AN ACCOUNT OF THE KATAHBA NATION, &c.

I begin with the Katahba,^[103] because their country is the most contiguous to Charles-Town in South-Carolina. It is placed in our modern maps, in 34 degrees north latitude, but proper care hath not yet been taken to ascertain the limits and site of any of the Indian nations. It is bounded on the north and north-east, by North-Carolina—on the east and south, by South-Carolina—and about west-south-west by the Cheerake nation. Their chief settlement is at the distance of one hundred and forty-five miles from the Cheerake, as near as I can compute it by frequent journies, and about 200 miles distant from Charles-Town.

Their soil is extremely good; the climate open and healthy; the water very clear, and well-tasted. The chief part of the Katahba country, I observed during my residence with them, was settled close on the east side of a broad purling river, that heads in the great blue ridge of mountains, and empties itself into Santee-river, at Amelia township; then running eastward of Charles-town, disgorges itself into the Atlantic. The land would produce any sort of Indian provisions, but, by the continual passing and repassing of the English, between the northern and southern colonies,^[104] the Katahba live perhaps the meanest of any Indians belonging to the British American empire. They are also so corrupted by an immoderate use of our spirituous liquors, and of course, indolent, that they scarcely plant any thing fit for the support of human life. South-Carolina has supplied their wants, either {223} through a political, or charitable view; which kindness, several respectable inhabitants in their neighbourhood say, they abuse in a very high degree; for they often destroy the white people’s live stock, and even kill their horses for mischief sake.^[105]

It was bad policy of a prime magistrate of South-Carolina, who a little more than twenty years ago, desired me to endeavour to decoy the Chikkasah nation to settle near New-Windsor, or Savanna town.^[106] For the Indians will not live peaceable with a mixed society of people. It is too recent to need enlarging on, that the English inhabitants were at sundry times forced by necessity, to take shelter in New-Windsor and Augusta garrisons, at the alarm of the cannon, to save themselves from about an hundred of the Chikkasah, who formerly settled there, by the inticement of our traders:^[107] the two colonies of South-Carolina and Georgia were obliged on this occasion to send up a number of troops, either to drive them off, or check their insolence. By some fatality, they are much addicted to excessive drinking, and spirituous liquors distract them so exceedingly, that they will even eat live coals of fire. Harsh usage alone, will never subdue an Indian: and too much indulgence is as bad; for then they would think, what was an effect of politic friendship, proceeded from a tribute of fear. We may observe of them as of the fire, “it is safe and useful, cherished at proper distance; but if too near us, it becomes dangerous, and will scorch if not consume us.”

We are not acquainted with any savages of so warlike a disposition, as the Katahba and the Chikkasah. The six united northern nations have been time immemorial engaged in a bitter war with the former,^[108] and the Katahba are now reduced to very few above one hundred fighting men—the small pox, and intemperate drinking, have contributed however more than their wars to their great decay. When South-Carolina was in its infant state, they mustered fifteen hundred fighting men: and they always behaved as faithful and friendly to the English as could be reasonably expected, from cunning, suspicious, and free savages. About the year 1743, their nation consisted of almost 400 warriors, of above twenty different dialects. I shall mention a few of the national names of those, who make up this mixed language;—the Kátahba, is the standard, or court-dialect—the Wataree, who make up a large town; Eenó, {224} Chewah, now Chowan, Canggaree, Nachee, Yamasee, Coosah, &c. Their country had an old waste field of seven miles extent, and several others of smaller dimensions; which shews that they were formerly a numerous people, to cultivate so much land with their dull stone-axes, before they had an opportunity of trading with the English, or allowed others to incorporate with them.^[109] {225}

We shall now treat of the Cheerake nation, as the next neighbour to South-Carolina.

Their national name is derived from Chee-ra, “fire,”^[110] which is their reputed lower heaven, and hence they call their magi, Cheerà-tahge, “men possessed of the divine fire.”^[111] The country lies in about 34 degrees north latitude, at the distance of 340 computed miles to the north-west of Charles-town,—140 miles west-south-west from the Katahba nation,—and almost 200 miles to the north of the Muskohge or Creek country.

They are settled, nearly in an east and west course, about 140 miles in length from the lower towns where Fort-Prince-George stands, to the late unfortunate Fort-Loudon. The natives make two divisions of their country, which they term Ayrate, and Ottare, signifying “low,” and “mountainous.”^[112] The former division is on the head branches of the beautiful Savanah river, and the latter on those of the easternmost river of the great Missisippi. Their towns are always close to some river, or creek; as there the land is commonly very level and fertile, on account of the frequent washings off the mountains, and the moisture it receives from the waters, that run through their fields. And such a situation enables them to perform the ablutions, connected with their religious worship.

The eastern, or lower parts of this country, are sharp and cold to a Carolinian in winter, and yet agreeable: but those towns that lie among the {226} Apalahche mountains, are very pinching to such who are unaccustomed to a savage life. The ice and snow continue on the north-side, till late in the spring of the year: however, the natives are well provided for it, by their bathing and anointing themselves. This regimen shuts up the pores of the body, and by that means prevents too great a perspiration; and an accustomed exercise of hunting, joined with the former, puts them far above their climate: they are almost as impenetrable to cold, as a bar of steel, and the severest cold is no detriment to their hunting.

