VIII.

THE MOBILIAN FAMILY OF TRIBES. 217

co, to the Mississippi and the confluence of the Tennessee and Ohio, was in the possession of one great family of nations, of which the language was named by the French the MOBILIAN, and is described by Gallatin as the MUSKHOGEE-CHOCTA. The name includes three considerable confederacies, each of which still exists, and perhaps even with some increase of numbers.

The country bounded on the Ohio at the north, on the Mississippi at the west, on the east by a line drawn from the bend in the Cumberland River to the Muscle Shoals of the Tennessee, and extending at the south into the territory of the state of Mississippi, was the land of the cheerful, brave Chickasas, the faithful, the invincible allies of the English. Marquette found them already in possession of guns, obtained probably through Virginia; La Salle built Fort Prudhomme on one of their bluffs; but their chosen abodes were in the upland country, which gives birth to the Yazoo and the Tombecbee, the finest and most fruitful on the continent, where the grass is verdant in midwinter; the blue-bird and the robin are heard in February; the springs of pure water gurgle up through the white sands, to flow through natural bowers of evergreen holly; and, if the earth be but carelessly gashed to receive the kernel of maize, the thick corn springs abundantly from the fertile soil. The region is as happy as any beneath the sun; and the love which it inspired made its occupants, though not numerous, yet the most intrepid warriors of the south.

Below the Chickasas, between the Mississippi and the Tombecbee, was the land of the Choctas, who were gathered, on the eastern frontier, into compact villages, but elsewhere were scattered through the interior of their territory. Dwelling in plains or among gentle hills, they excelled every North American tribe in their agriculture, subsisting chiefly on corn, and placing little dependence on the chase. Their country was healthful, abounding in brooks. The number of their warriors perhaps exceeded four thousand. Their dialect of the Mobilian so nearly resembles that of the Chickasas, that

they almost seemed but one nation. The Choctas were allies of the French, yet preserving their independence: their love for their country was intense, and, in defending it, they utterly contemned danger.

The ridge that divided the Tombecbee from the Alabama, was the line that separated the Choctas from the groups of tribes which were soon united in the confederacy of the Creeks or Muskhogees. Their territory, including all Florida, reached, on the north, to the Cherokees; on the north-east and east, to the country on the Savannah and to the Atlantic. Along the sea, their northern limit seems to have extended almost to Cape Fear; at least, the tribes with which the settlers at Charleston first waged war, are enumerated by one writer as branches of the Muskhogees. Their population, spread over a fourfold wider territory, did not exceed that of the Choctas in number. Their towns were situated on the banks of beautiful creeks, in which their country abounded; the waters of their bold rivers, from the Coosa to the Chatahoochee, descended rapidly, with a clear current, through healthful and fertile regions; they were careful in their agriculture, and, before going to war, assisted their women to plant. In Florida, they welcomed the Spanish missionarics; and, throughout their country, they derived so much benefit from the arts of civilization, that their numbers soon promised to increase; and, being placed between the English of Carolina, the French of Louisiana, the Spaniards of Florida, -bordering on the Choctas, the Chickasas, and the Cherokees, their political importance made them esteemed as the most powerful Indian nation north of the Gulf of Mexico. They readily gave shelter to fugitives. from other tribes; and their speech became so modified, that, with radical resemblances, it has the widest departure from its kindred dialects. The Yamassees were one of their bands; and the Seminoles of Florida are but "wild men," lost from their confederacy, and abandoning agriculture for the chase.

Such is a synopsis of the American nations east of the

WAR WITH THE TUSCARORAS AND YAMASSEES. 219

Mississippi. It is not easy to estimate their probable numbers at the period of their discovery. Yet we shall approach, and perhaps exceed, a just estimate of their numbers two hundred years ago, if to the various tribes of the Algonquin race we allow about ninety thousand; of the Eastern Sioux, less than three thousand; of the Iroquois, including their southern kindred, about seventeen thousand; of the Catawbas, three thousand; of the Cherokees, twelve thousand; of the Mobilian confederacies and tribes, - that is, of the Chickasas, Choctas, and Muskhogees, fifty thousand; of the Uchees, one thousand; of the Natchez, four thousand; in all, it may be, not far from one hundred and eighty thousand souls.

CHAPTER XLVI.

