, it was still a place of safety for one who

had taken human life without design. Certain towns were also known

as peace towns, from their prominence in peace ceremonials and treaty

making. Upon this Adair says: "In almost every Indian nation there are

several peaceable towns, which are called 'old beloved, ancient, holy,

or white towns.' They seem to have been formerly towns of refuge, for

it is not in the memory of their oldest people that ever human blood

was shed in them, although they often force persons from thence and

put them to death elsewhere."--Adair, American Indians, 159. A closely

parallel institution seems to have existed among the Seneca. "The

Seneca nation, ever the largest, and guarding the western door of

the 'long house,' which was threatened alike from the north, west,

and south, had traditions peculiarly their own, besides those common

to the other members of the confederacy. The stronghold or fort,

Gau-stra-yea, on the mountain ridge, four miles east of Lewiston,

had a peculiar character as the residence of a virgin queen known as

the 'Peacemaker.' When the Iroquois confederacy was first formed the

prime factors were mutual protection and domestic peace, and this fort

was designed to afford comfort and relieve the distress incident to

war. It was a true 'city of refuge,' to which fugitives from battle,

whatever their nationality, might flee for safety and find generous

entertainment. Curtains of deerskin separated pursuer and pursued

while they were being lodged and fed. At parting, the curtains were

withdrawn, and the hostile parties, having shared the hospitality

of the queen, could neither renew hostility or pursuit without the

queen's consent. According to tradition, no virgin had for many

generations been counted worthy to fill the place or possessed the

genius and gifts to honor the position. In 1878 the Tonawanda band

proposed to revive the office and conferred upon Caroline Parker

the title."--Carrington, in Six Nations of New York, Extra Bulletin

Eleventh Census, p. 73, 1892.