Formerly, the Cheerake were a very numerous and potent nation. Not above forty years ago, they had 64 towns and villages, populous, and full of women and children. According to the computations of the most intelligent old traders of that time,^[113] they amounted to upwards of six-thousand fighting men; a prodigious number to have so close on our settlements,^[114] defended by blue-topped ledges of inaccessible mountains: where, but three of them can make a successful campaign, even against their own watchful red-colour enemies. But they were then simple, and peaceable, to what they are now.

As their western, or upper towns, which are situated among the Apalahche-mountains, on the eastern branches of the Missisippi, were always engaged in hot war with the more northern Indians; and the middle and lower towns in constant hostility with the Muskohge, till reconciled by a governor of South-Carolina for the sake of trade,—several of their best towns, on the southern branch of Savanah-river, are now forsaken and destroyed: as Ishtatohe, Echia, Toogalo, &c., and they are brought into a narrower compass. At the conclusion of our last war with them,^[115] the traders calculated the number of their warriors to consist of about two thousand three-hundred, which is a great diminution for so short a space of time: and if we may conjecture for futurity, from the circumstances already past, there will be few of them alive, after the like revolution of time. Their towns are still scattered wide of each other, because the land will not admit any other settlement: it is a rare thing to see a level tract of four hundred acres. They are also strongly attached to rivers,—all retaining the opinion of the ancients, that rivers are necessary to constitute a paradise. Nor is it only ornamental, but likewise beneficial to them, on account of purifying themselves, and also for the services of common life,—such as fishing, {227} fowling, and killing of deer, which come in the warm season, to eat the saltish moss and grass, which grow on the rocks, and under the surface of the waters. Their rivers are generally very shallow, and pleasant to the eye; for the land being high, the waters have a quick descent; they seldom overflow their banks, unless when a heavy rain falls on a deep snow.—Then, it is frightful to see the huge pieces of ice, mixed with a prodigious torrent of water, rolling down the high mountains, and over the steep craggy rocks, so impetuous, that nothing can resist their force. Two old traders saw an instance of this kind, which swept away great plantations of oaks and pines, that had their foundation as in the center of the earth.—It overset several of the higher rocks, where the huge rafts of trees and ice had stopped up the main channel, and forced itself across through the smaller hills.

From the historical descriptions of the Alps, and a personal view of the Cheerake mountains—I conclude the Alps of Italy are much inferior to several of the Cheerake mountains, both in height and rockiness: the last are also of a prodigious extent, and frequently impassable by an enemy. The Allegeny, or “great blue ridge,” commonly called the Apalahche-mountains, are here above a hundred miles broad; and by the best accounts we can get from the Missisippi Indians, run along between Peru and Mexico, unless where the large rivers occasion a break. They stretch also all the way from the west of the northern great lakes, near Hudson’s Bay, and across the Missisippi, about 250 leagues above New-Orleans. In the lower and middle parts of this mountainous ragged country, the Indians have a convenient passable path, by the foot of the mountains: but farther in, they are of such a prodigious height, that they are forced to wind from north to south, along the rivers and large creeks, to get a safe passage: and the paths are so steep in many places, that the horses often pitch, and rear an end, to scramble up. Several of the mountains are some miles from bottom to top, according to the ascent of the paths: and there are other mountains I have seen from these, when out with the Indians in clear weather, that the eye can but faintly discern, which therefore must be at a surprising distance.

Where the land is capable of cultivation, it would produce any thing suitable to the climate. Hemp, and wine-grapes grow there to admiration: {228} they have plenty of the former, and a variety of the latter that grow spontaneously. If these were properly cultivated, there must be a good return. I have gathered good hops in the woods opposite to Nuquose, where our troops were repelled by the Cheerake, in the year 1760. There is not a more healthful region under the sun, than this country; for the air is commonly open and clear, and plenty of wholesome and pleasant water. I know several bold rivers, that fill themselves in running about thirty miles, counting by a direct course from their several different fountains, and which are almost as transparent as glass. The natives live commonly to a great age; which is not to be wondered at, when we consider the high situation of their country,—the exercise they pursue,—the richness of the soil that produces plenty for a needful support of life, without fatiguing, or over-heating the planters,—the advantages they receive from such excellent good water, as gushes out of every hill; and the great additional help by a plain abstemious life, commonly eating and drinking, only according to the solicitations of nature. I have seen strangers however, full of admiration at beholding so few old people in that country; and they have concluded from thence, and reported in the English settlements, that it was a sickly short-lived region: but we should consider, they are always involved in treacherous wars, and exposed to perpetual dangers, by which, infirm and declining people generally fall, and the manly old warrior will not shrink. And yet many of the peaceable fellows, and women, especially in the central towns, see the grey hairs of their children, long before they die; and in every Indian country, there are a great many old women on the frontiers, perhaps ten times the number of the men of the same age and place—which plainly shews the country to be healthy. Those reach to a great age, who live secure by the fire-side, but no climates or constitutions can harden the human body, and make it bullet-proof.