WAR WITH THE TUSCARORAS AND YAMASSEES.

THE Tuscaroras changed their dwelling-place before the treaty of Utrecht was completed. Their chiefs had become indignant at the encroachments of the proprietaries of Carolina, who had assigned their lands to unhappy German fugitives from the banks of the Neckar and the Rhine. De Graffenried, who had undertaken the establishment of the exiles, accompanied by Lawson, the surveyor-general for the northern province, in September of 1711, ascended the Neuse River in a boat, to discover how far it was navigable, and through what kind of country it flowed. Seized by a party of sixty well-armed Indians, both were compelled to travel all night long, till they reached a village of the Tuscaroras, and were delivered up to its chief. Before a numerous council of the principal men from various towns of the tribe, complaint was made of the conduct of the English

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in Carolina, and especially of the severity of Lawson. He who, with his compass and chain, had marked their territory into lots for settlers, was reproved as the man who sold their land." After a discussion of two days, the death of the prisoners was decreed. The large fire was kindled; the ring was drawn round the victims, and strown with flowers. On the morning appointed for the execution, a council assembled anew. Round the white men sat the chiefs, in two rows; behind them were three hundred of the people, engaged in festive dances. No reprieve was granted to Lawson, yet Graffenried, as the great chieftain of the Palatines, on pledging his people to neutrality, and promising to occupy no land without the consent of the tribe, was suffered, after a captivity of five weeks, to return through the woods on foot. returned to desolated settlements. On the twenty-second of September, small bands of the Tuscaroras and Corees, acting in concert, approached the scattered cabins along the Roanoke and Pamlico Sound. As night came on, a whoop from a warrior called his fierce associates from the woods, to commence the indiscriminate carnage. The wretched Palatines, now tenants of the wilderness, encountered a foe more savage than Louvois and the hated Louis XIV. At Bath, the Huguenot refugees, and the planters in their neighborhood, were struck down by aid of the glare from the burning of their own cabins; and, with a lighted pine knot in one hand, and the tomahawk in the other, the hunters after men pursued their game through the forests. In the three following days, they scoured the country on the Albemarle Sound, and did not desist from slaughter till they were disabled by fatigue.

Not all the Tuscaroras had joined in the conspiracy; Spotswood sought immediately to renew with them an alliance. But the burgesses of Virginia would grant no effectual aid. The assembly of South Carolina promptly voted relief; and, defying the hardships of a long march through the wilderness, Barnwell, with Cherokees, Creeks, Catawbas, and Yamassees, as allies, led a

WAR WITH THE TUSCARORAS OF N. CAROLINA. 221

small detachment of militia to the banks of Neuse River. There, in the upper part of Craven county, the Indians were intrenched in a rude fort. With the aid of a few soldiers of North Carolina, the fort was besieged. But the province was rent by intestine divisions; even imminent danger had not roused its inhabitants to harmonious action; they retained their hatred for the rule of the proprietaries; and, surrounded by difficulties, Barnwell could only negotiate with the Indians a treaty of peace.

The troops of South Carolina, on their return, themselves violated the treaty, enslaving inhabitants of villages which should have been safe under its guaranties; and the massacres on Neuse River were renewed. The province was impoverished, the people dissatisfied with their government; in autumn, 1712, the yellow fever raged under its most malignant form; and the country south of Pamlico Sound seemed destined to become once more a wilderness. But Spotswood succeeded in dividing the Tuscaroras. Large reënforcements of Indians from South Carolina arrived, with a few white men, under James Moore; in March, 1713, the enemy were pursued to their fort (within the limits of the present Greene county) on the Neuse; and, on its surrender, eight hundred became captives. The legislature of North Carolina, assembling in May, under a new governor, issued its first bills of credit, to the amount of eight thousand pounds; "the very refractory" among the people grew zealous to supply the forces with provisions; the enemy was chased across the lakes and swamps of Hyde county; the woods were patrolled by red allies, who hunted for prisoners to be sold as slaves, or took scalps for a reward. At last, the hostile part of the Tuscaroras abandoned their old hunting-grounds, and, migrating to the vicinity of the Oneida Lake, were welcomed by their kindred of the Iroquois as the sixth nation of their confederacy. In 1715, their humbled allies were established as a single settlement in the precincts of Hyde. Thus the power of the natives of North