The Cheerake country^[116] abounds with the best herbage, on the richer parts of the hills and mountains; and a great variety of valuable herbs is promiscuously scattered on the lower lands. It is remarkable, that none of our botanists should attempt making any experiments there, notwithstanding the place invited their attention, and the public had a right to expect so generous an undertaking from several of them; while at the same time, they would be recovering, or renewing their health, at a far easier, cheaper, and safer rate, than coasting it to our northern colonies. {229}

On the level parts of the water-side, between the hills, there are plenty of reeds: and, formerly, such places abounded with great brakes of winter-canes.—The foliagefoliage of which is always green, and hearty food for horses and cattle. The traders used to raise there flocks of an hundred, and a hundred and fifty excellent horses; which are commonly of a good size, well-made, hard-hoofed, handsome, strong and fit for the saddle or draught: but a person runs too great a risk to buy any to take them out of the country, because, every spring-season most of them make for their native range. Before the Indian trade was ruined by our left-handed policy, and the natives were corrupted by the liberality of our dim-sighted politicians, the Cheerake were frank, sincere, and industrious. Their towns then, abounded with hogs, poultry, and every thing sufficient for the support of a reasonable life, which the traders purchased at an easy rate, to their mutual satisfaction: and as they kept them busily employed, and did not make themselves too cheap, the Indians bore them good-will and respect—and such is the temper of all the red natives.

I will not take upon me to ascertain the real difference between the value of the goods they annually purchased of us, in former and later times; but, allowing the consumption to be in favour of the last, what is the gain of such an uncertain trifle, in comparison of our charges and losses by a merciless savage war? The orderly and honest system, if resumed, and wisely pursued, would reform the Indians, and regain their lost affections; but that of general licences to mean reprobate pedlars, by which they are inebriated, and cheated, is pregnant with complicated evils to the peace and welfare of our valuable southern colonies.

As the Cheerake began to have goods at an under price, it tempted them to be both proud, and lazy. Their women and children are now far above taking the trouble to raise hogs for the ugly white people, as the beautiful red heroes proudly term them. If any do—they are forced to feed them in small penns, or inclosures, through all the crop-season, and chiefly on long pursly, and other wholsome weeds, that their rich fields abound with. But at the fall of the leaf, the woods are full of hiccory-nuts, acorns, chesnuts, and the like; which occasions the Indian bacon to be more streaked, firm, and better tasted, than any we meet with in {230} the English settlements. Some of the natives are grown fond of horned cattle, both in the Cheerake and Muskohge countries, but most decline them, because the fields are not regularly fenced. But almost every one hath horses, from two to a dozen; which makes a considerable number, through their various nations. The Cheerake had a prodigious number of excellent horses, at the beginning of their late war with us; but pinching hunger forced them to eat the greatest part of them, in the time of that unfortunate event. But as all are now become very active and sociable, they will soon supply themselves with plenty of the best sort, from our settlements—they are skilful jockies, and nice in their choice.

From the head of the southern branch of Savanah-river, it does not exceed half a mile to a head spring of the Missisippi-water, that runs through the middle and upper parts of the Cheerake nation, about a north-west course,—and joining other rivers, they empty themselves into the great Missisippi. The above fountain, is called “Herbert’s spring^[LIV]:” and it was natural for strangers to drink thereof, to quench thirst, gratify their curiosity, and have it to say they had drank of the French waters.^[117] Some of our people, who went only with the view of staying a short time, but by some allurement or other, exceeded the time appointed, at their return, reported either through merriment or superstition, that the spring had such a natural bewitching quality, that whosoever drank of it, could not possibly quit the nation, during the tedious space of seven years. All the debauchees readily fell in with this superstitious notion, as an excuse for their bad method of living, when they had no proper call to stay in that country; and in process of time, it became as received a truth, as any ever believed to have been spoken by the delphic oracle. One cursed, because its enchantment had marred his good fortune; another condemned his weakness for drinking down witchcraft, against his own secret suspicions; one swore he would never taste again such known dangerous poison, even though he should be forced to do down to the Missisippi for water; and another comforted himself, that so many years out of the seven, were already passed, and wished that if ever he tasted it again, though under the greatest necessity, he might be confined to the stygian waters. Those who had their minds more inlarged, diverted themselves much at their cost, {231} for it was a noted favourite place, on account of the name it went by; and being a well-situated and good spring, there all travellers commonly drank a bottle of choice: But now, most of the packhorse-men, though they be dry, and also matchless sons of Bacchus, on the most pressing invitations to drink there, would swear to forfeit sacred liquor the better part of their lives, rather than basely renew, or confirm the loss of their liberty, which that execrable fountain occasions.

About the year 1738, the Cheerake^[118] received a most depopulating shock, by the small pox, which reduced them almost one half, in about a year’s time: it was conveyed into Charlestown by the Guinea-men,^[119] and soon after among them, by the infected goods. At first it made slow advances, and as it was a foreign, and to them a strange disease, they were so deficient in proper skill, that they alternately applied a regimen of hot and cold things, to those who were infected. The old magi and religious physicians who were consulted on so alarming a crisis, reported the sickness had been sent among them, on account of the adulterous intercourses of their young married people, who the past year, had in a most notorious manner, violated their ancient laws of marriage in every thicket, and broke down and polluted many of the honest neighbours bean-plots, by their heinous crimes, which would cost a great deal of trouble to purify again. To those flagitious crimes they ascribed the present disease, as a necessary effect of the divine anger; and indeed the religious men chanced to suffer the most in their small fields, as being contiguous to the town-house, where they usually met at night to dance, when their corn was out of the stalks; upon this pique, they shewed their priest-craft. However, it was thought needful on this occasion, to endeavour to put a stop to the progress of such a dangerous disease: and as it was believed to be brought on them by their unlawful copulation in the night dews, it was thought most practicable to try to effect the cure, under the same cool element. Immediately, they ordered the reputed sinners to lie out of doors, day and night, with their breast frequently open to the night dews, to cool the fever: they were likewise afraid, that the diseased would otherwise pollute the house, and by that means, procure all their deaths. Instead of applying warm remedies, they at last in every visit poured cold water on their naked breasts, sung their religious mystical song, Yo Yo, &c. with a doleful tune, {232} and shaked a calla-bash with the pebble-stones, over the sick, using a great many frantic gestures, by way of incantantion. From the reputed cause of the disease, we may rationally conclude their physical treatment of it, to be of a true old Jewish descent; for as the Israelites invoked the deity, or asked a blessing on every thing they undertook, so all the Indian Americans seek for it, according on the remaining faint glimpse of their tradition.

When they found their theological regimen had not the desired effect, but that the infection gained upon them, they held a second consultation, and deemed it the best method to sweat their patients, and plunge them into the river,—which was accordingly done. Their rivers being very cold in summer, by reason of the numberless springs, which pour from the hills and mountains—and the pores of their bodies being open to receive the cold, it rushing in through the whole frame, they immediately expired: upon which all the magi and prophetic tribe broke their old consecrated physic-pots, and threw away all the other pretended holy things they had for physical use, imagining they had lost their divine power by being polluted; and shared the common fate of their country. A great many killed themselves; for being naturally proud, they are always peeping into their looking glasses, and are never genteelly drest, according to their mode, without carrying one hung over their shoulders: by which means, seeing themselves disfigured, without hope of regaining their former beauty, some shot themselves, others cut their throats, some stabbed themselves with knives, and others with sharp-pointed canes; many threw themselves with sullen madness into the fire, and there slowly expired, as if they had been utterly divested of the native power of feeling pain.

I remember, in Tymáse, one of their towns, about ten miles above the present Fort Prince-George, a great head-warrior, who murdered a white man thirty miles below Cheeòwhee, as was proved by the branded deer-skins he produced afterward—when he saw himself disfigured by the small pox, he chose to die, that he might end as he imagined his shame. When his relations knew his desperate design, they narrowly watched him, and took away every sharp instrument from him. When he found he was balked of his intention, he fretted and said the worst things their language {233} could express, and shewed all the symptoms of a desperate person enraged at his disappointment, and forced to live and see his ignominy; he then darted himself against the wall, with all his remaining vigour,—his strength being expended by the force of his friends opposition, he fell sullenly on the bed, as if by those violent struggles he was overcome, and wanted to repose himself. His relations through tenderness, left him to his rest—but as soon as they went away, he raised himself, and after a tedious search, finding nothing but a thick and round hoe-helve, he took the fatal instrument, and having fixed one end of it in the ground, he repeatedly threw himself on it, till he forced it down his throat, when he immediately expired.—He was buried in silence, without the least mourning.

Although the Cheerake shewed such little skill in curing the small pox, yet they, as well as all other Indian nations, have a great knowledge of specific virtues in simples; applying herbs and plants, on the most dangerous occasions, and seldom if ever, fail to effect a thorough cure, from the natural bush. In the order of nature, every country and climate is blest with specific remedies for the maladies that are connatural to it—Naturalists tell us they have observed, that when the wild goat’s sight begins to decay, he rubs his head against a thorn, and by some effluvia, or virtue in the vegetable, the sight is renewed. Thus the snake recovers after biting any creature, by his knowledge of the proper antidote; and many of our arts and forms of living, are imitated by lower ranks of the animal creation: the Indians, instigated by nature, and quickened by experience, have discovered the peculiar properties of vegetables, as far as needful in their situation of life. For my own part, I would prefer an old Indian before any chirurgeon whatsoever, in curing green wounds by bullets, arrows, &c. both for the certainty, ease, and speediness of cure; for if those parts of the body are not hurt, which are essential to the preservation of life, they cure the wounded in a trice. They bring the patient into a good temperament of body, by a decoction of proper herbs and roots, and always enjoin a most abstemious life: they forbid them women, salt, and every kind of flesh-meat, applying mountain allum,^[120] as the chief ingredient. {234}

In the year 1749, I came down, by the invitation of the governor of South-Carolina, to Charles-Town, with a body of our friendly Chikkasah Indians: one of his majesty’s surgeons, that very day we arrived, cut off the wounded arm of a poor man. On my relating it to the Indians, they were shocked at the information, and said, “The man’s poverty should have induced him to exert the common skill of mankind, in so trifling an hurt; especially, as such a butchery would not only disfigure, but disable the poor man the rest of his life; that there would have been more humanity in cutting off the head, than in such a barbarous amputation, because it is much better for men to die once, than to be always dying, for when the hand is lost, how can the poor man feed himself by his daily labour—By the same rule of physic, had he been wounded in his head, our surgeons should have cut that off, for being unfortunate.” I told the benevolent old warriors, that the wisdom of our laws had exempted the head from such severe treatment, by not settling a reward for severing it, but only so much for every joint of the branches of the body, which might be well enough spared, without the life; and that this medical treatment was a strong certificate to recommend the poor man to genteel lodgings, where numbers belonging to our great canoes, were provided for during life.^[121] They were of opinion however, that such brave hardy fellows would rather be deemed men, and work for their bread, than be laid aside, not only as useless animals, but as burdens to the rest of society.

I do not remember to have seen or heard of an Indian dying by the bite of a snake, when out at war, or a hunting; although they are then often bitten by the most dangerous snakes—every one carries in his shot-pouch, a piece of the best snake-root, such as the Seneeka, or fern-snake-root,—or the wild hore-hound, wild plantain, St. Andrew’s cross, and a variety of other herbs and roots, which are plenty, and well known to those who range the American woods, and are exposed to such dangers, and will effect a thorough and speedy cure if timely applied. When an Indian perceives he is struck by a snake, he immediately chews some of the root, and having swallowed a sufficient quantity of it, he applies some to the wound; which he repeats as occasion requires, and in proportion to the poison the snake has infused into the wound. For a short space of time, there is a terrible conflict through all the body, by the jarring qualities of {235} the burning poison, and the strong antidote; but the poison is soon repelled through the same channels it entered, and the patient is cured.

The Cheerake mountains look very formidable to a stranger, when he is among their valleys, incircled with their prodigious, proud, contending tops; they appear as a great mass of black and blue clouds, interspersed with some rays of light. But they produce, or contain every thing for health, and wealth, and if cultivated by the rules of art, would furnish perhaps, as valuable medicines as the eastern countries; and as great quantities of gold and silver, as Peru and Mexico, in proportion to their situation with the æquator. On the tops of several of those mountains, I have observed tufts of grass deeply tinctured by the mineral exhalations from the earth; and on the sides, they glistered from the same cause. If skilful alchymists made experiments on these mountains, they could soon satisfy themselves, as to the value of their contents, and probably would find their account in it.

Within twenty miles of the late Fort-Loudon, there is great plenty of whet-stones for razors, of red, white, and black colours. The silver mines are so rich, that by digging about ten yards deep, some desperate vagrants found at sundry times, so much rich ore, as to enable them to counterfeit dollars, to a great amount; a horse load of which was detected in passing for the purchase of negroes, at Augusta, which stands on the south-side of the meandering beautiful Savanah river, half way from the Cheerake country, to Savanah, the capital of Georgia. The load-stone is likewise found there, but they have no skill in searching for it, only on the surface; a great deal of the magnetic power is lost, as being exposed to the various changes of the weather, and frequent firing of the woods. I was told by a trader, who lives in the upper parts of the Cheerake country, which is surrounded on every side, by prodigious piles of mountains called Cheèowhée, that within about a mile of the town of that name, there is a hill with a great plenty of load-stones—the truth of this any gentleman of curiosity may soon ascertain, as it lies on the northern path^[122] that leads from South-Carolina, to the remains of Fort-Loudon: and while he is in search of this, he may at the same time make a great acquest of riches, for the load-stone is known to accompany rich metals. I was once near that load-stone {236} hill, but the heavy rains which at that time fell on the deep snow, prevented the gratifying my curiosity, as the boggy deep creek was thereby rendered impassable.

In this rocky country, are found a great many beautiful, clear, chrystaline stones,^[123] formed by nature into several angles, which commonly meet in one point: several of them are transparent, like a coarse diamond—others resemble the onyx, being engendered of black and thick humours, as we see water that is tinctured with ink, still keeping its surface clear. I found one stone like a ruby, as big as the top of a man’s thumb, with a beautiful dark shade in the middle of it. Many stones of various colours, and beautiful lustre, may be collected on the tops of those hills and mountains, which if skilfully managed, would be very valuable, for some of them are clear, and very hard. From which, we may rationally conjecture that a quantity of subterranean treasures is contained there; the Spaniards generally found out their southern mines, by such superficial indications. And it would be an useful, and profitable service for skilful artists to engage in, as the present trading white savages are utterly ignorant of it. Manifold curious works of the wise author of nature, are bountifully dispersed through the whole of the country, obvious to every curious eye.

Among the mountains, are many labyrinths, and some of a great length, with many branches, and various windings; likewise different sorts of mineral waters, the qualities of which are unknown to the natives, as by their temperate way of living, and the healthiness of their country, they have no occasion to make experiments in them. Between the heads of the northern branch of the lower Cheerake river, and the heads of that of Tuckasehchee, winding round in a long course by the late Fort-Loudon, and afterwards into the Missisippi, there is, both in the nature and circumstances, a great phænomenon—Between two high mountains, nearly covered with old mossy rocks, lofty cedars, and pines, in the valleys of which the beams of the sun reflect a powerful heat, there are, as the natives affirm, some bright old inhabitants, or rattle snakes,^[124] of a more enormous size than is mentioned in history. They are so large and unwieldy, that they take a circle, almost as wide as their length, to crawl round in their shortest orbit: but bountiful nature compensates the heavy motion of their bodies, for {237} as they say, no living creature moves within the reach of their sight, but they can draw it to them; which is agreeable to what we observe, through the whole system of animated beings. Nature endues them with proper capacities to sustain life;—as they cannot support themselves, by their speed, or cunning to spring from an ambuscade, it is needful they should have the bewitching craft of their eyes and forked tongues.

The description the Indians give us of their colour, is as various as what we are told of the camelion, that seems to the spectator to change its colour, by every different position he may view it in; which proceeds from the piercing rays of light that blaze from their foreheads, so as to dazzle the eyes, from whatever quarter they post themselves—for in each of their heads, there is a large carbuncle, which not only repels, but they affirm, sullies the meridian beams of the sun. They reckon it so dangerous to disturb those creatures, that no temptation can induce them to betray their secret recess to the prophane. They call them and all of the rattle-snake kind, kings, or chieftains of the snakes; and they allow one such to every different species of the brute creation. An old trader of Cheeowhee told me, that for the reward of two pieces of stroud-cloth, he engaged a couple of young warriors to shew him the place of their resort; but the head-men would not by any means allow it, on account of a superstitious tradition—for they fancy the killing of them would expose them to the danger of being bit by the other inferior species of that serpentine tribe, who love their chieftains, and know by instinct those who maliciously killed them, as they fight only in their own defence, and that of their young ones, never biting those who do not disturb them. Although they esteem those rattle snakes as chieftains of that species, yet they do not deify them, as the EgyptiansEgyptians did all the serpentine kind, and likewise Ibis, that preyed upon them; however, it seems to have sprung from the same origin, for I once saw the Chikkasah Archi-magus to chew some snake-root, blow it on his hands, and then take up a rattle snake without damage—soon afterwards he laid it down carefully, in a hollow tree, lest I should have killed it. Once on the Chikkasah trading war-path, a little above the country of the Muskohge, as I was returning to camp from hunting, I found in a large cane swamp, a fellow-traveller, an old Indian trader, inebriated and naked, except his Indian breeches and maccaseenes; in that habit he sat, {238} holding a great rattle-snake round the neck, with his left hand besmeared with proper roots, and with the other, applying the roots to the teeth, in order to repel the poison, before he drew them out; which having effected, he laid it down tenderly at a distance. I then killed it, to his great dislike, as he was afraid it would occasion misfortunes to himself and me. I told him, as he had taken away its teeth, common pity should induce one to put it out of misery, and that a charitable action could never bring ill on any one; but his education prevented his fears from subsiding. On a Christmas-day, at the trading house of that harmless, brave, but unfortunate man, I took the foot of a guinea-deer out of his shot-pouch—and another from my own partner, which they had very safely sewed in the corner of each of their otter-skin-pouches, to enable them, according to the Indian creed, to kill deer, bear, buffaloe, beaver, and other wild beasts, in plenty: but they were so infatuated with the Indian superstitious belief of the power of that charm, that all endeavours of reconciling them to reason were ineffectual: I therefore returned them, for as they were Nimrods, or hunters of men, as well as of wild beasts, I imagined, I should be answerable to myself for every accident that might befal them, by depriving them of what they depended upon as their chief good, in that wild sphere of life. No wonder that the long-desolate savages of the far extending desarts of America, should entertain the former superstitious notions of ill luck by that, and good fortune by this; as those of an early Christian education, are so soon imprest with the like opinions. The latter was killed on the old Chikkasah, or American-Flanders path,^[125] in company with another expert brave man, in the year 1745, by twenty Choktah savages, set on by the Christian French of Tumbikpe garrison; in consequence of which, I staid by myself the following summer-season, in the Chikkasah country, and when the rest of the trading people and all our horses were gone down to the English settlements, I persuaded the Choktah to take up the bloody tomohawk against those perfidious French, in revenge of a long train of crying blood: and had it not been for the self-interested policy of a certain governor, those numerous savages, with the war-like Chikkasah, would have destroyed the Missisippi settlements, root and branch, except those who kept themselves closely confined in garrison. When I treat of the Choktah country, I shall more particularly relate that very material affair. {239}

The superior policy of the French so highly intoxicated the light heads of the Cheerake, that they were plodding mischief for twenty years before we forced them to commit hostilities. The illustration of this may divert the reader, and shew our southern colonies what they may still expect from the masterly abilities of the French Louisianians, whenever they can make it suit their interest to exert their talents among the Indian nations, while our watch-men are only employed in treating on paper, in our far-distant capital seats of government.

In the year 1736, the French sent into South-Carolina, one Priber^[126] a gentleman of a curious and speculative temper. He was to transmit them a full account of that country, and proceed to the Cheerake nation, in order to seduce them from the British to the French interest. He went, and though he was adorned with every qualification that constitutes the gentleman, soon after he arrived at the upper towns of this mountainous country, he exchanged his clothes and every thing he brought with him, and by that means, made friends with the head warriors of great Telliko, which stood on a branch of the Missisippi. More effectually to answer the design of his commission, he ate, drank, slept, danced, dressed, and painted himself, with the Indians, so that it was not easy to distinguish him from the natives,—he married also with them, and being endued with a strong understanding and retentive memory, he soon learned their dialect, and by gradual advances, impressed them with a very ill opinion of the English, representing them as a fraudulent, avaritious, and encroaching people: he at the same time, inflated the artless savages, with a prodigious high opinion of their own importance in the American scale of power, on account of the situation of their country, their martial disposition, and the great number of their warriors, which would baffle all the efforts of the ambitious, and ill-designing British colonists. Having thus infected them by his smooth deluding art, he easily formed them into a nominal republican government—crowned their old Archi-magus, emperor, after a pleasing new savage form, and invented a variety of high-sounding titles for all the members of his imperial majesty’s red court, and the great officers of state; which the emperor conferred upon them, in a manner according to their merit. He himself received the honourable title of his imperial majesty’s principal secretary of state, and as such he subscribed himself, in all the letters he wrote to our government, and lived in open defiance {240} of them. This seemed to be of so dangerous a tendency, as to induce South-Carolina to send up a commissioner, Col. F—x,^[127] to demand him as an enemy to the public repose—who took him into custody, in the great square of their statehouse: when he had almost concluded his oration on the occasion, one of the head warriors rose up, and bade him forbear, as the man he entended to enslave, was made a great beloved man, and become one of their own people. Though it was reckoned, our agent’s strength was far greater in his arms than his head, he readily desisted—for as it is too hard to struggle with the pope in Rome, a stranger could not miss to find it equally difficult to enter abruptly into a new emperor’s court, and there seize his prime minister, by a foreign authority; especially when he could not support any charge of guilt against him. The warrior told him, that the red people well knew the honesty of the secretary’s heart would never allow him to tell a lie; and the secretary urged that he was a foreigner, without owing any allegiance to Great Britain,—that he only travelled through some places of their country, in a peaceable manner, paying for every thing he had of them; that in compliance with the request of the kindly French, as well as from his own tender feelings for the poverty and insecure state of the Cheerake, he came a great way, and lived among them as a brother, only to preserve their liberties, by opening a water communication between them and New Orleans; that the distance of the two places from each other, proved his motive to be the love of doing good, especially as he was to go there, and bring up a sufficient number of Frenchmen of proper skill to instruct them in the art of making gun-powder, the materials of which, he affirmed their lands abounded with.—He concluded his artful speech, by urging that the tyrannical design of the English commissioner toward him, appeared plainly to be levelled against them, because, as he was not accused of having done any ill to the English, before he came to the Cheerake, his crime must consist in loving the Cheerake.—And as that was reckoned so heinous a transgression in the eye of the English, as to send one of their angry beloved men to enslave him, it confirmed all those honest speeches he had often spoken to the present great war-chieftains, old beloved men, and warriors of each class.

An old war-leader repeated to the commissioner, the essential part of the speech, and added more of his own similar thereto. He bade him to inform {241} his superiors, that the Cheerake were as desirous as the English to continue a friendly union with each other, as “freemen and equals.” That they hoped to receive no farther uneasiness from them, for consulting their own interests, as their reason dictated.—And they earnestly requested them to send no more of those bad papers to their country, on any account; nor to reckon them so base, as to allow any of their honest friends to be taken out of their arms, and carried into slavery. The English beloved man had the honour of receiving his leave of absence, and a sufficient passport of safe conduct, from the imperial red court, by a verbal order of the secretary of state,—who was so polite as to wish him well home, and ordered a convoy of his own life-guards, who conducted him a considerable way, and he got home in safety.

From the above, it is evident, that the monopolizing spirit of the French had planned their dangerous lines of circumvallation, respecting our envied colonies, as early as the before-mentioned period. Their choice of the man, bespeaks also their judgment.—Though the philosophic secretary was an utter stranger to the wild and mountainous Cheerake country, as well as to their language, yet his sagacity readily directed him to chuse a proper place, and an old favourite religious man, for the new red empire; which he formed by slow, but sure degrees, to the great danger of our southern colonies. But the empire received a very great shock, in an accident that befel the secretary, when it was on the point of rising into a far greater state of puissance, by the acquisition of the Muskohge, Choktah, and the western Missisippi Indians. In the fifth year of that red imperial æra, he set off for Mobille, accompanied by a few Cheerake. He proceeded by land, as far as a navigable part of the western great river of the Muskohge; there he went into a canoe prepared for the joyful occasion, and proceeded within a day’s journey of Alebahma garrison—conjecturing the adjacent towns were under the influence of the French, he landed at Tallapoose town, and lodged there all night. The traders of the neighbouring towns soon went there, convinced the inhabitants of the dangerous tendency of his unwearied labours among the Cheerake, and of his present journey, and then took him into custody, with a large bundle of manuscripts, and sent him down to Frederica in Georgia; the governor committed him to a place of confinement, though not with common felons, as he was a foreigner, and was said to have held a place of considerable rank in {242} the army with great honour. Soon after, the magazine took fire, which was not far from where he was confined, and though the centinels bade him make off to a place of safety, as all the people were running to avoid danger from the explosion of the powder and shells, yet he squatted on his belly upon the floor, and continued in that position, without the least hurt: several blamed his rashness, but he told them, that experience had convinced him, it was the most probable means to avoid imminent danger. This incident displayed the philosopher and soldier, and after bearing his misfortunes a considerable time with great constancy, happily for us, he died in confinement,—though he deserved a much better fate. In the first year of his secretaryship I maintained a correspondence with him; but the Indians becoming very inquisitive to know the contents of our marked large papers, and he suspecting his memory might fail him in telling those cunning sisters of truth, a plausible story, and of being able to repeat it often to them, without any variation,—he took the shortest and safest method, by telling them that, in the very same manner as he was their great secretary, I was the devil’s clerk, or an accursed one who marked on paper the bad speech of the evil ones of darkness. Accordingly, they forbad him writing any more to such an accursed one, or receiving any of his evil-marked papers, and our correspondence ceased. As he was learned, and possessed of a very sagacious penetrating judgment, and had every qualification that was requisite for his bold and difficult enterprize, it is not to be doubted, that as he wrote a Cheerake dictionary, designed to be published at Paris, he likewise set down a great deal that would have been very acceptable to the curious, and serviceable to the representatives of South-Carolina and Georgia; which may be readily found in Frederica, if the manuscripts have had the good fortune to escape the despoiling hands of military power.

When the western Cheerake towns lost the chief support of their imperial court, they artfully agreed to inform the English traders, that each of them had opened their eyes, and rejected the French plan as a wild scheme, inconsistent with their interests; except great Telliko,^[128] the metropolis of their late empire, which they said was firmly resolved to adhere to the French proposals, as the surest means of promoting their welfare and happiness. Though the inhabitants of this town were only dupes to the rest, yet for {243} the sake of the imagined general good of the country, their constancy enabled them to use that disguise a long time, in contempt of the English, till habit changed into a real hatred of the object, what before was only fictitious. They corresponded with the French in the name of those seven towns, which are the most warlike part of the nation: and they were so strongly prepossessed with the notions their beloved secretary had infused into their heads, in that early weak state of Louisiana, that they had resolved to remove, and settle so low down their river, as the French boats could readily bring them a supply. But the hot war they fell into with the northern Indians, made them postpone the execution of that favourite design; and the settling of Fort Loudon, quieted them a little, as they expected to get presents, and spirituous liquors there, according to the manner of the French promises, of which they had great plenty.

The French, to draw off the western towns, had given them repeated assurances of settling a strong garrison on the north side of their river, as high up as their large pettiaugres could be brought with safety, where there was a large tract of rich lands abounding with game and fowl, and the river with fish.—They at the same time promised to procure a firm peace between the Cheerake and all the Indian nations depending on the French; and to bestow on them powder, bullets, flints, knives, scissars, combs, shirts, looking glasses, and red paint,—beside favourite trifles to the fair sex: in the same brotherly manner the Alebahma French extended their kindly hands to their Muskohge brethren. By their assiduous endeavours, that artful plan was well supported, and though the situation of our affairs, in the remote, and leading Cheerake towns, had been in a ticklish situation, from the time their project of an empire was formed; and though several other towns became uneasy and discontented on sundry pretexts, for the space of two years before the unlucky occasion of the succeeding war happened—yet his excellency our governor^[129] neglected the proper measures to reconcile the wavering savages, till the gentleman^[130] who was appointed to succeed him, had just reached the American coast: then, indeed, he set off, with a considerable number of gentlemen, in flourishing parade, and went as far as Ninety-six^[LV] settlement; from whence, as most probably he expected, he was fortunately recalled, and joyfully superseded. I saw him on his way up, and plainly observed he was unprovided for the journey; it must unavoidably have proved abortive {244} before he could have proceeded through the Cheerake country,—gratifying the inquisitive disposition of the people, as he went, and quieting the jealous minds of the inhabitants of those towns, who are settled among the Apalahche mountains, and those seven towns, in particular, that lie beyond them. He neither sent before, nor carried with him, any presents wherewith to soothe the natives; and his kind promises, and smooth speeches, would have weighed exceedingly light in the Indian scale.